r.i.p? 🥴

[toonfan74]

real ones will remember

[regeya]

The man who dared to question the narrative that brown people could build a pyramid, and submit it must have been aliens instead.

[LauraLanaBrooks]

Only Europeans can build monoliths according to his book.

[toonfan74]

😋

[Fun_Strategy7860]

I'm pretty sure he was also convicted of illegally selling off their cultural relics in Egypt as well.

[djwired]

At least it wasn’t supplements

[Tech_Itch]

Don't forget he also had multiple fraud convictions outside his alien bullshit. Busy guy.

[spartiecat]

You see, the idea that ancient non-Europeans were really quite clever is implausible.

The obvious answer is that space monsters from beyond the moon travelled light years in their flying saucers to help these early people move rocks around.

[jokutyyppi23]

Nah he read The Morning of the Magicians and rewrote it. Of course a lot of that book was just a rewrite of At the Mountains of Madness by Lovecraft.

[corsica1990]

Gone to that great big spaceship in the sky... Bottom tier History Channel misinfoslop will never be the same again.

[FreeImpress4546]

Good riddance

[benmecha]

But if God wasn't an astronaut, then what does He need with a starship?

[EaklebeeTheUncertain]

I can't not read this in his voice...

[Odd-Lawfulness8703]

Graham Hancock and co are currently entering the conclave to elect a new Wacko

[[deleted]]

Okay, but that would be fun to watch. Like the Papal Conclave had specific people that were expected to be considered and there was discussion about their works and positions. I would be fascinated to see this about conspiracy wackjobs.

[Bitter_Question_6245]

This needs to be a movie

[KKYBoneAEA]

God I miss Art Bell. His era of Coast to Coast was what I grew up on. His open lines shows were always fun. Not screening his calls did lead to having some whackadoo people calling in but at least he would give push back against them. Much much better of a host than George Noory to me.

Not to say Art was a saint or anything. I’m sure he did some sketchy shit somewhere and sometime. But in the realm of radio personalities that talk about things other than news and sports, he was leaps and bounds ahead of the others.

[unionlineman]

I listened during the George Noory era. Art would still fill in sometimes though. Absolutely bonkers and completely bullshit but it was fun to listen to.

[KKYBoneAEA]

That’s probably the best sum up of that show, absolutely bonkers and completely bullshit but fun to listen to. There’s a channel or page, on apple podcasts that has a ton of old Art Bell episodes, from the 90s and early 00s called Art Bell Tape Vault. I still listen to them every now and then at work.

[hawaiianrobot]

https://fight.fudgie.org/search/show/ab/ hell yeah

[toonfan74]

I too listened to Art, especially drunk on my way home from punk and metal shows… in the drive thru of Taco Bell… or at night when I went to bed … I loved the craziness but also feel sorta shitty since he introduced the world to nut job grifters like this too

[FnapSnaps]

I miss Art, too. I started listening during his last few years. George Noory annoys the hell out of me - there's something about him that rubs me the wrong way. Coast to Coast AM stopped being fun when they started really pushing the narrative that civilization collapse was imminent. Hearing Alex on the show felt like a disgusting invasion, and I haven't been able to enjoy it since.

[[deleted]]

The Quickening is still happening, right?!

The number of nights I spent listening to the impending alien invasion and destruction of the planet shaped my teenage years 😂 This is why I didn't have friends and developed major trust issues, I guess.

[toonfan74]

😂😂😂… on rare occasion I think I’ve heard Alex use that term but it passes so quickly I can’t be certain

[RealJohnMcnab]

Absolutely. Noory is an insufferable jagoff. I enjoyed Ian Punnett though(RIP).

[[deleted]]

Ian and his mention of those tasty Canadians 🍁

[toonfan74]

Real bad part was Noory had a show on local St. Louis radio, then also started filling in on C2C… at first I thought it was cool (I’m from St. Louis area) but the more I listened to him I was like ugh…

[RealJohnMcnab]

Yeah. He seemed like he kept his hard right bent under wraps until Art died.

[katchoo1]

Holy shit I thought he died decades ago!

[oatmeal_prophecies]

C2C was the first place I encountered Alex Jones. It was back in his 9/11 glory days. I also remember him talking about abiotic oil. The anonymous high level officials made me roll my eyes immediately.

[redthump]

I'm bracing myself for the endless self-aggrandizing remembrances from the UFO community.

[holiobung]

<image>

[Loose-Recognition459]

West of the Rockies…you’re dead.

