REPORTING — TAPE #353, SIDE #2
Q: Mark Russell Bell
A: Art Bell (portion of radio broadcast)
R: Dr. Roger Leir (portion of radio broadcast)
W: Whitley Strieber (portion of radio broadcast)
C: unidentified commercial spokesperson
V: “Coast to Coast AM” spokesperson
R: Yes, I’m a podiatric surgeon. That means that my specialty is foot surgery.
A: Is what kind?
R: Foot surgery. Surgery of the foot.
A: Oh the foot — okay. Doctor, how did you get involved in the whole area of implants?
R: Well my history probably goes way back to that famous day of July 4, 1947. I lived in Northern California and I have just a very vivid recollection of my father coming into our kitchen and setting down the newspaper with the headline. A very famous headline about the Roswell craft — U.S. Army, Air Force captures flying disc. And he made a big to-do about it to my mother and I for whatever the reason was just overwhelmed by this. But he went on with a long discussion of how he was telling everybody (“WHO”) that we were not alone in the universe and not anybody could think we were. It was damn impossible to believe and so on.
A: Well I agree with that today.
R: So he left an impression on me that lasted for many, many years. And then I’ve always been interested in astronomy and I have a pilot’s license. I do fly. I have a cousin who went into psychology and then became a professor at the University of Connecticut. And lo and behold he went into a very unusual field which is the near death experience. His name is Dr. Kenneth Ring.
A: Oh, yes, I know the name.
R: Yeah, that’s my first cousin.
W: Dr. Ring has been in our cabin in upstate New York and one of his books The Omega Project was the first one, I believe, that studied the close encounter witnesses in comparison to other people like near death experiences. He’s also a remarkable scientist in this field.
A: There are a lot of people, of course, who believe the NDEs or near death experiences and a lot of ufology is mixed together. And I think I may be one of those people. I haven’t made up my mind about that yet. But, doctor, somebody at some point—I mean here you are in a regular practice; even though you had that earlier experience—must have approached you about an implant.
R: Well it turned out that I was covering a UFO conference in the capacity of an investigative reporter for a MUFON periodical called The Vortex. And at that conference I met a very world famous twenty-seven year researcher in the abduction phenomenon by the name of Derrel Sims.
A: Oh yes.
W: A remarkable man.
R: And (“I”) I guess you all know who Derrel is. He’s probably been on your program before.
A: Yes.
R: So Derrel showed me some X-rays which happened to be of feet and that was kind of interesting because (small laugh) that happened to be my specialty. And in these X-rays were two demonstrable, what appeared to be a metallic foreign body. He asked me my opinion and I looked at them and said, “Well when did the patient have her foot surgery?” because to me they were not very remarkable. They appeared possibly as common, ordinary surgical fixation devices that we use in the foot. So his reply was, “Well the patient has never had a surgery.” And I had my doubts whether it was true and he said to me, “If you’d like to review the patient’s medical records, here I have them.” With that, he reached into this giant suitcase that he carries around with him and hands me a large package of medical material. He said, “Take this to your room and look at it.” So I did and it fairly well convinced me that there was at least nothing there to show that this patient ever had a surgery. By — the next day I gave him back the records and I just as sort of a casual remark, I said, “Well why don’t you have them taken out, see what they are and that’ll just simply clear up the mystery.”
A: Sure.
R: So he looked at me and he said, “Well the patient would me more than willing to do that but she doesn’t have any medical insurance and she can’t afford the surgery.” So I thought for a minute and I said, “Well I’ll tell you what. Would she be willing to come to California? He had explained that she was in Texas. And he said, “Yes, I think she would.” And I said, “Well if she would come to California, I’ll be happy to do the surgery without charge.” And he looked at me and he said, “Do you really mean that?” And I said, “Well yes I do.” So he invited me to attend one of his lectures and I did. And at that point he had asked for a volunteer to pick up the tab for airfare — by the time the lecture was finished, there was a volunteer. The airfare was going to be taken care of and we talked on the phone over the next few weeks. And he asked me if I could do another case which was —
A: Well let me stop you, doctor, and ask you —
R: Sure.
A: — was there a history involved with this Texas patient that would indicate possibly an abduction or something that had occurred, that related to what might’ve been in this patient’s foot, that made it interesting beyond the fact that the patient might’ve stepped on something or something at some point.
R: Yes. Very definitely. Derrel had investigated over 250 cases and this was one of the more interesting ones with a possible implant in the body. She had several abduction experiences which were — she related and I have written these up and, of course, they will be in my book, should it ever get finished. I have one more chapter to go. You know how that feels, Art.
A: I do indeed. It’s like giving birth actually.
R: Yeah, sure is.
