20 Chilling Facts You Never Knew About The Unsettling Alien Abduction Of Whitley Strieber
By Sarah Norman | October 27, 2023
Whitley Strieber Was A Successful Author Before His Abduction
Whitley Strieber, the author of the best-selling book Communion, has long been a controversial figure in the world of paranormal research. Strieber claims that he was abducted by extraterrestrial beings in 1985 and that his experiences have left an indelible mark on his life. Since the publication of Communion in 1987, Strieber's claims have been the subject of intense scrutiny and debate, with some dismissing them as a hoax and others hailing them as proof of the existence of intelligent life beyond Earth. Regardless of one's beliefs about Strieber's story, it is impossible to deny its impact on popular culture and the ongoing search for answers about the nature of the universe. To delve deeper into the strange and fascinating world of Whitley Strieber and his encounters with the unknown, read on.
Whitley Strieber, the prolific American author and screenwriter, was born in San Antonio, Texas, in 1945. After attending Central Catholic High School in his hometown, Strieber went on to earn degrees from the University of Texas at Austin and the London School of Film Technique in 1968. He then carved out a successful career in advertising in New York City, eventually becoming a vice president before leaving the industry in 1977 to focus on writing. Strieber first made a name for himself in the world of horror with the publication of his novels The Wolfen (1978) and The Hunger (1981), both of which were later adapted into successful feature films.
Strieber Was Allegedly Visited By Extraterrestrials One Day After Christmas
Whitley Strieber's claims of being abducted by non-human beings have long captivated and polarized audiences. According to his account, on the evening of December 26, 1985, Strieber was taken from his cabin in upstate New York by extraterrestrial entities. That fateful night, Strieber, then forty years old, awoke to find himself being carried into the woods surrounding his home. There, he claims to have been subjected to a brutal assault by unknown assailants, including giant insects and grotesque, troll-like figures. Among the circle of observers was also an old friend of Strieber's, who he later discovered had passed away several months prior. Strieber's extraordinary tale of alien abduction continues to inspire and intrigue, raising profound questions about the nature of reality and our place in the universe.
The Visitation Made Strieber "Aggressive"
Strieber claims to have woken up in the middle of the night to the sound of a strange noise, only to see a small non-human entity approaching his bed. The next thing he knew, it was morning, and he felt disoriented and strangely aggressive. Months later, during a session of regressive hypnosis, Strieber began to recall some of the memories from that fateful night. He claims that he was abducted by the very beings he refers to as the "visitors," who entered his home and took him against his will.
Nothing About The Abduction Is Normal
According to Strieber's account, the incident involved the appearance of mysterious 3.5-foot-tall creatures with their faces obscured by hoods and hats. These entities, whom Strieber later referred to as the "Visitors," carried him from his bedroom to a squalid room where he was subjected to a series of disturbing experiments. In the dimly lit theater-like space, he was surrounded by stocky, pale creatures wearing overalls that emitted a pungent scent of cinnamon and cardboard. Strieber claims that he was then subjected to a surreal and terrifying ordeal in which a silver needle was inserted into his head, leaving him with more questions than answers about the nature of his experiences.
The Abduction Was Truly Strange
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Strieber woke in the middle of the night on December 26 to a “whooshing, swirling” sound coming from the living room of his cabin along with the sound of a group of people “moving rapidly around the room.” Rather than call for help Strieber laid back down and tried to go back to sleep. It was only then that he noticed that someone, or something, was watching him from behind his bedroom door. He stared hard trying to see what the figure was, and that’s when it rushed him as he sat up in his dim room waiting for the worst to happen.
The Extraterrestrials May Have Been Wearing Armor
According to Strieber, the figures he saw were too small to be human, measuring approximately three and a half feet tall, smaller than his own son. One of the creatures was wearing a strange, smooth hat with a sharp rim that jutted out four inches on the side, concealing its face. Another figure appeared to be wearing a square plate with concentric circles etched on it, stretching from just below the chin to the waist area. Initially, Strieber believed it to be a breastplate or armored vest, but upon further inspection, he noticed a rectangular appliance of the same type covering the lower waist to just above the knees.
Why Didn't He Do Anything To Stop The Creatures?
