Does Bigfoot have a soul? A radio host’s audience ponders

By Jonah Engel Bromwich and Bonnie Wertheim, The New York Times

Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2017 | 2 a.m.

When the CIA released hundreds of thousands of declassified files online in January, the contents probably seemed far-fetched to most people. Included in the cache were documents about UFO sightings, demonstrations of psychic abilities and reports of a Georgian man with magical healing powers.

But those subjects would have seemed almost passé to radio host George Noory and the curious nocturnal listeners who tune in to his radio show, “Coast to Coast AM.”

Noory, 66, has been hosting the nationally syndicated program for 14 years from his studios in Los Angeles and St. Louis. With 3 million weekly listeners, “Coast to Coast,” which is broadcast every night from 1 to 5 a.m. Eastern time, is carried by more than 600 radio stations in North America and is by far the most popular overnight radio program in the country, according to information from Nielsen.

Given the size of its audience, the show might be expected to cover topics squarely in the mainstream. But Noory’s listeners, whom he refers to as “the night people,” tend to focus more on fringier fare, whether it’s UFO sightings near Area 51 or the myriad conspiracy theories that Noory’s predecessor, Art Bell, established as signatures of the program.

“Most of the folks during the daytime will generally take whatever is handed to them,” Noory said.

Not his listeners.

“Skepticism in my view is very healthy,” said Noory, who considers himself a libertarian. “I think everybody needs to be skeptical about just about everything, until they have either done their own homework, done their own research or accepted information from sources that they trust, like The New York Times, or like The Wall Street Journal, or like Matt Drudge, if they trust him, as well.”

Noory worked in television news for 34 years, as a reporter, a producer and an executive at stations in Detroit, Minneapolis and St. Louis. But his interest in unexplained phenomena developed early. He has said many times that he had an out-of-body experience when he was 11, and described the episode again in a recent interview.

“I was bouncing up on the ceiling looking down on my body,” he said.

“Coast to Coast” began in 1984 as a talk radio program broadcasting from the Las Vegas station KDWN. Bell, its founder and first host, had originally been a DJ. He switched his focus to talk radio when music listeners began to favor higher-fidelity FM stations, forcing many AM channels to switch formats. When “Coast to Coast” went national, in 1992, he started to receive calls from listeners about their paranormal experiences. Those calls soon became the show’s trademark.

When Bell left the show, he advised Noory not to imitate his hosting style, which gave listeners the (accurate) sense that he was broadcasting from a compound in the desert. He was isolated from his audience and occasionally confrontational with callers.

On one call from a man claiming to have worked for Area 51, Bell made his suspicion known right away: “Well, look, let’s begin by finding out whether you’re using this line properly or not.” And on Oct. 13, 1998, Bell signed off by saying: “This is it, folks. I’m going off the air and will not return.” When Noory took over, after his forerunner returned and vanished from the show a few more times, listeners noticed a shift in tone, from skeptical and sometimes critical to open-minded and kind.

“Art was a little more, if he thought you were loo-la, he would tell you,” said Veronica Costin, who started tuning in during the 1990s. It became a ritual for her: drifting off in her San Antonio bedroom to the sounds of faraway voices.

“There’s a community,” she said. “We’re all there in that dark. We’re all there in that quiet.”

Costin and her husband, who died in December, listened to “Coast to Coast” every night, even as his health was deteriorating. The possibilities that the show raises, like the afterlife, have been a comfort for Costin in her grief.

“My husband is dead,” she said. “I cannot give you anything you can write down on paper and prove, but I know he is not gone.”

Christian MacLeod of Asheville, N.C., has been a nightly listener since 1995. He grew up hearing stories from his grandfather about unexplained phenomena and watching Leonard Nimoy’s “In Search Of,” always wondering, what if?

“Can I just give an example?” MacLeod said. “If Bigfoot’s real — you know where I live, there’s a lot of Bigfoot sightings around here — if Bigfoot’s real, what would that do to, say, religion, the economy, all these other things that touch that? Let’s just say the DNA on Bigfoot is half-human. Does he have a soul? It helps you think.”

Nolan Higdon, a professor of history and communication at California State University, East Bay, sees programs that propagate unsubstantiated claims as potentially dangerous.

“People sit down and think that they watch or listen to or consume media, and that it’s just entertainment,” he said. “But inside any entertainment are certain values, ideas, concepts, representations. They dictate things to you and the way you see the world, whether you’re aware of it or not.”

Each episode of “Coast to Coast” begins with a news segment, but when asked if he saw himself as a journalist, Noory responded that he was “a facilitator of the truth, wherever that takes us.”

His audience seems to see him as an authoritative, unifying force at a time when the country appears more fragmented than ever. Through his radio show, live events and two dating sites — Paranormal Date and Conspiracy Date — he acts as a connector and a surrogate for his listeners, whom he considers extended family. (Noory has three children and six grandchildren. He is private about his relationship status.)

To uphold the appearance of impartiality, Noory said, he has abstained from voting since joining “Coast to Coast.” “I want to be able to go on the air and say, ‘Folks, I don’t have a favorite here,’” he said. But that doesn’t prevent him from making projections.

On July 27, Noory appeared on Alex Jones’ show on the website Infowars and predicted that Donald Trump would win the presidential election. Jones, who is a vocal supporter of Trump, is also a conspiracy theorist who has drawn intense criticism for, among other things, questioning whether the shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut could be a hoax.

Noory said in a recent phone interview that he had noticed a significant change in his audience, and in the general population, over the last 15 years.

“I have never seen a time period where more people are upset, concerned, scared, ticked off, about so many things,” he said. “That’s probably why Donald Trump got elected. There’s an uneasiness of something impending.”

A frequent caller, Jonathan Christian Webster III, who refers to himself as J.C. on the air, illustrates the extreme of the fear that Noory hears from his audience. The forces J.C. believes are contributing to the United States’ decline include pornography, William Shatner and Canada. (Maybe not coincidentally, Shatner is a native Canadian.)

Noory is an empathetic listener, even to the views of people like Webster. But he also says he believes that it is important to question what you hear. For that reason, he occasionally invites guests on his show who challenge some of his listeners’ beliefs.

Joe Nickell, senior research fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, has dedicated his career to exploring possible explanations for mysterious phenomena. He has appeared on the show occasionally as a voice of skepticism.

“What I’m trying to do is actually investigate claims, like Bigfoot or ghosts or any of the other bizarre topics ‘Coast to Coast’ deals with,” Nickell said. “I’m confident that if I can actually explain some mystery, the debunking will take care of itself.”

Noory has no plans to retire and remains open to any topic that a guest would like to introduce to the “Coast to Coast” audience.

“I think everything has a possibility,” he said. “Even as far-fetched as it may sound, there’s always some possibility that it’s real. Are there other dimensions? I don’t know. But it’s possible.”