( . . . )
C: Attention, gun collectors, hunters and sportsmen, “The Crossroads of the West Gun Show” is this weekend at the Del Mar Fairgrounds. A huge show with over a thousand tables for buying, selling and trading all hunting supplies and outdoor gear. Deals on new and used guns, wholesale ammo, hunting supplies, gun safes, knives, scopes, police supply, military surplus and more. See all brands and models, both new and used at the best prices. The Del Mar gun show has more guns than any gun store anywhere. And, collectors, get this. Vintage hand guns, rifles, shotguns, knives, Western Americana and war memorabilia. You’ll find everything from pre-Civil War items to modern firearms and supplies. And you can buy, sell and trade so bring your guns. Thousands of guns and Western-related items for sale at the gun show this weekend at Del Mar. High competition means low, low prices on all guns and supplies. It’s huge and can take you all weekend to see so arrive early. Open nine to five on Saturday, nine to four on Sunday: “The Crossroads Gun Show” this weekend at the Del Mar fairgrounds.
( . . . )
A: Just once more, very quickly, Whitley has been with me and on my show for years now — Whitley Strieber. And he has never before on my program ever offered anything for sale. Nobody has ever seen this. This is material nobody else has. I called it pure dynamite. He calls it “Pure Balance.” It is a video tape that will actually—now, again, I tell you be careful what you wish for—teach you how to have a close encounter. Or if you’re having one you don’t want to have — teach you how to stop it. Video never seen by the public and I don’t even know that it will be offered anywhere else. He’s personally autographing each one of these. They’re twenty-four dollars and ninety cents. You can order twenty-four hours a day. If it’s busy, call back tomorrow. But the offer is only going to be made on this show and we hereby make it so take advantage or not, that’s up to you. The number is (gives number). It’s really funny — over the years a lot of people have said, “I want to have a close encounter. I want to have a close encounter.” And I always tell people, “Why?” Hm hm hm. Here’s the way to it, I guess, if you wish. (gives number) You can call right now. Back now to Whitley Strieber and Dr. Lear. Gentlemen, you’re both back on the air and here we have this person from Texas with something in their foot. You were going to do the surgery bro bono. Somebody else sprung for the tickets to get the person there. The person came, doctor, and what happened?
R: Well within the next two weeks. Following this agreement, Derrel had called me and asked me if I could do an additional case. And this he described to me on the phone as someone with an apparent metallic foreign body in the hand. Well since hands are not my specialty, I told him that I could possibly set up a surgical team and enlist the services of a general surgeon friend of mine. So, to make a long story short, on August the 16th of 1995, we did these first two cases. One female with a — two foreign bodies in the great toe of the left foot. One male patient with a metallic foreign body in the back of the left hand. Everything from that on was, to me, nothing but a surprise because, grounded with a scientific background, I began as a confident skeptic. I’ve taken, in thirty-three years, numerous things certainly out of the foot. As you know, people step on all sorts of things. I’ve taken out hair, plastic, metallic bodies, glass, coral, all sorts of things.
A: I can imagine.
R: It ju(st) — the foot is a real sort of a garbage can for puncture wounds and (“YES”) foreign bodies.
A: Yes.
R: So, from the get-go as I said, these surgeries — we’re a little different now. On the first case, which was the foot case, Derrel is a certified hypnoanesthesiologist so he put the person out with hypnoanesthesia and then I came in with two local anesthetics, anesthetized the toe area. In other words, this lady was zonked. (“HA HA”) She was really out. We began the surgery and — using X-rays as a marker. I tried to locate this foreign body — well when you do this, even after years of experience, literally what you’re looking for is like looking for a needle in a haystack. If you have modern, (“NO”) super-expensive equipment such as FluoroScans and . . . (Lixo?)scopes, you can visualize this on a television screen and the job’s a lot easier. (“BUT”) We didn’t have the funds for all this stuff.
A: In other words, you weren’t seeing it three dimensionally.
R: No.
A: Okay.
R: We were using an X-ray as a guide that I took just right before the surgery began because you want to make sure that they don’t move. Lots of foreign objects will move. So we got to the point where we thought we were near and I touched it with an instrument. And at that point I got my first surprise because the patient violently objected, came out of the hypnoanesthesia and just kicked her foot off the table. We had to re-stabilize the patient again. Derrel put her back down and I instilled more anesthetic. Now believe me, I never had seen anything quite that violent. Sometimes if you’re using a local alone and you tug on a nerve trunk, you know, it’ll — patient will say “Ouch” or something. You know, put in a little more anesthetic (and) go about the job. But this was violent, violent objection and she objected this way also when, finally, the object was visualized, clamped and removed from the incision. Now what this first one looked like, Art, was a triangle or a T, depending on the eye of the beholder. And it was about a half a centimeter in each direction. There’s 2.54 centimeters in an inch so you can get some (idea of the) size. And it was covered with a very dark gray, glistening membrane, well organized piece of tissue. (“NOW”) This is not the kind of thing — and people are going to say, “Well, my gosh you know, something that’s in the body is going to get covered with a fibrous layer of stuff,” you know. This wasn’t that. This was a well organized tissue membrane. So we were pretty anxious at this point to see what was inside.
A: Of course.
R: So we used a sharp surgical blade and, second surprise, we couldn’t cut through the membrane.
A: Wow.
