November 19, 1997: UFOs - Whitley Strieber

Art Bell welcomes author Whitley Strieber for an evening of extraordinary reports from the world of UFOs and close encounters. The program opens with Peter Davenport of the National UFO Reporting Center providing a detailed update on the mysterious lights seen streaking across Pacific Northwest skies the previous week. Davenport reveals that witness accounts and trajectory data contradict the official explanation of Russian space debris, noting that objects appeared to maintain formation and travel in the opposite direction from what NORAD reported.

Strieber then shares the remarkable story of Glenrock, Wyoming, a small town with an astonishing concentration of UFO sightings and unexplained phenomena. Residents describe sequences of three powerful knocks heard throughout town in 1988, matching an identical experience Strieber documented at his New York cabin in 1986. Witnesses Jamie Eager and Marla Hendrix recount their own encounters, including a strange amber-colored fog that blanketed the town and an episode of missing time during which they unknowingly videotaped a UFO emerging from a rainbow-colored cloud.

The program also features discussion of alien implants, with Strieber recounting how a surgeon attempting to remove an object from his ear reported that the implant physically moved away from the scalpel. Dr. Roger Lear, a pioneering implant researcher, joins to discuss his work recovering anomalous objects from experiencers. Chile's announcement of an official government committee to study UFOs provides an ironic contrast to American reluctance on the subject.