Whitley Streiber sees a drone (really!)

[Gil Bavel]

repost from Whitley Strieber's Unknown Country email:

Whitley Strieber Sees a Drone

This morning at 4:53 AM, Whitley Strieber saw a drone over Santa Monica, California. The Striebers are in California seeing friends, and Whitley has sent me the following email, with permission to publish it. He will write a journal entry about his experience that will be posted on Saturday, December 8.

And remember, there are a lot of people out there lying about the drones and trying to debunk them. But these people ignore ONE THING: Linda's interviews with credible eyewitnesses. Do not be deceived about this.

This is his email:

Well, in one sense the drones mystery is solved because at 4:53 this morning, I saw one.

I had an extremely restless night, full of complex and astounding dreams that I will record in a journal on my website. They also involved my book the Key and the crop circles, and have led me to a very clear understanding that there is a new level of consciousness available to us now. The dreams lasted from about 3:00 to the moment I woke up and saw the thing outside, which was at exactly 4:53. (I know the times because I sent one of my agents an email at 2:47 about a business matter, then went to bed and was shortly asleep. When I saw the drone, I was looking across the bedroom toward the window, with my wife's lighted clock just visible below the window.)

I woke up lying on my side, and saw the thing moving just below and in the bottom edge of the clouds. It was stormy. The object was enormous, and from where I was lying it must have been no more than a few hundred feet overhead. It appeared almost level with the line of the roof that is visible outside my window. It was moving toward our building at a stately pace, gliding easily, like a dirigible. I had the impression that it was quite large, but obviously, no way to tell for sure. Because of the clouds, I did not see the characteristic tall antennae on it, but I did see structure that looked a lot like what the bicyclists photographed. I immediately woke Anne up and went to the window. But we could not see it from the window.

I looked for a while, trying to see if I could spot some edge of it in the clouds. It had not been moving fast at all, so there was reason to believe it was still there. Not seeing it, I went to the dresser and got my cellphone, which has a camera in it, and put it beside the bed. I then lay down and turned over to the same position I had been in when I first saw it--and there the thing was again, clearly visible just below the cloud cover. Now it was much closer to the house. When I moved my head to get up again, I could no longer see it. When I returned to the original angle, I could see it again. This time, it was gliding west, toward the ocean, only its lower structure visible in the clouds. I opened the cellphone, in an attempt to take a picture of it from that angle, but by then it had passed beyond the edge of the window. I saw nothing more of it, but there is no question in my mind at all but that they are real.

 

[David Biedny]

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm........

 

[Gil Bavel]

Have you guys heard from him yet?

 

[ABR486]

I would love to hear Strieber on The Paracast. By the way, knowing that David and probably most folks (including myself) think the Drone photos are fakes- this could make a Whitley interview even more interesting. Whitley has to know that most folks think the pics are hoaxes. I checked out the Unknown Country boards and even people on it were talking about them being fakes. So for him to come out and say this- it's definitely gonna resurrect the charges of his experiences being due to hallucinations. Has anyone definitively traced back the drone pics to their origins? I've heard a lot about them being viral marketing- do we know the company yet? I don't know, in a way I give Whitley credit for coming forward with this. He has to know he's gonna get a ton of crap. And thanks to gilbavel for sharing this info!

 

[Frootloop]

Theres has been a great deal of talk going on at www.openmindsforum.com regarding this. I posted a copy of the same email as above over there (I didnt post it here as I knew the general concensus here of it being a hoax).

I have to wonder if what Whitley saw was hallucination fed by an expectation of seeing the drone while in the area.

Theres been plenty of possible stories of viral marketing surrounding this story, but so far, none have been proven.

 

[Gil Bavel]

Get real. That's a pretty detailed hallucination. And by the way...

...Why on Earth would you accuse Whitley Streiber of hallucinating, twice, and for long enough to get his cell phone camera out?

Why don't you just call him a liar and be done with it?

Oh, yeah, he's going to risk his considerable career--right before pre-production starts on the biggest part of it, the 2012 movie--on a hallucination. Don't you think by now, Whitley knows the difference?

This came from his official web site email--he obviously wants people to know _he_ thinks he saw one... why can't you take him at his word?

Is it because YOU don't believe him, or Because you think that the consensus here is that it's a hoax?

 

[Frootloop]

Get real. That's a pretty detailed hallucination. And by the way...

...Why on Earth would you accuse Whitley Streiber of hallucinating, twice, and for long enough to get his cell phone camera out?

Why don't you just call him a liar and be done with it?

Oh, yeah, he's going to risk his considerable career--right before pre-production starts on the biggest part of it, the 2012 movie--on a hallucination. Don't you think by now, Whitley knows the difference?

This came from his official web site email--he obviously wants people to know _he_ thinks he saw one... why can't you take him at his word?