R: These surgical blades are pretty sharp, Art, and you can whittle a bone with one either on purpose or sometimes inadvertently. But when you can’t cut through something which is definitively soft tissue, that’s a bit of a shock. So for the sake of good medical, surgical practice, we set the object aside and closed the wound and then went on to the other side of the toe to go after the other object. When we got to that one, which was smaller than the T-shaped object, we touched it. We had the same violent objection again, instilled more anesthetic, removed it, and found that it was a small cantaloupe seed-shaped object also covered with this same strange gray, glistening dark membrane. And, again, we took a surgical scalpel, tried to open it because we wanted to see what was inside and couldn’t cut through it. Well that was pretty high strangeness.
A: High strangeness indeed. (“SO”)
R: Again, for the sake of good medical practice, we forego that sort of business and closed up the wound, sent the patient to the recovery room under the care of the PhD psychologist who examined these people pre-operatively and post-operatively. You got to remember that I had searched the literature a great deal before I ever took on anything like this, to see if there was anything recorded that was peculiar. And we couldn’t find much so I was doing some what I thought, you know, (“PIONEERING”) pioneering work and I really didn’t expect to find anything unusual. As I said, I was a skeptic so this first case was an illustration of something that was down the road. Anyway —
A: I’ve got to ask, what did you do with — obviously you couldn’t cut through this so you must’ve pursued later in some way trying to get into this object.
R: Oh absolutely. The tissue — we removed two sections of soft tissue. I want to make this perfectly clear. We removed tissue that surrounded this object which was eventually sent in for analysis. And then we placed the objects themselves in what I consider to be a safe transport media because some things that I had read in the literature and I’m sure Whitley will attest to this, some people have tried these things — to remove things and I read all kinds of things like they evaporated, they turned to powder, you know, somebody dropped them and the dog ate it (“YEAH”) . . .
W: That happened. That was one case.
R: So I wanted to make sure I put these in something that would at least insure that they would be around so what I did was I had my surgical nurse withdraw whole blood. And then we spun it down and mixed it with an anticoagulant to preserve it and then we had some serum solution and that’s what we used to transport the object. So — before I tell you what — how we got into this, let me tell you about the hand case.
A: Alright.
R: So we switched. We went ahead. The general surgeon went through the same thing — did the hand again. He had a violent objection to —
A: Again.
R: — the object being touched. We removed this thing, Art, and that was probably one of the most biggest surprises of all because what we removed was another small little cantaloupe seed-shaped object covered with a dark gray, glistening membrane.
A: Oh my.
R: So you can say well one individual — let’s take one individual with some peculiar type of physiology. Some peculiar type of pathology. But now it’s two different individuals.
A: Both with abduction backgrounds.
R: Both with abduction backgrounds and both with objects in them which are almost identical. In fact, they were so identical that when placed on a surgical sponge, you could literally not tell one from the other. (“NOW”) We put them in solution and they go back to Texas with Darryl. He in the presence of a chemist and another analyst takes the objects out and subjects them to black ultraviolet light. And there’s a reason for this. But he found that they — all three objects fluoresced a brilliant green. Some of this brilliant green fluorescence has been found on certain areas of the bodies of abductees. So why were they on these objects we do not know. Then (or “THEN”) we believe that they’re certainly more than a coincidence here. Too many coincidences. So what else they found was that if they were — objects were dry; if they were left out, dried out of solution, the membrane became brittle. And they were able to scrape — literally scrape the membrane off of the metallic object that was within. He sent that back to me and I sent that out for analysis.
A: Doctor, how could something that when wet resist a surgical knife and then dry become so brittle you could just scrape it away — are you aware of any sort of chemical substance that could exhibit that?
R: Well I told you, you know, how long I’ve been working in this field and —
A: Exactly.
R: — the first time you come up with anything like this, the first thing you do is you begin to doubt your own veracity: you know, what did I miss? And maybe there’s something new. Maybe the body’s doing something that I don’t know about. So I spent a long time sitting at the screen and getting on the Net going into Harvard Medical School library and some of these others. It was a good education because I realized that the cost of these things are not cheap. They charge you for every little library book you open in one of these medical libraries. But the upshot was that I found out that since I had gotten out of school, it didn’t look like the body changed anyway at all. (“HA HA”)
A: (laughs)
R: So — you know? And there wasn’t anything in Robbins’ pathology (book) which is the bible of pathology. There just wasn’t anything that had anything like this or could explain it. So you have to start asking questions of those people who are in biochemistry and people that are researchers in biopathology as to, you know, what kind of tissue. But when I get in to — in a moment I’ll tell you what this thing was made of and maybe that will help to answer the question.
A: Alright.
R: Derrel had told me that the soft tissue that surrounded the object would come back with — indicating no inflammatory response and that there would be a lot of atypical nerve cells in the area. And I — all I can do is chuckle because, you know, how do you get something in the body and not have an inflammatory reaction?
A: I don’t know. I’m not a doctor. An(d) atypical nerve cells — what do you mean?
R: Nerve cells that don’t belong in that particular place. You know we have for example nerve proprioceptors which are at the ends of your fingers. They’re for, like, fine touch, pressure, for sensitivity, of temperature. That’s why if you put your finger on a hot stove it’s jerked away before you fry the finger. So that’s what these things are for. So when we finally got the pathology report back on this tissue that surrounded these objects — they were loaded with nerve proprioceptors. So I said to myself, “Well wait a minute.” You know. I mean Derrel’s a nice guy but he’s not a psychic. How could he ever know such a thing? And the other thing was that every piece of tissue that I sent out came back with no inflammatory response. You can not put something or get something inside the human body without having the body react to it. It’s a physical impossibility.
