September 2, 1997: Merle Haggard Interview

Art Bell sits down with country music legend Merle Haggard for a freewheeling conversation that ranges from Princess Diana's death to UFO sightings, prison reform, and the changing American landscape. Haggard recounts his troubled youth, from riding freight trains at age eleven to landing in San Quentin at nineteen, where a cell next to death row inmate Caryl Chessman sparked a life-changing moment of clarity that set him on the path to becoming one of country music's all-time bestselling artists.

The conversation shifts to the old days of Las Vegas when the mob kept order, Haggard's friendship with casino owner Benny Binion, and the time he lost $25,000 to a quick-handed hotel waiter during an Elvis show. Haggard shares his own UFO encounter near Vandenberg Air Force Base and his wife's sighting of five objects over the Colorado River during the Phoenix Lights period. He advocates for ending the drug war and legalizing marijuana, arguing that hemp could revitalize American farming.

Art and Merle find common ground discussing strange weather patterns, the feeling that civilization is approaching a major turning point, and the mysterious booming sounds both hear regularly from the direction of Area 51.