Art Bell

Bell married Sachiko Toguchi Pontius in 1965, and they had two children. The marriage ended in a divorce in 1968, due to personal differences. He then married Vickie L Baker in March 1981, and they had a son. However, the marriage again ended in a divorce, in July 1991.

He got married for the third time, to Ramona Lee Hayes, in August 1991. He lived with her till she died of acute asthma in January 2006, while they were on a vacation. The couple reportedly had never spent a single day apart from the time they were married, as she handled the production and management of his programs.

In April 2006, he surprised his fans by relocating to the Philippines and getting married to Airyn Ruiz, who was just 21 years old at that time. He subsequently returned to the US but faced difficulties in getting a passport for his wife, who was a Filipino citizen. They had two children and lived together in the US till his death.

He was born Arthur William Bell III, on June 17, 1945, in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, US, to Arthur William Bell Sr. and Jane Lee Gumaer Bell.

As a child, he was intrigued by the radio. He earned an amateur radio operator’s license at the age of 13, with his first call sign, ‘KN3JOX.’ He upgraded to the call sign ‘K3JOX’ and later qualified for an ‘Amateur Extra Class’ license, which is considered to be the top-most ‘US Federation Communications Commission’ amateur license. His call sign was ‘W6OBB.’

He studied engineering at the ‘University of Maryland’ but dropped out to take up a job as a board operator. He often worked behind and in front of the microphone to gain experience. According to him, he had learnt much more than the university could teach him, by working at the radio studio.

Art Bell served as a medic in the ‘US Air Force’ during the Vietnam War, where he and his buddy operated an illegal pirate radio station that aired anti-war music from ‘Amarillo Air Force Base.’ After the war, he moved to Japan, where he took up a job as a DJ for ‘KSBK,’ which was the only civil English broadcasting channel at that time.

He returned to the US and worked for ‘KIDD’ in Monterey, California, in the 1970s. He started as a rock music DJ and moved on to conduct radio talk shows. From routine political topics, he graduated to more controversial topics, such as gunrunning, the occult, UFOs, pseudoscience, conspiracy theories, and protoscience, with his talk show ‘Dreamland’.

He founded the Pahrump-based radio station ‘KNYE 95.1 FM,’ which had its broadcasting studio and transmitter close to his home in Nye County, Nevada. His show ‘Coast to Coast AM,’ which was produced in his studio, became one of the most popular radio shows in the late 1980s and the early 1990s. It was aired on more than 500 stations and had around 15 million listeners.

He gained credibility because he organized real-time question-and-answer sessions on his show. He mastered the technique of being a patient listener and then giving answers without any bias. The only time he screened questions was in October 2006, when he aired his show from the Philippines. His show was renamed ‘Ghost to Ghost AM’ on Halloween 2006.

He interviewed people from different walks of life: singers, writers, actors, DJs, and comedians. In his illustrious career, he interviewed renowned personalities such as Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Greg Bear, Chris Carter, Dan Aykroyd, Casey Kasem, and George Carlin. His shows were liked because they were relaxed, while covering serious and current topics.

His most popular talk show was ‘Coast to Coast AM’ that was broadcast from the early 1970s.

His show ‘Midnight in the Desert’ was made available online via ‘Tuneln.’

He also made appearances on several TV shows, such as the series ‘Millennium.’

He co-authored several books, including the bestsellers ‘The Quickening: Today's Trends, Tomorrow's World’ and ‘The Edge: Man’s Mysterious Past & Incredible Future.’