A: Except for these.
R: Except for this.
A: Now you said these had particular atypical nerve cells around them. Would that account for the extra sensitivity when you tried to probe them, when you tried to touch them?
R: What else? (small laugh) What could it possibly be? I mean it has to be. That’s the only other — it’s the only explanation. You’re fooling around with — in an area of a high density nerve cells and — see, most people believe that there’s — you know, we have cells or sensory organs for pain. But we don’t, Any sensory nerve under the right chemical and hormonal condition can conduct pain. So If you want to, you know, get a train from point A to point B and you own the car — (“YOU KNOW”) you can rent anybody’s track. And that’s the way the body works because we have two nervous systems: one the voluntary and the other the involuntary nervous system. And the involuntary nervous system uses the same tracks as the voluntary nervous system.
A: Alright, doctor, hold it right there. My guests Whitley Strieber and Dr. Roger Leir and we’re talking about implants. We can barely put biological materials in our own bodies without having some sort of reaction, as witness the people who receive hearts and lungs and various body parts and have to take all kinds of drugs to prevent rejection. Fascinating. I’m Art Bell. This is “Coast to Coast AM.”
(bumper music is “Bang-A-Gong” performed by T. Rex)
V: If you’ve missed any part of tonight’s programming and you’d like to have a copy on tape, dial toll-free (gives number). That number is (gives number).
( . . . )
Q: So after the commercial break, Art began reading a fax.
A: . . . observation with respect to Whitley: “Having read all of his nonfiction, seen him lecture both in person and video, listened to him a number of times on ‘Coast,’ that which is so strikingly admirable is the incredible courage that he has displayed facing the unknown both from the cosmos and within himself. Oh I’ll order this tape but, frankly, I don’t know if I’ve got the guts to call for contact. Although there have been a number of times in my life that I’ve been in ‘jackpots,’ I am too heavily invested in control.” Yeah, this really is — I want to be careful here because the tape he’s offering you’ve got to order it by name and it’s called “Pure Balance” and the public has never seen it before. Ever. He’s held onto it. And it’s only being offered on this show. And it’s only being offered now. And he’s autographing each copy. And the incredible thing — I call it pure dynamite. It’s—don’t call it that when you order—pure dynamite because it is a way for you to actually invite contact. Alright? To me that’s pure dynamite. On the other hand though, it’s also a way to get out of contact if you’re in it and don’t want to be. So the name — the technical name of the tape is “Pure Balance.” Everyone of them personally autographed by Whitley Strieber. All of twenty-four dollars and ninety cents. Call (gives number). There’s an automated thingy there now: visa, mastercard. If you don’t want to deal with that, you can call during the day and get a human being. (small laugh) The number is — again is (gives number). You’re writing that down? I hope so. (gives number) Now we’re going back to Whitley Strieber and Dr. Roger Leir and Dr. Leir, I’m not a doctor, I’m not a physician. I was a medic in the air force but I know this. I know that our biological beings have a hard enough time accepting other biological pieces and parts: hearts, lungs, things that are transplanted that require tremendous drugs to prevent the body from rejecting them. And so as you point out these objects, whatever the hell they were, were not inflaming the area at all, which seems utterly impossible and can only be accounted for, I would think, by this fibrous whatever-it-was that was around it, this mysterious fibrous stuff. Would that be your impression?
R: Well, Art, you say that you’re not a physician but you certainly are a skilled, astute observer because that’s most likely the cause. Now when we were able to get this initial analysis done on the membrane I was stunned again to find out what it was composed of. If this is it — if this is the thing that prevents the body from reacting to foreign objects — I mean it’s quite an interesting thing. It’s only composed of three biological substances. One is called a protein(aceous) coagulum and if you would just picture, Art, a bowl of jello — just plain, ordinary jello and then we’ll add a few little things to it like some dark brown granules. And these granules are what we call hemoseridin. Hemoseridin is a cousin to hemoglobin which we find in the red cells. It’s an iron compound and it’s oxygen-binding. So we have some — our bowl of jello now. We’ve added a few brown granules and then we’re going to add some striations to it, material which is going to hold this thing together. It looks maybe like strands of coconut in our jello and you won’t guess what this is but it’s keratin, which is the outermost substance of our skin. And that’s it. That’s in totality — that is this membrane. Now where in the world — in what pathology textbook has anyone ever described anything like this? And, believe me, I looked. If there’s somebody out there that knows where in a pathology book this might be found, I would certainly wish that they would get in touch with me and those that’ve been working on this and steer us in that direction.
A: Doctor, I would think that surgeons, for example, who put in artificial heart valves and that sort of thing would be intensely interested in the sort of mixture you just described. Wouldn’t you?
