The Whitley Strieber Communion Experience
Whitley Strieber was already a successful novelist when something happened at his remote cabin in upstate New York on the night of 26 December 1985 that upended his life. He woke to find non-human beings in his bedroom. What followed, a series of encounters that would continue for years, became the book Communion: A True Story, published in 1987. It reached number one on the New York Times bestseller list. The cover painting by Ted Seth Jacobs, depicting a grey-skinned being with enormous dark eyes, became the defining image of the alien encounter in popular culture.
The visitors are real. I don't know what they are. I can tell you what they did.Whitley Strieber, Communion, 1987
The Night of 26 December
A cabin, a noise, and the visitors.
Strieber's account begins with a sound. He and his family were sleeping at their isolated cabin. He woke to a whooshing noise. Small beings were in the room. They took him. The details that emerged under hypnosis with Dr. Donald Klein, a psychiatrist at Columbia University, included being transported to a small, dirty room and subjected to a medical examination involving a needle inserted into his brain through his ear canal. He described several types of beings: small, robotic ones and a taller, more insect-like figure.
What separates Strieber's account from many contactee narratives is his refusal to frame it as benevolent. He was terrified. He wrote about the experience with the craft of a professional writer, but the terror, confusion, and sense of violation come through on every page. He did not claim to understand what happened. He described it and left the reader to draw conclusions.
I have become the keeper of a secret that is not mine to keep and not mine to tell, and so I will simply describe what happened.Whitley Strieber, Communion, 1987
The Cultural Impact
One book changed how the world pictured contact.
Before Communion, the public image of alien beings was varied: robots, Nordic humanoids, bug-eyed monsters from B movies. After Communion, the grey, with its oversized cranium and black almond eyes, became the default. Ted Seth Jacobs' cover painting was based on Strieber's descriptions and his own dreams after reading the manuscript. The image proved so powerful that it entered global visual culture within months.
The book also legitimised a wave of abduction accounts. Budd Hopkins and David Jacobs had been quietly researching abductions for years. Communion made it acceptable for ordinary people to come forward. The flood of reports that followed was both a gift to researchers and a problem: genuine accounts became harder to separate from imitation and false memory.
The Ongoing Record
Decades of subsequent encounters and reflection.
Strieber documented further experiences in Transformation (1988), Breakthrough (1995), and The Secret School (1997). He came to view the visitors not as extraterrestrial in the simple sci-fi sense but as something more complex, possibly interdimensional, possibly connected to human consciousness in ways he could not fully articulate. He has described implants, missing time, and encounters involving his son.
Whatever one makes of Strieber's experiences, his contribution to the public record is significant. He brought the abduction phenomenon out of specialised UFO journals and into mainstream bookshops. He also paid a personal price: ridicule, professional marginalisation, and decades of uninvited visitors.
Strieber's accounts are self-reported and unwitnessed. No physical evidence has been independently verified. His professional background as a horror novelist has led critics to question whether his experiences were fabricated or influenced by his creative imagination. Supporters note that he sacrificed a lucrative fiction career and his public reputation, an unusual choice for a hoax.
Dr. Donald Klein, who conducted Strieber's hypnosis sessions, was one of the most respected psychiatrists in the United States, known for his pioneering work on panic disorder. He found Strieber to be psychologically normal and his memories consistent with genuine traumatic recall.
The archive holds 6 newsletter articles on Strieber's experiences across MUFON, APRO, and other publications. His case is referenced extensively in abduction research literature. Related: United States sightings.
Key People
The witnesses, investigators, and officials connected to this case.
