ART BELL'S SPOOKY BOOK: HOW TO SURVIVE END OF THE WORLD

By MICHAEL SHAIN

RECLUSIVE, late-night radio personality Art Bell has signed a million-dollar book deal.

Bell, who anchors a popular national call-in show about government conspiracies, UFOs and other unexplained phenomenon, will write about what he says is an imminent weather catastrophe that will plunge the world into another ice age.

The book, due in stores in December, was co-written with UFO expert and author Whitley Streiber, who wrote the best-selling "Confirmation: The Hard Evidence of Aliens Among Us" and hosted an NBC special last month based on his book.

Bell's show, "Coast to Coast" - heard on WABC (660 AM) at 1 a.m. - is among the most-listened-to radio programs in the U.S. with an national audience of more than 6.25 million listeners a week, according to Talkers magazine.

Bell got the high advance - said to be "near $1 million" - because he is the only one among the fraternity of big-time national radio personalities - a group that includes Howard Stern, Rush Limbaugh and Dr. Laura Schlessinger - who has not parlayed his broadcast popularity into a chart-topping book.

"For some time, Art has been making best sellers out of authors who come onto his show - now he's due for a best seller of his own," says Mithell Ivers, the editor at Pocket Books who signed Bell last week.

Bell's book is to be called "The Coming Superstorm and How to Survive It."

It is based on the theory that "when the global warming snaps, the earth will experience a series of ice and snow storm the likes of which haven't been since the last ice age," says Ivers.

Bell made headlines last year after announcing abruptly and without explanation that he was quitting radio.

He disappeared for several weeks deepening the mystery but returned to the air.