R: Well not only surgeons, Art, but we’ve had some very large drug companies that are interested in taking a good, hard look at this. And, you know, if this membrane can be duplicated—just as you’re saying, you can wrap anything in it and stick it inside the body—there’d be no reason to have some individuals on immunosuppressive agents: Imuran and Cyclosporin and the numbers of others that are quite dilatory as to the body. There is a price that you do pay for having an organ transplant and if this can be eliminated it would be a tremendous discovery for mankind.
A: Is what kind?
R: Foot surgery. Surgery of the foot.
A: Oh the foot — okay. Doctor, how did you get involved in the whole area of implants?
R: Well my history probably goes way back to that famous day of July 4, 1947. I lived in Northern California and I have just a very vivid recollection of my father coming into our kitchen and setting down the newspaper with the headline. A very famous headline about the Roswell craft — U.S. Army, Air Force captures flying disc. And he made a big to-do about it to my mother and I for whatever the reason was just overwhelmed by this. But he went on with a long discussion of how he was telling everybody (“WHO”) that we were not alone in the universe and not anybody could think we were. It was damn impossible to believe and so on.
A: Well I agree with that today.
R: So he left an impression on me that lasted for many, many years. And then I’ve always been interested in astronomy and I have a pilot’s license. I do fly. I have a cousin who went into psychology and then became a professor at the University of Connecticut. And lo and behold he went into a very unusual field which is the near death experience. His name is Dr. Kenneth Ring.
A: Oh, yes, I know the name.
R: Yeah, that’s my first cousin.
W: Dr. Ring has been in our cabin in upstate New York and one of his books The Omega Project was the first one, I believe, that studied the close encounter witnesses in comparison to other people like near death experiences. He’s also a remarkable scientist in this field.
A: There are a lot of people, of course, who believe the NDEs or near death experiences and a lot of ufology is mixed together. And I think I may be one of those people. I haven’t made up my mind about that yet. But, doctor, somebody at some point—I mean here you are in a regular practice; even though you had that earlier experience—must have approached you about an implant.
R: Well it turned out that I was covering a UFO conference in the capacity of an investigative reporter for a MUFON periodical called The Vortex. And at that conference I met a very world famous twenty-seven year researcher in the abduction phenomenon by the name of Derrel Sims.
A: Oh yes.
W: A remarkable man.
R: And (“I”) I guess you all know who Derrel is. He’s probably been on your program before.
A: Yes.
R: So Derrel showed me some X-rays which happened to be of feet and that was kind of interesting because (small laugh) that happened to be my specialty. And in these X-rays were two demonstrable, what appeared to be a metallic foreign body. He asked me my opinion and I looked at them and said, “Well when did the patient have her foot surgery?” because to me they were not very remarkable. They appeared possibly as common, ordinary surgical fixation devices that we use in the foot. So his reply was, “Well the patient has never had a surgery.” And I had my doubts whether it was true and he said to me, “If you’d like to review the patient’s medical records, here I have them.” With that, he reached into this giant suitcase that he carries around with him and hands me a large package of medical material. He said, “Take this to your room and look at it.” So I did and it fairly well convinced me that there was at least nothing there to show that this patient ever had a surgery. By — the next day I gave him back the records and I just as sort of a casual remark, I said, “Well why don’t you have them taken out, see what they are and that’ll just simply clear up the mystery.”
A: Sure.
R: So he looked at me and he said, “Well the patient would me more than willing to do that but she doesn’t have any medical insurance and she can’t afford the surgery.” So I thought for a minute and I said, “Well I’ll tell you what. Would she be willing to come to California? He had explained that she was in Texas. And he said, “Yes, I think she would.” And I said, “Well if she would come to California, I’ll be happy to do the surgery without charge.” And he looked at me and he said, “Do you really mean that?” And I said, “Well yes I do.” So he invited me to attend one of his lectures and I did. And at that point he had asked for a volunteer to pick up the tab for airfare — by the time the lecture was finished, there was a volunteer. The airfare was going to be taken care of and we talked on the phone over the next few weeks. And he asked me if I could do another case which was —
A: Well let me stop you, doctor, and ask you —
R: Sure.
A: — was there a history involved with this Texas patient that would indicate possibly an abduction or something that had occurred, that related to what might’ve been in this patient’s foot, that made it interesting beyond the fact that the patient might’ve stepped on something or something at some point.
R: Yes. Very definitely. Derrel had investigated over 250 cases and this was one of the more interesting ones with a possible implant in the body. She had several abduction experiences which were — she related and I have written these up and, of course, they will be in my book, should it ever get finished. I have one more chapter to go. You know how that feels, Art.
A: I do indeed. It’s like giving birth actually.
R: Yeah, sure is.
( . . . )
C: Attention, gun collectors, hunters and sportsmen, “The Crossroads of the West Gun Show” is this weekend at the Del Mar Fairgrounds. A huge show with over a thousand tables for buying, selling and trading all hunting supplies and outdoor gear. Deals on new and used guns, wholesale ammo, hunting supplies, gun safes, knives, scopes, police supply, military surplus and more. See all brands and models, both new and used at the best prices. The Del Mar gun show has more guns than any gun store anywhere. And, collectors, get this. Vintage hand guns, rifles, shotguns, knives, Western Americana and war memorabilia. You’ll find everything from pre-Civil War items to modern firearms and supplies. And you can buy, sell and trade so bring your guns. Thousands of guns and Western-related items for sale at the gun show this weekend at Del Mar. High competition means low, low prices on all guns and supplies. It’s huge and can take you all weekend to see so arrive early. Open nine to five on Saturday, nine to four on Sunday: “The Crossroads Gun Show” this weekend at the Del Mar fairgrounds.