Despite his initial disbelief, many have questioned why he didn't take action against these mysterious visitors. Strieber addressed these concerns in his book Communion, where he admitted to assuming he was either in the midst of a vivid dream or under some form of hypnotic influence. The question remains: was Strieber truly powerless in the face of his unearthly visitors? He writes:
In any case, I sat there frightened but unable or unwilling to deal with what I was observing. My mind explained my vision to me: Despite my full wakefulness, it must be a hypnopompic hallucination. Such phenomena sometimes occur as one drifts between waking and sleep. I assumed that some minor disturbance had awakened me and I was experiencing such an illusion, and never mind the fact that I felt fully awake.
His Abduction Was Similar To Sleep Paralysis
After his brief run in with the three strange creatures Strieber’s adventure was only beginning. He writes that he doesn’t remember falling asleep or interacting with the creatures, only that he was suddenly frozen in mid-motion without any clothing. He writes:
I was moving out of the room. There was no physical sensation at all, not of being touched, not of being warm or cold. I could feel myself asa shape and a mass, but not in terms of sensation. It was as if I had become profoundly paralyzed. Although I wanted desperately to movie, I could not.
After Strieber was floated out of his cabin, he remembers sitting in the woods where two creatures stood just out of his vision before he was lifted above the trees and into a "messy round room."
The Alien Ship
Even though he was reduced to a helpless human with little sense of who or where he was, Strieber does remember some details about the craft where he was allegedly deposited by the “Visitors.”
Streiber describes the room as a gray-tan circular chamber with a domed ceiling. He says that the room was stuffy and messy, with tiny humanoids moving around him faster than he could process. Aside from a bench where he was placed Strieber remembers little else of the room.
The Visitors Performed Experiments On Strieber's Brain
The most harrowing part of Strieber’s description of his abduction is what the Visitors supposedly did after bringing him onto the ship. He writes that he couldn’t stop screaming as the Visitors removed a “shiny, hair-thin needle mounted on a black surface” and jammed it into his head with a bang and a flash. Following this “operation” he realized that he was on some kind of table, surrounded by huddled figures who were all focused on him. After the needle he doesn’t remember much of what happened, only that he felt helpless to stop the creatures.
The Visitors May Not Have Been One Specific Race
Throughout the experience Strieber noticed that the creatures he was surrounded by were all different. Some of them were the big-eyed, slit mouthed extraterrestrials that we know from science fiction, but others were “small robotlike beings” and there were short, stocky creatures that were wearing dark-blue coveralls. These creates had wide faces and glittering deep-set eyes with stumpy noses and wide, human mouths. He continues, describing non-humanoid creatures that were around five feet tall, and very delicate. These creatures had mouths and noses that were almost vestigial. There were also smaller creatures with large button eyes. While he’s unsure what all of the creatures were doing together, he notes that the stocky Visitors were responsible for moving him from place to place.
The Creatures Were Allegedly Psychic
When Strieber was returned to his cabin by a mysterious creature, he was bombarded with terrifying visions of the world exploding. When Strieber attempted to resist the creature's psychic powers, the situation only became more intense and frightening. When he asked the visitors why he was being subjected to such horrors, they reportedly told him that he was "the chosen one." These surreal and inexplicable events continue to inspire debate and speculation among those who seek to understand the true nature of Strieber's experiences and their implications for our understanding of the universe.
The Visitors Were Invasive
One of the most invasive parts of many abduction stories is the claim of alien visitors probing their abductees, Strieber’s experience is no different. He says that following the brain piercing needle experience he was subject to a probe that he believes was performed to collect tissue samples. Whatever the reason for this, he states that this was the moment where he finally grew angry with his alien captures. Following this invasive procedure a creature made an incision on Strieber’s index finger and then he woke up the next morning in his bed.
Strieber's Memories Were Shaky The Next Day
When Strieber woke up on the morning of December 27th he was discombobulated to say the least. He had the distinct memory of seeing an owl on his roof, something that he now believes was his brain trying to make sense of the creatures. When he asked his wife about the owl she responded that she didn't remember seeing one. There were no owl tracks on the cabin roof.
His Mood Changed For The Worse Following The Abduction
In the days following his abduction Strieber notes that he was not only completely physically wiped out and feverish, but that he was frustrated and aggressive. When the family's neighbors came over to chat, Strieber says that he found himself lashing out at them for no reason. He writes:
No sooner had we started talking than I found myself complaining that I thought I had seen the light of a snowmobile in the woods between our houses at about three in the morning. I was horrified at myself. What was I saying? I couldn’t remember any such thing, and I knew it even as I spoke… After some small talk, our neighbors went home. I was not pleased with my own behavior, and found it hard to understand because it seems so non-volittional, almost as if I had been talking against my will.