Is it because YOU don't believe him, or Because you think that the consensus here is that it's a hoax?

Firstly, try Decaf.

Secondly, I have a lot of time for Whitley Streiber and wouldnt be so rude as to (as you suggested) call him a liar. I see nothing wrong with keeping an open mind either way. But who really knows how another person interprets and recalls an event?

Thirdly, is it wrong for me to question what another person sees or experiences? Surely it doesnt matter if I believe or disbelieve anyones account of an incident..... or perhaps it does... perhaps it matters to you? maybe you can tell me what to believe

 

[Chuckleberryfinn]

I know there are some Strieber fans on this board. Forgive me.

Communion was fascinating but everything Strieber says these days comes off as so much bullshit. Master of the Key, 2012, Pleidians following his literary career, and now he's seeing drones.

I consider him an unreliable narrator.

Master of the Key, give me a friggin break. Maybe next he'll introduce us to Guardian of the Secret Doorway.

 

[Michael L.]

Didn't the drones turn out to be a promotion for AlienWare or something?

Yeah, here is The Daily Grail's coverage:

http://dailygrail.com/node/5594

Personally, I think Whitley is getting a little nutty... he is hanging around with William Henry (what does he claim to be? some kind of mythologist or something... he doesn't even seem to understand that ancient, foreign cultures did not speak English) too much!

 

[Chuckleberryfinn]

From Strieber’s “Unknown Country” (www.unknowncountry.com)

“In the two years after I met him [the Master of the Key], I fretted about writing his words down because I feared that he was really me. Just me. So how could there be any credibility for force behind the words?”

He continues:

“So I come to a new peace inside myself. I am not going to worry anymore about the Key, and the question of whether or not the Master is really a fictional character. He cannot be fictional, because he said things that, at the time, I did not believe and would never, personally, have said. So he was, indeed, an authentic mystery.”

Whenever Strieber mentions “The Master of the Key” (Rick Moranis had already trademarked “Key-Master), he always includes a few lines reflecting on the possibility that the individual could simply be a fictional character he made up. He implies that the person could be and probably is real but concludes in ambiguous language that perhaps it’s all make-believe.

This is called “unreliable narrator.” It has been a common literary device for a long time. “Don Quixote,” by Cervantes, was one of the first books to use it so effectively. Almost all of the classical authors have used it from time to time. It makes a story more fascinating because it causes the reader to question whether the narrator is actually telling the truth. It creates mystery and ambiguity. The narrator becomes a character in the story.

That’s what Strieber is doing here, I think: standard literary practice to generate mystery and a greater readership. I’m not knocking him for it. He is obviously a talented storyteller.

And as for getting mad at people who question the reliability of his claims, Gil, consider what I’ve said here and realize that Strieber himself generates the criticism with this kind of language.

Maybe some aspects of Communion really happened -- I don’t know. But there is nothing special about 2012, there is no Master of the Key, Pledians do not follow him around at airports and read his books, and he does not see Drones.

 

[Gil Bavel]

Says you.

Experience is, by nature, experiential. None of you can say what Whitley experiences save him.

I'm going to take the award-winning pioneer in the field at his word.

The rest of us are just people that may or may not have read his work, or even had experiences. Frankly, I find Whitley a hell of a lot more credible than I find the average guy on the street--and I'm willing to guess, after the chips have fallen, so are you. He's not only a credible witness, but he knows what he's looking for.

Whitley can discern the difference between what he calls a "Probe" or a "Drone", and something absolutely 180 degrees inimical to that.

Give the guy a break, and have a look. Is it really so hard to believe?

Are you really willing to hang your final argument on "Whitley hallucinated something after 30 years of taking exception to every single totally weird phenomena?

 

[GetoffMyPorch]

Hah! If these people only knew you as well as I do, Chuck, they'd realize that you're crazier than Strieber.

 

[Frootloop]

Are you really willing to hang your final argument on "Whitley hallucinated something after 30 years of taking exception to every single totally weird phenomena?

No, but am I expected to believe everything from someone I dont know who is on the other side of the planet says without question?

I think its important to listen to lots of opinions, believer and sceptic alike, youre suggesting that I believe what Whitley says simply based upon his status as "award winning pioneer". I DO listen to Whitley's Dreamland Podcast, I DO subscribe to Whitleys email newsletter, but personally, I like to think for myself and come to my own conclusions given the information at hand.

 

[Poi]

I've said this before in a different way, but I'll say it again in defense of Whitley.

I think the guy has portals open that I hope never to open. That originally made him a writer, because his imagination is unfettered by limits I place on my own imagination. In other words, he has no limits and because of that he goes to places both real an imagined while never knowing distinct lines between the two. So maybe for him, there is no line at all. That's typically the line in Eastern thought, that while we are allowed to perceive in our flesh, without a firm hold on the flesh, the impossible is reality.

