What site do you mean? Streiber claims to have had contact with THEM at various places throughout his life. There is no one central site.
The phenomenon of abduction by strange beings, even including the anal probing, dates back for centuries; you can google up amazingly similar accounts from the Renaissance era and before. At the time it was attributed to angels and demons, but with the advent of Sci-Fi it became UFOs, a phenomenon within the phenomenon that Carl Jung dubbed “technological angels” (i.e. unexplained mysteries that had once been attributed to the divine or at least supernatural were now attributed to the unexplained technology as the world secularized a bit and technology ascended).
I don’t know anything about Strieber beyond that book and movie, but I do know that people don’t have to be crazy or stupid to be highly suggestible. I think that’s a huge part of the abduction craze: the reports of “the grays”, for example, exploded after the artists renderings of the aliens Betty and Barney Hill described were shown- before then you’d had everything from literally “little green men” to Bigfoot like creatures, but then grays became dominant.
And while I agree sleep paralysis doesn’t explain every account, I think it does explain some, especially combined with suggestion and hypnopompic/hypnagogic hallucination (which almost everybody’s had to some degree.
Did the abductees see UFOs? Usually not in the cases I’ve read about. Don’t you think what they saw was affected by the culture? I don’t know if it was always sleep paralysis, but long drawn out experiences and UFOs are not evidence against it. And I don’t think the people are just crazy. They truly think they have had these experiences.
Lets not blame science fiction - UFOs in science fiction followed the first supposed encounter in the late 1940s. Skeptical Inquirer, I believe, once had an interesting article where they sketched the most common aliens from various times since 1950 - and they lined up nicely with aliens portrayed in movies.
I don’t think he’s lying, I think he really believes it.
A combination of sleep paralysis, and hypnosis which puts you in a highly suggestible state and so any imagery that is even implied is subsequently solidified in memory, has destroyed any objectivity. It’s all imaginary, but now is rock solid in his memory like a genuine event.
It varies.
I never said it wasn’t.
A long, drawn out experience is evidence against it being just sleep paralysis. Keep in mind, I’m not saying these people really met extraterrestrials. I’m just saying sleep paralysis is not the answer.
I really miss the Benevolent Observers from an Ancient Race, since they usually wore togas.
Read it twice.
Then read the sequel, “Transformation.” It’s really important you read the followup book; it gives you a totally new insight into “Communion.”
It becomes very, very apparently that Mr. Streiber is suffering from schizophrenia. The poor man was sick and vulnerable and was taken advantage of.
Alice, I read the book as a 14 year old kid and it freaked me right out, too. I had never given aliens much thought at all up to that point, and to this day, I am in the camp of, “If they are out there, it is unlikely they have any interest in us.” But the book still scared the hell out of me.
I think he’s just a good writer. Just like you said, he was able to make me feel how terrified he was. I haven’t revisited as an adult. I can tell you that the boy who lent me the book was totally shaken up by it. He was a tough kid, always into trouble, very hardcore kind of guy (actually did 18 years for murder later, but I digress). I never saw him look scared before. Shortly after reading the book he came to my house at 3 in the morning, threw rocks at my window to wake me and convinced me to sneak out to see something ‘important’. Turned out he wanted to show me some lights in the sky that he thought were UFOs. This was a good friend, and I had never seen him act like this before.
I wouldn’t read the book again. I traumatized myself as a kid with too much Stephen King, and now as an adult, I won’t read scary books. Scary movies are ok, but scary books…can’t do it.
He was, at one point, a pretty damn good writer. Both Warday, and the other book he wrote with James Kunetka, Nature’s End hold up quite well. Too bad he went nuts.
Maybe someone already mentioned this, but here is Whitley’s website, Unknown Country, chock full of UFO information and discussion.
AKA The Space Brothers, tho George Adamski - King of the Contactees- did not see them in togas.
For what it’s worth, I think Streiber & a great many people have experienced something- in some cases their own wild imaginations, or suggestions under hypnosis, or some kind of beings that like to mess with people’s heads. Hell, there’s a theory that all this is CIA & various other Gov’t agencies on some great mind-freak program.
You have to give Adamski credit - he made predictions based on his contact about what Venus would be like. Totally wrong, and no one seems to have made that mistake again.
Being a contactee is not a path to respect and fame and fortune for the most part, so I agree that these people experienced something - just not a contact. It is kind of like many religious experiences - they happen, but without external evidence they probably can’t be taken at face value. (I know you may disagree.) And there is of course the total absence of physical evidence of actual contact.
I think the whole thing is kind of a next step from actual saucers, which should have left evidence but didn’t, to a more personal contact experience that is more mysterious. Kind of like how the number of sightings has diminished now that everyone has cameras. Given how many shots we got of the meteor in Russia, a true saucer would be all over the Internet in no time.
I remember one hot summer night, 3 a.m., I was sleeping in the living room with the tv on, all the windows open. I woke up to see this guy was on Larry King, and he scared the living piss out of me. To make matters worse, a police helicopter came buzzing over the neighborhood shining a spotlight right across the street - I was so terrified I ran upstairs and locked myself in the bathroom till dawn, about an hour later. :rolleyes: I know it sound stupid. I was even afraid to take the trash out at night, alone, for a month. Husband said, ‘why would the aliens want YOU? for one thing you’re too old to be breeding stock for their intergalactic zoo.’ (well, they might have wanted me for parts.)
The movie was scary - but what Travis actually experienced (or said he did) was rather tame. Certainly no ‘operation’ or anything of the sort.
Here’ssome insight into his working methods. First thing I thought about when his name came up.
Looking it up, I think this was April 18, 2008, Strieber was on Coast To Coast AM talking about human mutilation-abduction cases. The show just ended at 5 AM here is Southern Indiana, I’m turning off everything so I can sleep for the day (I work night shift so am usually up all night when off work). The china & glassware cabinets start rattling. I jump up to see if Mom might be running to the bathroom sick. She’s wondering why I’m waking her up & asks if I might have dreamt the shaking. Now I’m a bit spooked. I turn the TV on to hear the reports of an earthquake in SE Illinois which we felt in SE Ind & the TV reporters felt in Louisville KY. Whew!
Oh, I forgot to mention Communion seriously freaked me out too. I’m still not sure quite why.
I would suggest this be your next read. Sagan thoroughly covers modern alien abduction stories and their correlation with sleep paralysis and medieval incubi and succubi, and shows just how easily unscrupulous hypno-therapists can plant false memories.