“Long” John Nebel: The Art Bell of the 1950s
Nebel’s trademark expression was “I don’t buy the gaff”
As many of you know, I have an internet radio show on Sunday nights from 8-10:30 PM PST. Occasionally I will play excerpts from recordings of my talk radio heroes of days past.
Most fans of Art Bell and Coast To Coast aren’t aware that late night paranormal radio is nothing new. Along with master raconteur and storyteller Jean Shepherd, “Long” John Nebel ruled the overnight airwaves on New York station WOR from the mid-1950s to the early ’60s. Shepherd lasted there in one form or another until 1977. In 1962, Nebel was offered the then-ridiculous sum of $100,000 per year to move over to rival station WNBC, which he unridiculously accepted.
Originally from Chicago, Nebel (1911-1978) dropped out of school in the eighth grade and ran away with the circus. In the autobiographical section of his 1961 book The Way Out World, he described filling in for a clown that had called in sick to a parade, and then convinced the circus owner to hire him full time. He soon befriended “Lady Ester,” the woman who did the mind-reading act, and quickly found out that it was a complete scam. Nebel didn’t care so much about the reality of ESP, he was fascinated with the selling of the product.
In the early 1950s, he owned and operated Long John’s Auctions in New Jersey. Since he often bought advertising time on New York radio stations, his contacts led to an offer of the midnight-to-5:30 AM slot to discuss strange and offbeat topics, and interview weird and interesting people.
Nebel (at right) examines a witness drawing of an “alien”
The show soon became the highest-rated program on the station. The fact that WOR’s signal could be heard over half the nation assured an audience of millions. Entitled “The Partyline,” the program usually featured a revolving guest “panel” of scholars, commentators, writers and anyone Nebel found interesting. Frequent panel guests included Arthur C. Clarke, James Moseley, and The Amazing Randi.
Nebel provided a virtual soapbox for the UFO contactee movement, and the likes of George Adamski, Orfeo Angelucci, and Howard Menger were popular, and appeared on the show many times. A recording of an episode featuring Aetherius Society founder George King is available for download at the Archive.org site.
Another guest was UFO researcher and book huckster Gray Barker, who once got into a famous on-air argument with listener and long-time Nebel buddy Jackie Gleason. Gleason had a well-known interest in UFOs, and saw Barker’s sometimes humorous take on the subject as a hinderance to serious study. For Gleason the comedian, the funny business apparently stopped at the flying saucer’s doorstep.
One of Nebel’s most infamous guests was Otis T. Carr, who was peddling his plans for the “OTC-X1 Circular Foil Spacecraft.” Carr claimed that he came up with original idea when he was a night clerk at the Hotel New Yorker in the 1930s. Nikola Tesla was living there at the time, and Carr said that the great inventor revealed fantastic scientific secrets to him “which he [Tesla] never told to another soul.” In 1958, Carr appeared on Nebel’s show on multiple occasions to advertise the OTC-X1, which could be yours for the low introductory price of 200 million dollars. Nebel actually traveled to Oklahoma City where Carr was supposed to demonstrate the first public flight of his mysterious invention (appropriately as it turned out) on the grounds of an amusement park. Not surprisingly, it was a bust. Carr was later arrested, tried, and imprisoned for stock fraud.
This short biography would not be complete without mention of Nebel’s 1972 marriage to former model and pin-up girl Candy Jones. Jones became co-host on the show, and assisted in many aspects of production. Soon after they were wed, Nebel noticed that his new wife would occasionally lapse into what appeared to be an alternate personality. After he suggested hypnosis to uncover any problems, a strange story of CIA mind control emerged, as documented in Donald Bain’s 1976 book The Control of Candy Jones. Nebel and Jones supposedly recorded hundreds of hours of her hypnosis sessions. Jones claimed that an Oakland psychologist (a “Dr. Jensen”) had been her handler and had successfully forced her (though hypnotic suggestion and torture) to run missions for the CIA.
 Nebel’s famous skepticism seemed to fail him when convincing evidence of a conspiracy hit close to home, and publicly claimed that he wanted to kill Jensen. The influence of this strange episode occasionally permeated his final years in radio, which ended in 1978. When he retired, the show slot was given to Larry King.
The next time you listen to the likes of George Noory, Bob Hironymous, Errol Bruce-Knapp or Tim Binnall, remember “Long” John Nebel and his pioneering brand of freeform radio for night people.
Nebel died from complications of prostate cancer on April 10, 1978.
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Dec 31 2007 
December 31st, 2007 at 10:40 am
I was a little bit familiar with Long John Nebel and have heard some old clips but had never heard about his wife and mind control/MK Ultra. Fascinating stuff.
January 3rd, 2008 at 6:23 pm
Ben,
I have yet to hear any of his post-1972 shows. It would be interesting to see how he treated the mind control subject.