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A: Just once more, very quickly, Whitley has been with me and on my show for years now — Whitley Strieber. And he has never before on my program ever offered anything for sale. Nobody has ever seen this. This is material nobody else has. I called it pure dynamite. He calls it “Pure Balance.” It is a video tape that will actually—now, again, I tell you be careful what you wish for—teach you how to have a close encounter. Or if you’re having one you don’t want to have — teach you how to stop it. Video never seen by the public and I don’t even know that it will be offered anywhere else. He’s personally autographing each one of these. They’re twenty-four dollars and ninety cents. You can order twenty-four hours a day. If it’s busy, call back tomorrow. But the offer is only going to be made on this show and we hereby make it so take advantage or not, that’s up to you. The number is (gives number). It’s really funny — over the years a lot of people have said, “I want to have a close encounter. I want to have a close encounter.” And I always tell people, “Why?” Hm hm hm. Here’s the way to it, I guess, if you wish. (gives number) You can call right now. Back now to Whitley Strieber and Dr. Lear. Gentlemen, you’re both back on the air and here we have this person from Texas with something in their foot. You were going to do the surgery bro bono. Somebody else sprung for the tickets to get the person there. The person came, doctor, and what happened?
R: Well within the next two weeks. Following this agreement, Derrel had called me and asked me if I could do an additional case. And this he described to me on the phone as someone with an apparent metallic foreign body in the hand. Well since hands are not my specialty, I told him that I could possibly set up a surgical team and enlist the services of a general surgeon friend of mine. So, to make a long story short, on August the 16th of 1995, we did these first two cases. One female with a — two foreign bodies in the great toe of the left foot. One male patient with a metallic foreign body in the back of the left hand. Everything from that on was, to me, nothing but a surprise because, grounded with a scientific background, I began as a confident skeptic. I’ve taken, in thirty-three years, numerous things certainly out of the foot. As you know, people step on all sorts of things. I’ve taken out hair, plastic, metallic bodies, glass, coral, all sorts of things.
A: I can imagine.
R: It ju(st) — the foot is a real sort of a garbage can for puncture wounds and (“YES”) foreign bodies.
A: Yes.
R: So, from the get-go as I said, these surgeries — we’re a little different now. On the first case, which was the foot case, Derrel is a certified hypnoanesthesiologist so he put the person out with hypnoanesthesia and then I came in with two local anesthetics, anesthetized the toe area. In other words, this lady was zonked. (“HA HA”) She was really out. We began the surgery and — using X-rays as a marker. I tried to locate this foreign body — well when you do this, even after years of experience, literally what you’re looking for is like looking for a needle in a haystack. If you have modern, (“NO”) super-expensive equipment such as FluoroScans and . . . (Lixo?)scopes, you can visualize this on a television screen and the job’s a lot easier. (“BUT”) We didn’t have the funds for all this stuff.
A: In other words, you weren’t seeing it three dimensionally.
R: No.
A: Okay.
R: We were using an X-ray as a guide that I took just right before the surgery began because you want to make sure that they don’t move. Lots of foreign objects will move. So we got to the point where we thought we were near and I touched it with an instrument. And at that point I got my first surprise because the patient violently objected, came out of the hypnoanesthesia and just kicked her foot off the table. We had to re-stabilize the patient again. Derrel put her back down and I instilled more anesthetic. Now believe me, I never had seen anything quite that violent. Sometimes if you’re using a local alone and you tug on a nerve trunk, you know, it’ll — patient will say “Ouch” or something. You know, put in a little more anesthetic (and) go about the job. But this was violent, violent objection and she objected this way also when, finally, the object was visualized, clamped and removed from the incision. Now what this first one looked like, Art, was a triangle or a T, depending on the eye of the beholder. And it was about a half a centimeter in each direction. There’s 2.54 centimeters in an inch so you can get some (idea of the) size. And it was covered with a very dark gray, glistening membrane, well organized piece of tissue. (“NOW”) This is not the kind of thing — and people are going to say, “Well, my gosh you know, something that’s in the body is going to get covered with a fibrous layer of stuff,” you know. This wasn’t that. This was a well organized tissue membrane. So we were pretty anxious at this point to see what was inside.
A: Of course.
R: So we used a sharp surgical blade and, second surprise, we couldn’t cut through the membrane.
A: Wow.
R: These surgical blades are pretty sharp, Art, and you can whittle a bone with one either on purpose or sometimes inadvertently. But when you can’t cut through something which is definitively soft tissue, that’s a bit of a shock. So for the sake of good medical, surgical practice, we set the object aside and closed the wound and then went on to the other side of the toe to go after the other object. When we got to that one, which was smaller than the T-shaped object, we touched it. We had the same violent objection again, instilled more anesthetic, removed it, and found that it was a small cantaloupe seed-shaped object also covered with this same strange gray, glistening dark membrane. And, again, we took a surgical scalpel, tried to open it because we wanted to see what was inside and couldn’t cut through it. Well that was pretty high strangeness.
