Bell's Silence Sounds Alarm To Many Fans

The Nye County sheriff says he knows the reason why a popular radio show host is no longer on the air.

By Joe Schoenmann

Las Vegas Review-Journal

October 16, 1998

They're coming out of the woodwork.

Ufologists, alien abduction theorists, Kennedy assassination buffs, stargazers and wannabe spies are spending their minutes, hours and nights puzzling over Art Bell's silence.

In a modern version of the hubbub over Beatles' lyrics, some have even played his final words backward to find secret meaning. (See http://www.reversespeech.com on the Internet).

"Say, you'll nurse the deal in it," is the subliminal message some hear, prompting this online interpretation: "Does Art have problems with current contracts or is he negotiating a new one?"

This mind-boggling amount of attention, paid to a man who lives in the Pahrump desert a mile from the Chicken Ranch brothel and whose

Nye County Sheriff Wade Lieseke, Bell's friend and confidante, has been badgered to the point that he had to unhook his home phone Wednesday night when it wouldn't stop ringing.

And the callers, he admitted, are starting to cause him some worry.

"This one guy was so depressed, I felt kind of bad for him," said the sheriff, who has received calls from around the country. "I've never seen anything like it."

One tabloid television show offered Lieseke $100,000 if he revealed the "real" reason Bell signed off for good early Tuesday, according to a source in the Nye County Sheriff's Department. Lieseke turned him down.

"They're friends and Bell told him not to tell anybody," the source said.

Lieseke admits he knows the real story. After Bell signed off, he had a long talk with the radio icon.

"This whole thing is being taken way out of context," Lieseke said Thursday, listing things that Bell's quitting is not:

      --It's not because anyone in Bell's family has been injured.

      --It's not because Bell had some sort of futuristic vision of death in his family.

      --It's not because Bell is burned out.

      --It's not because the government, tired of Bell's catering to conspiracy theorists, is forcing him off the air.

The only thing Lieseke would confirm is that neither Bell nor his family is in danger, and the Sheriff's Department is not investigating any sort of threat against them.

"It's like Art Bell was absolutely special to them," the sheriff said, "that he's the only source of true information to them."

In Las Vegas, Bell played on KVBC-FM from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. every night. Morning host Carla Rea said the station has been flooded with calls and electronic mail messages from people wanting to know the "real story."

"We only know as much as they do," she said.

Bell fanatics are scorching the phone lines in their quest for the current Holy Grail of radio: to learn what's up with Bell.

On a Web site devoted to Bell's fans, 584 people by 5 p.m. Thursday had written e-mails expressing their concerns, condolences, fears and theories.

One of the postings claimed to be a message from Bell, culled from another Web site.

In it, the writer claiming to be Bell says he quit because an alien named Single Seven "told me some things that would take place within this year and every one of them has happened exactly as he said."

Single Seven has been wandering Pahrump "on a mission to find certain species of fruits and vegetables that can grow in hotter climates."

One of the alien's messages was that a tragedy would befall Bell and his wife, Ramona. Then a week before Bell went off the air, Single Seven called and "told me it is time for me to do what I have to do."

So he quit.

The message has garnered some attention on the Internet. But it's noteworthy that the Web site precedes the message with the word "Hoax" in bright yellow letters.

Also attracting attention is the idea of playing backward Bell's final words, broadcast at 2:55 a.m. Tuesday. Reverse Speech, as it is defined on the Internet, is "a new form of communication that has the ability to uncover a deeper truth and meaning behind what we are actually speaking."

In essence, tape record your words, play them backward and you'll find messages generated from the subconscious.

It's the same thing listeners did in the '60s with Beatles' record albums on turntables. When they played backward the Beatles' song "Revolution No. 9" on "The White Album," for instance, some heard "turn me on, dead man."

Many at the time felt that supported a theory that Paul McCartney had actually died and been secretly replaced with a look-alike.

Then at the end of "Strawberry Fields Forever," the words "I buried Paul" seem to be heard as the song, played forward, trails off. John Lennon later said the words actually being muttered were "cranberry sauce."