There Were Multiple Sightings Of Lights In The Sky During Strieber's Abduction
Strieber writes that it wasn’t until January of 1986 that he read local accounts of objects sighted in the sky over Middletown, New York. In the local paper, the Record, one man claimed to see multiple things fly over a brightly lit local state prison, in that late he saw multiple planes.
More proof arrived in the form of Strirber’s 18-year-old neighbor. On the night of Strieber’s abduction the boy saw “something” hovering over a road about five miles from the cabin where Strieber was abducted. He didn’t call it a UFO, but rather an unknown solid structure that hovered in the area for close to 15 minutes. While this doesn’t prove Strieber’s story it certainly backs up his description of the evening’s events.
Strieber Didn't Believe His Experiences Until He Spoke With Other Abductees
The idea that he'd been abducted and tested upon was too much for Strieber, and rather than immediately jump to the conclusion that he was abducted by aliens, the author sought for any other answer. It wasn't until he spoke to other abductees that he warmed to the idea that he was the victim of an interstellar kidnapping. First, he spoke with a woman who saw a UFO in 1953 that resembled the craft that took him in 1985. He then reached out to a man named Budd Hopkins who had an alleged run-in with a group of extraterrestrials.
After looking up Hopkins and calling him out of the blue Strieber realized that not only had he experienced something real with the Visitors, but that his interaction with them on December 26 wasn't his first. He realized that the Visitors had been contacting him as recently as October of that year.
He May Have Been Marked With A Tracking Device By The Beings
Whitley Strieber's encounters with the "visitors," as he calls them, continued to escalate in the years following his alleged abduction. One particularly peculiar experience occurred when he found himself in the throes of passion with an otherworldly lover. Strieber also claims that two enigmatic beings implanted a small piece of metal into his ear a year or two later, leaving him with even more questions than answers. These bizarre encounters with entities beyond our understanding have left an indelible mark on Strieber's life, cementing his status as a figure of fascination and controversy in the world of paranormal research.
A Mysterious Man Visited Strieber In 1998
A strange and unsettling incident involving Whitley Strieber occurred in the early hours of June 6, 1998, during his stay at the Delta Chelsea Hotel in Toronto. As he slept soundly in his room, Strieber was suddenly awakened by a loud knock at his door, he was once again being visited by a strange being. Stieber told the Huffington Post:
I got up to open the door, thinking it was the room service waiter. It was not. It was a man I described as about 5 and a half feet tall, older-looking, like someone in his 70s. He wore dark-colored clothing, a turtleneck and charcoal slacks.
Strieber took notes on the strange being who he says remained stationary by the window for almost an hour, delivering a warning about the perils of developing an intelligence more advanced than its human creators, and when the author asked about ethics and machinery the being replied:
An intelligent machine will always seek to redesign itself to become more intelligent, for it quickly sees that its intelligence is its means of survival. At some point, it will become intelligent enough to notice that it is not self-aware. If you create a machine as intelligent as yourselves, it will end by being more intelligent.
Strieber says his one on one with the stranger was, "the most extraordinary conversation I have ever had in my life."
Strieber Warns That His Experiences Aren't Meant To Be Taken Literally
Whitley Strieber's book Communion made him a household name and a prominent figure in the field of alien abduction research. Despite his uncertainty about the nature of his own experiences, Strieber became something of a poster boy for the phenomenon, attracting widespread attention and fascination. The book's publication sparked a wave of public interest in the topic of extraterrestrial encounters, and Strieber soon found himself inundated with letters from readers describing their own close encounters with the unknown. He tells Texas Monthly:
My first books were unfortunate in one respect, in that they were so vividly written that readers and the media looked at them as descriptions of experience rather than descriptions of perception. There’s a great deal of difference between the two.
Strieber's Abduction Became A Cult Classic Film
In 1989, Whitley Strieber's harrowing account of his alleged abduction by extraterrestrial beings was adapted into a feature film starring Christopher Walken. Titled Communion, (naturally) the film follows Strieber's character as he grapples with the traumatic experience of being taken aboard an alien spacecraft and subjected to a series of bizarre experiments. Directed by Philippe Mora, the film garnered mixed reviews upon its release, with some praising Walken's performance and the film's unsettling atmosphere, while others criticized its slow pacing and reliance on Strieber's controversial claims. Despite the divided reception, Communion remains a fascinating exploration of one man's encounter with the unknown.