A: High strangeness indeed. (“SO”)
R: Again, for the sake of good medical practice, we forego that sort of business and closed up the wound, sent the patient to the recovery room under the care of the PhD psychologist who examined these people pre-operatively and post-operatively. You got to remember that I had searched the literature a great deal before I ever took on anything like this, to see if there was anything recorded that was peculiar. And we couldn’t find much so I was doing some what I thought, you know, (“PIONEERING”) pioneering work and I really didn’t expect to find anything unusual. As I said, I was a skeptic so this first case was an illustration of something that was down the road. Anyway —
A: I’ve got to ask, what did you do with — obviously you couldn’t cut through this so you must’ve pursued later in some way trying to get into this object.
R: Oh absolutely. The tissue — we removed two sections of soft tissue. I want to make this perfectly clear. We removed tissue that surrounded this object which was eventually sent in for analysis. And then we placed the objects themselves in what I consider to be a safe transport media because some things that I had read in the literature and I’m sure Whitley will attest to this, some people have tried these things — to remove things and I read all kinds of things like they evaporated, they turned to powder, you know, somebody dropped them and the dog ate it (“YEAH”) . . .
W: That happened. That was one case.
R: So I wanted to make sure I put these in something that would at least insure that they would be around so what I did was I had my surgical nurse withdraw whole blood. And then we spun it down and mixed it with an anticoagulant to preserve it and then we had some serum solution and that’s what we used to transport the object. So — before I tell you what — how we got into this, let me tell you about the hand case.
A: Alright.
R: So we switched. We went ahead. The general surgeon went through the same thing — did the hand again. He had a violent objection to —
A: Again.
R: — the object being touched. We removed this thing, Art, and that was probably one of the most biggest surprises of all because what we removed was another small little cantaloupe seed-shaped object covered with a dark gray, glistening membrane.
A: Oh my.
R: So you can say well one individual — let’s take one individual with some peculiar type of physiology. Some peculiar type of pathology. But now it’s two different individuals.
A: Both with abduction backgrounds.
R: Both with abduction backgrounds and both with objects in them which are almost identical. In fact, they were so identical that when placed on a surgical sponge, you could literally not tell one from the other. (“NOW”) We put them in solution and they go back to Texas with Darryl. He in the presence of a chemist and another analyst takes the objects out and subjects them to black ultraviolet light. And there’s a reason for this. But he found that they — all three objects fluoresced a brilliant green. Some of this brilliant green fluorescence has been found on certain areas of the bodies of abductees. So why were they on these objects we do not know. Then (or “THEN”) we believe that they’re certainly more than a coincidence here. Too many coincidences. So what else they found was that if they were — objects were dry; if they were left out, dried out of solution, the membrane became brittle. And they were able to scrape — literally scrape the membrane off of the metallic object that was within. He sent that back to me and I sent that out for analysis.
A: Doctor, how could something that when wet resist a surgical knife and then dry become so brittle you could just scrape it away — are you aware of any sort of chemical substance that could exhibit that?
R: Well I told you, you know, how long I’ve been working in this field and —
A: Exactly.
R: — the first time you come up with anything like this, the first thing you do is you begin to doubt your own veracity: you know, what did I miss? And maybe there’s something new. Maybe the body’s doing something that I don’t know about. So I spent a long time sitting at the screen and getting on the Net going into Harvard Medical School library and some of these others. It was a good education because I realized that the cost of these things are not cheap. They charge you for every little library book you open in one of these medical libraries. But the upshot was that I found out that since I had gotten out of school, it didn’t look like the body changed anyway at all. (“HA HA”)
A: (laughs)
R: So — you know? And there wasn’t anything in Robbins’ pathology (book) which is the bible of pathology. There just wasn’t anything that had anything like this or could explain it. So you have to start asking questions of those people who are in biochemistry and people that are researchers in biopathology as to, you know, what kind of tissue. But when I get in to — in a moment I’ll tell you what this thing was made of and maybe that will help to answer the question.
A: Alright.
R: Derrel had told me that the soft tissue that surrounded the object would come back with — indicating no inflammatory response and that there would be a lot of atypical nerve cells in the area. And I — all I can do is chuckle because, you know, how do you get something in the body and not have an inflammatory reaction?
A: I don’t know. I’m not a doctor. An(d) atypical nerve cells — what do you mean?
R: Nerve cells that don’t belong in that particular place. You know we have for example nerve proprioceptors which are at the ends of your fingers. They’re for, like, fine touch, pressure, for sensitivity, of temperature. That’s why if you put your finger on a hot stove it’s jerked away before you fry the finger. So that’s what these things are for. So when we finally got the pathology report back on this tissue that surrounded these objects — they were loaded with nerve proprioceptors. So I said to myself, “Well wait a minute.” You know. I mean Derrel’s a nice guy but he’s not a psychic. How could he ever know such a thing? And the other thing was that every piece of tissue that I sent out came back with no inflammatory response. You can not put something or get something inside the human body without having the body react to it. It’s a physical impossibility.
