Arthur William Bell III (June 17, 1945 – April 13, 2018) was an American broadcaster and author. He was the founder and the original host of the paranormal-themed radio program Coast to Coast AM, which is syndicated on hundreds of radio stations in the United States and Canada. He also created and hosted its companion show Dreamland. Coast to Coast still airs nightly, with a new host. Bell’s past shows from 1994 to 2002 are repeated on Premiere Networks on Saturday evenings. They are retitled Somewhere in Time with Art Bell.
In 2003, Bell partially retired from Coast to Coast AM. During the following four years, he hosted the show for many weekends on Premiere Networks. He announced his retirement from weekend hosting in 2007, but occasionally served as a guest host through 2010. He started a new nightly show, Art Bell’s Dark Matter, on Sirius XM Radio, that aired for six weeks in 2013, Bell had a dispute with Sirius about the cost his listeners were having to pay to hear him. The dispute was not resolved so the show ended.
In 2015, he returned to radio with a new show Midnight in the Desert, which was available online via TuneIn as well as some terrestrial radio stations. He retired on December 11, 2015, citing security concerns at his home in Pahrump, Nevada, west of Las Vegas.
Bell was the founder and original owner of Pahrump-based radio station KNYE 95.1 FM. His broadcast studio and transmitter that he did his shows from were at his home in Pahrump, NV.
Bell posted on his website in July 2016 that he was hospitalized for pneumonia and revealed that he suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, Mr. Bell also suffered from back pain from an injury that took place when he was younger.
Bell became a licensed amateur radio operator at the age of 13. His first call sign was KN3JOX, first listed in the Winter 1959 edition of the Radio Amateur Callbook. He soon upgraded to K3JOX, and he later held W2CKS, first listed in the Spring 1967 Callbook. Bell held an Amateur Extra Class license, which is the highest U.S. Federal Communications Commission amateur license class. His call sign was W6OBB. Bell passed the Philippines amateur radio exams and became a Philippine Class A amateur radio operator with the call sign of 4F1AB. While in the Philippines, Bell was active on 40-10 Meters, as well as 144.6 MHz simplex in Manila.
Art Bell died April 13, 2018, at age 72 at his home in Pahrump, Nevada from an accidental overdose.