16
T
SPYING ON A BESTSELLING ABDUCTEE
he year 1987 was also notable for being the year in which the biggest-selling book on the alien abduction phenomenon— ever—was published. The author was Whitley Strieber and the book was Communion. Prior to writing Communion, Strieber was chiefly known for his horror novels, such as The Wolfen, The Hunger, and Black Magic. That all changed, though, in 1985, when in late December of that year Strieber had an astounding encounter of the alien abduction kind. Utterly terrified by his experience with what he called “the visitors”— but also deeply driven to find out all he could about them—Strieber began to dig into not just his own encounter but the domain of alien abductions in general. The result was an absorbing, thought-provoking, and deeply personal story of one man’s personal exposure to something unearthly and almost unfathomable. As a skilled writer, and as someone with a distinct flair for the atmospheric, Strieber was able to weave an incredible tale of how the alien abduction phenomenon radically changes lives, alters one’s perceptions on reality and the world around us, and leads those exposed to the phenomenon to realize we are not alone in the universe. Communion was also made