A: Except for these.
R: Except for this.
A: Now you said these had particular atypical nerve cells around them. Would that account for the extra sensitivity when you tried to probe them, when you tried to touch them?
R: What else? (small laugh) What could it possibly be? I mean it has to be. That’s the only other — it’s the only explanation. You’re fooling around with — in an area of a high density nerve cells and — see, most people believe that there’s — you know, we have cells or sensory organs for pain. But we don’t, Any sensory nerve under the right chemical and hormonal condition can conduct pain. So If you want to, you know, get a train from point A to point B and you own the car — (“YOU KNOW”) you can rent anybody’s track. And that’s the way the body works because we have two nervous systems: one the voluntary and the other the involuntary nervous system. And the involuntary nervous system uses the same tracks as the voluntary nervous system.
A: Alright, doctor, hold it right there. My guests Whitley Strieber and Dr. Roger Leir and we’re talking about implants. We can barely put biological materials in our own bodies without having some sort of reaction, as witness the people who receive hearts and lungs and various body parts and have to take all kinds of drugs to prevent rejection. Fascinating. I’m Art Bell. This is “Coast to Coast AM.”
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V: If you’ve missed any part of tonight’s programming and you’d like to have a copy on tape, dial toll-free (gives number). That number is (gives number).
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Q: So after the commercial break, Art began reading a fax.
A: . . . observation with respect to Whitley: “Having read all of his nonfiction, seen him lecture both in person and video, listened to him a number of times on ‘Coast,’ that which is so strikingly admirable is the incredible courage that he has displayed facing the unknown both from the cosmos and within himself. Oh I’ll order this tape but, frankly, I don’t know if I’ve got the guts to call for contact. Although there have been a number of times in my life that I’ve been in ‘jackpots,’ I am too heavily invested in control.” Yeah, this really is — I want to be careful here because the tape he’s offering you’ve got to order it by name and it’s called “Pure Balance” and the public has never seen it before. Ever. He’s held onto it. And it’s only being offered on this show. And it’s only being offered now. And he’s autographing each copy. And the incredible thing — I call it pure dynamite. It’s—don’t call it that when you order—pure dynamite because it is a way for you to actually invite contact. Alright? To me that’s pure dynamite. On the other hand though, it’s also a way to get out of contact if you’re in it and don’t want to be. So the name — the technical name of the tape is “Pure Balance.” Everyone of them personally autographed by Whitley Strieber. All of twenty-four dollars and ninety cents. Call (gives number). There’s an automated thingy there now: visa, mastercard. If you don’t want to deal with that, you can call during the day and get a human being. (small laugh) The number is — again is (gives number). You’re writing that down? I hope so. (gives number) Now we’re going back to Whitley Strieber and Dr. Roger Leir and Dr. Leir, I’m not a doctor, I’m not a physician. I was a medic in the air force but I know this. I know that our biological beings have a hard enough time accepting other biological pieces and parts: hearts, lungs, things that are transplanted that require tremendous drugs to prevent the body from rejecting them. And so as you point out these objects, whatever the hell they were, were not inflaming the area at all, which seems utterly impossible and can only be accounted for, I would think, by this fibrous whatever-it-was that was around it, this mysterious fibrous stuff. Would that be your impression?
R: Well, Art, you say that you’re not a physician but you certainly are a skilled, astute observer because that’s most likely the cause. Now when we were able to get this initial analysis done on the membrane I was stunned again to find out what it was composed of. If this is it — if this is the thing that prevents the body from reacting to foreign objects — I mean it’s quite an interesting thing. It’s only composed of three biological substances. One is called a protein(aceous) coagulum and if you would just picture, Art, a bowl of jello — just plain, ordinary jello and then we’ll add a few little things to it like some dark brown granules. And these granules are what we call hemoseridin. Hemoseridin is a cousin to hemoglobin which we find in the red cells. It’s an iron compound and it’s oxygen-binding. So we have some — our bowl of jello now. We’ve added a few brown granules and then we’re going to add some striations to it, material which is going to hold this thing together. It looks maybe like strands of coconut in our jello and you won’t guess what this is but it’s keratin, which is the outermost substance of our skin. And that’s it. That’s in totality — that is this membrane. Now where in the world — in what pathology textbook has anyone ever described anything like this? And, believe me, I looked. If there’s somebody out there that knows where in a pathology book this might be found, I would certainly wish that they would get in touch with me and those that’ve been working on this and steer us in that direction.
A: Doctor, I would think that surgeons, for example, who put in artificial heart valves and that sort of thing would be intensely interested in the sort of mixture you just described. Wouldn’t you?
R: Well not only surgeons, Art, but we’ve had some very large drug companies that are interested in taking a good, hard look at this. And, you know, if this membrane can be duplicated—just as you’re saying, you can wrap anything in it and stick it inside the body—there’d be no reason to have some individuals on immunosuppressive agents: Imuran and Cyclosporin and the numbers of others that are quite dilatory as to the body. There is a price that you do pay for having an organ transplant and if this can be eliminated it would be a tremendous discovery for mankind.
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