Art Bell:

As a journalist, who has been following the curious history of NASA, I was
quite excited about the appearance of Astronaut Edgar Mitchell on the your
radio show.  

I am a former Public Affairs Director at Public Radio station KCMU in
Seattle.  I was also a radio producer and host of the show 'Mind Over
Matters'.  I have been looking into the allegations by Mr. Hoagland for
three years now.  Being rather skeptical at first I have come to firmly
believe that there is something very unusual going on as far as our space
program is concerned.  

It truly is one of the greatest stories in the history of humanity.  I was
sure that you understood this and that is why you gave so much time over to
this discussion.

I was very happy and excited when you took up the mantle and began giving
Richard Hoagland's theories a national audience.  

Knowing that you'd had Richard Hoagland on your show many times over the
past couple of years discussing the possibility of other discoveries by
NASA, I was sure that at last we would finally get an astronaut on the 'hot
seat'.  I was sure that here was a golden opportunity to not only ask good
questions but also to ask good follow-up questions.  I was sure that you had
been given the right amount of knowledge and information to finally ask one
of these men the right questions.  I felt that is was all really left up to
you to do this. 

Unfortunately this did not happen.  You gave it a couple of good tries in
the beginning, but after receiving answers from Dr. Mitchell - which were
actually quotes from the Washington Post article from March 22, 1996  and
not his own words - you seemed to back off.  

I found this extremely disappointing.

Ken Johnston - an ex-employee from NASA was on your show on March 21, 1996.
He stated that he personally witnessed a cover-up of photographic evidence
by his superiors at NASA.  The evidence was taken from Apollo 14.  This is
the same mission that Mitchell was on.  Why didn't you ask Dr. Mitchell
about this charge?  It seems inconsistent that you would present a man
making this kind of accusation on your radio show and then, less then five
weeks later, not ask one of the major participants in that mission about
this allegation?  

When Dr. Mitchell referred to Hoagland's theories as 'pseudo-science' I
think that your audience waited for you to rush to Hoagland's defense.  It
seemed strange that after many, many hours of letting Hoagland tell your
audience of his theories that you would let someone explain it all away
suddenly as pseudo-science.  

If it is all 'pseudo-science' than you have been misleading your audience
for a long time.  

The fact is that NASA wanted to deflate Hoagland's influence on your show
and you unwittingly helped them.  Dr. Mitchell is retired and receives a fat
pension fund from his time spent with the military and with NASA.  Isn't it
obvious where his loyalties lie?  He should have been challenged on every
one of his non-assertions.  He was more open with Linda Howe than he was
with you.  And you let him get away with it.

Is this all just an oversight?  Let's hope so.

The Art Bell audience has listened to Richard Hoagland making some very
serious accusations about NASA on your radio show over the past two years.
It seems strange that when you had the chance to ask someone from high up in
NASA to refute these charges - you don't do it.

These assertions were made on your show.  What is point of this whole
endeavor if we are not going to ask the tough questions?  What is the point
of this if we are not going to do the right thing when we have the chance? 

We had a brief opportunity to ask one of the men who went to the moon some
serious questions about what is going on with our nation's space program.
Instead, we received nothing but libelous answers and obfuscation from Dr.
Mitchell. 

Apparently it is okay for Dr. Mitchell to talk all he wants about the
'Roswell crash' (something that he wasn't involved with at all), but when it
comes to the moon, when it comes to our space program and answering the
questions about what we really found out there - Dr. Mitchell falls silent.  

Dr.  Mitchell believes that an alien crashed at Roswell.  He believes that
the government is covering up this incredible fact.  Yet he insists that he
never saw anything anomalous in his voyage to the moon and back.  Dr.
Mitchell would serve us better if he would talk about the things that he was
actually involved with instead of repeating stories about Roswell.  

Regrettably we lost an opportunity that will most likely never occur again. 


Jay Weidner