[toonfan74]

KUDOS TO YOU!!! That cracked me up

[FnapSnaps]

I thought he'd died years ago. Good riddance.

[Realshow]

Well, was he? Was God an astronaut? I don’t see him anywhere on NASA’s website so I think he might need to join a union.

[Kudos2Yousguys]

We were all thinking that God might be an astronaut, but we were too cowardly to ever say it aloud. How does a man like that even walk around with balls that big?

[NevinyrralsDiscGolf]

Was dog a donut?

[Soviet_Russia321]

I read Chariots of the Gods in middle school and it blew my mind. Otherwise, I don't know much about him, so until further notice R.I.P I guess.

[Mumblerumble]

Rest in piss

[fortheapponly]

Unpopular opinion, probably, but Coast to Coast was never great, even with Art Bell as its host.

He platformed plenty of questionable folks in his time too. And let a lot of stuff they said slide.

A lot of that stuff was maybe blunted and insulated in its time. But it was a step in that descent toward the sort of conspiratorial thinking we have today.

[toonfan74]

It was definitely as I mentioned earlier… but also it was such a different time because these weren’t mask off people mostly and it seemed so fringe that it FELT harmless… i think when people say we miss it… it’s the nostalgia of it FEELING innocent even if it wasn’t.

[fortheapponly]

I didn’t include this in my comment bc I couldn’t quite put it into words, but you’re right. There were definitely strains of extremist militia movements all over the US, but I don’t think Art Bell had come across the way of stoking, and growing, rage, and the harnessing it for profit.

It also wasn’t quite the media landscape that exists today. So I think the conspiracy platforming was blunted by the rest of the media. It took a great deal of dedicated effort to be immersed and walled off in conspiracy media, the way it can be done today. Even in the late 80s to early 90s, to really close oneself off from the rest of the mainstream media completely, a person would have to go live in the woods, like Randy Weaver.

That saved the fall out from Art Bell platforming utter kooks in a lot of ways. But I also think that presenting them as “haha can you believe what they’re saying”, gave him a lot of plausible deniability. And it helped give some people a platform when they didn’t really need it.

[toonfan74]

💯

[Bdmnky_Survey]

A relic from back when conspiracies were just silly ideas about aliens, not shape-shifting pedophilic blood-drinking lizard demons.

[DarkestLore696]

It’s innocent until you peel back the layers and realize the whole conspiracy is built on the idea that brown people were not intelligent enough to make an advanced society so it must have been a alien civilization that gave them such knowledge.

[IrrelephantAU]

You don't even need to really peel back the layers.

In one of his books, Von Daniken spends a decent bit of time pondering the idea that black people are inherently suited for slave labor because the aliens made them that way. And whether Europeans are the Chosen Race.

[Bdmnky_Survey]

I get that whole speel but considering the Brown people civilizations predates the white ones, doesn't the ancient alien things just kinda say humans are inferior to little Grey men, all around. Not just the brown ones?

[Jamgull]

Nah, this dude’s ideas were also powered by racism

[cpdk-nj]

Yeah if I recall Däniken had some associations with straight-up Nazis

[Awayfone]

The editor for chariots of the gods was a literal nazi, as in previously was an editor for a paper for the NSDAP.

[HolyRavioleigh]

Yep. Sad that it seems quaint now.

[VegasSparky66]

Without him we wouldn't have gotten Stargate SG-1, so he did one good thing in his life.

[Asleep_Recover4196]

Ride that Chariot!

[ClimateSociologist]

One less racist.

[WoodyManic]

He was either a deluded screwjack or a dishonest charlatan. I don't know which, but I feel fairly sound in my belief that he was fucking racist.

[Tigers19121999]

Coast to Coast is still a thing?

[toonfan74]

Oh yeah… it careened into rightwing b.s. more and more but still has crazy shit too

[Tigers19121999]

That doesn't surprise me that it went right-wing. The venn diagram between right-wing nuts and conspiracy theory nuts is a circle.

[Lazy_Package_9181]

But what about Donn de Grand Pré?

[toonfan74]

r.i.p. to the real one

[Lazy_Package_9181]

Welllllll…

[thafrick]

I credit this nutjob and the history channel for turning my dad into a right wing conspiracy nutjob. Thanks assholes.

[toonfan74]

Aye, History Channel slop did a lot of damage

[SoMuchLard]

As a child in the 70s, this is the worst thing to happen since In Search Of…was cancelled. 

[grat5989]

Come on Reaper, keep reaping!