X Zone radio show about to be syndicated across Canada, U.S.

by Marie Chamberland Bodogh, Tribune Staff, St. Catharines

Rob McConnell remembers that still summer night when he was 5 years old as though only 41 minutes have passed rather than 41 years.

He and his younger brother were bunkered in their room for the night, even though it was still light out.

Bedtime at their house near Montreal's Dorval Airport never changed, despite longer days and a hiatus from school.

It was just a fact of life in a family where the business was law enforcement, the religion was strict Catholic and the background was Irish.

McConnell remembers how it always irked him to have to go to bed and listen to the sounds of the other neighborhood rounding out their evenings with a game of tag or hide and seek at either of the two school yards which stood like bookends at each end of the street.

The odd thing about the still summer night when he was five years old was that the neighborhood was so quiet. No planes. No kids.

McConnell was plane-spotting out the window. He'd watched the flight patterns - east to west - thousands of times.

But that night, all he saw was a brightly lit object flying north-south over one of the schools.

"I knew what I was watching was going to change my life forever," McConnell, now all grown up and the host of the soon to be syndicated X Zone radio show, said this week.

He and his brother made some excited calls down to their dad. By the time he got upstairs, the object was gone.

But the boys were adamant. Their father thought they were trying to postpone bedtime. Finally, he pretended to call the airport on their old rotary phone - and told the boys that officials had nothing to report.

"The next day," McConnell said, "every kid in the neighborhood was talking about it."

The event did indeed change Rob McConnell's life.

As the years wore on, his quest for answers grew. He spent much of his free time poring over books. That worried his parents some.

They were even more concerned when he was essentially excommunicated from the church for failing to accept contradictorily information on faith alone.

McConnell earned university degrees in theology and psychology. He studied physiology, mathematics and all the established sciences. He also became very well versed in astronomy and the paranormal.

In amongst all that, he had also become a police officer, a husband, and eventually a father of three kids.

But his marriage hit the rocks in the early eighties. McConnell's wife moved with the kids to Niagara.

In 1985 McConnell was diagnosed with a disease which affects the hips. He moved to Niagara to be near his kids.

He took the opportunity to start writing a book that would bring together all the things he'd been learning about,and combine them with the one thing he thought was missing - the human factor.

It started with a classified ad requesting calls from people who had unusual experiences, and who may need help understanding them.

"The phone was ringing off the hook," McConnell said.

That gave him an idea for a newspaper called The 'X' Chronicles, which has been published monthly since the spring of 1995.

A radio show host asked him to do some guest spots that summer, which he did.

That led to McConnell's own weekly segments ONTV called 'X' Updates.

Then McConnell got another idea which he proceeded to sell - a live radio show.

Radio station CKDX in Newmarket agreed to take the show with rookie announcer McConnell as host, as long as McConnell came up with the sponsors a month in advance.

McConnell did the legwork, produced the show and commuted from St. Catharines. He moved The 'X' Zone to CHSC in St. Catharines in September 1996, then to CJBK in London for a better time slot and a larger market.

"It was an experience I wouldn't trade for the world," McConnell said. "We worked with people who gave us really good radio advice."

The show took off, and the McConnell grew to be part of the stations family.

In September 1997, he released The 'X' Game, a trivia game based on the show.

The following year (1998), they got an offer they couldn't refuse. A syndication company was interested in the show. But the London station was not equipped to go that route.

So with bitter sweet feelings, the McConnell headed back to St. Catharines and CKTB.

The 'X' Zone has been heard on 610 CKTB-AM every Saturday and Sunday night from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. since early June.

Next month they'll add a live two hour broadcast from the Red Onion restaurant on Lake Street in St. Catharines, Fridays at 11 p.m.

In September, syndication will allow the show to be heard across Canada and in expanded parts of the U.S.

The show focuses on psychic phenomenons, ghosts, UFOs, cult and occult, the paranormal and parapsychology.

The idea is for callers to share experiences and seek advice from experts.

McConnell said he's still working on the book that was the catalyst for the 'X' Zone.

End.