In October, paranormal radio host Art Bell mysteriously left the air citing "a threatening, terrible event" that had threatened the safety of his family.  Not surprisingly, the internet was abuzz with wild UFOnut theories.  Some on Usenet claimed to have intimate knowledge of aliens who had contacted Art Bell before their invasion; there were rumors of Men in Black appearing to Art and forcing him to shut down his operation in the face of his family being injured or killed; people claimed that Art was the victim of a government conspiracy to silence dissenters. 

Unfortunately, the UFOnuts were all wrong, and the truth of the matter has turned out to be far less strange and far more terrible at the same time.  The Washington Post pretty much summed it up:

On Friday, Art Bell IV--the radio host's 18-year-old son--filed a federal lawsuit against a Nevada school district and a former substitute teacher who is serving a life sentence on sex and drug counts, one of which involved a 1997 sexual assault on the younger Bell. The suit was reported in Friday's Las Vegas Review-Journal. 

In April 1998, former teacher Brian Lepley was convicted on several counts of supplying minors with drugs and engaging in sexual relations with them. Moreover, it was charged that Lepley--who carries the AIDS virus--did not inform his partners of his condition or wear a condom.

While we hate to utilize this horrible incident for our own purposes, it is an excellent example of the larger problem with UFOnut speculation.  The more nutty among them immediately leapt to the conclusion that it had something to do with paranormality and aliens.  This is indicative of a larger problem; that UFOnuts tend to always leap to the paranormal conclusion.