I don't think he's a liar. I do think he creates more than what is written on a page. He makes it real by the merest suggestion of belief in what is possible He just does it on a scale that most of us dare not. Sure makes for an interesting life, one I enjoy reading about even if I wouldn't wish for it.

Guess I feel that way because sometimes I do the same thing, though never to the degree that he does. But if I imagine something, sometimes it manifests for me. That says loads about our ability to create. It's also very disturbing.

 

[Gil Bavel]

There's a line drawn between Streiber's fiction and his non-fiction. The Grays, 2012, Majestic, Unholy Fire; all of his horror fiction as well as stuff like Warday, The Hunger, The Wild and so on are squarely fiction.

The stuff he preports to be real, that he calls "A True Story" from (if we really have to go all the way back to) Communion, up to and including the official unknowncountry email from which I posted--which he said he saw and did not give a wink or a nod despite any storytelling device--is meant to be read in the same light as the daily paper, which I'll submit is a hell of a lot more fantasy than anything Streiber has written.

Alienware may make nice-looking, expensive computers, but as far as I know, they don't have the ability to create advanced prototypical drones with humming, electrostatic, as-of-yet unknown propulsion systems.

While we're on the topic--I long ago decided these were fakes. I did not believe the claptrap that LMH was reporting from Chad and the other witnesses that had only managed to take snapshots and not any film or video of these things in flight. I didn't, and I don't, believe the drones are real.

What Whitley reported, he said was "Humongous". At the very least, he might have seen something and thought it was a drone--but if he says he saw it, not in the context of a fantasy book, but in the context of an interim email to the unknowncountry membership--it strikes me as true, and I'm going to take him at his word.

So I am not defending the California drones from Lake Tahoe, Bakersfield, Capitola, Sequoia National Park, Canoga Park and Big Basin State Park that witnesses reported to LMH. Although the story about the park ranger that, when asked what that "strange object up there is", simply replied, without looking at it, "Oh, those are part of the park service, no big deal" or whatever, _does_ strike me as the type of writing Strieber is known for.

I _am_ defending Whitley. For those of you that still question his Communion experiences, I'm sure you'll recall that he immediately submitted himself to a battery of tests, and was found to be 1) not crazy, 2) not to have any kind of altered or injured brain problems and was 3) found to be mentally stable, in good health and not abnormal in any psychiatric way (sane). The alternative is to call him a liar.

I'm unfamiliar with any of this Pleidians nonsense, I've never heard about it until this thread.

I used to be friends with William S. Burroughs, he's from my hometown. William and some of his staff went up to Whitley's cabin in upstate New York on invitation as he was one of Whitley's literary heroes. They didn't see aliens. No Grays. One of his staff, off the record, did tell me of a paranormal event that I'm not at liberty to discuss that happened on their last day there. What I can say is that he didn't necessarily attribute it to the Visitors.

Perhaps Whitley is one of those people that attracts bizarre activity to himself. Maybe he is a sensitive. I don't know. I'll agree that he's a talented storyteller; I enjoyed the Grays thoroughly.

To say "everything Strieber says these days comes off as so much bullshit" is an opinion, and we're all welcome to them. Just as we're welcome to make judgments about the drones having not seen them. They look photoshopped to me, too. But Whitley Streiber seems to have seen more legitimate UFOs than most entire MUFON membership roles.

In a letter to President Reagan, Dr. Edward Teller reported a danger "from space" of RPVs, or "remotely piloted vehicles" that, if went unacted upon, could be very dangerous. There have been reports over the years, far too many to count, of UFOs operating in the infrared or ultraviolet spectra, that were only seen because of a total fluke, or perhaps because they shifted their frequency for some reason. One in recent memory was filmed with Flir photography by the Mexican Air Force. Invisible to the naked eye. Mysterious effects around UFOs have been reported as long as UFOs have, the things have bent railroad tracks.

Exploring the mysteries of the paranormal is why we're all on this board (if you're here for some other reason, you're being disingenuous, and should be sent packing). Whether you're a believer, a debunker or a skeptic, or just along for the ride, you're presumably here to unravel the hard to believe to get at what's really there.

As for William Henry--look, Whitley has a radio show to do, he has to get guests on to keep the show new and different and interesting--some of them are going to be kooks. Some of them aren't going to hold your interest. Whitley is a Christian, and sometimes goes off in directions _I_ don't find interesting, or even VALID. Okay? But I take him at his word when he pops off an excited email completely unrelated to anything else rather than sniff around to see if it smells like BS. I really don't think he woke up one day and decided, "I'm going to write an email to all of my members and lie about seeing a drone". Yes, it's an opinion. In lieu of facts, it's all we have.

But I think I know Whitley well enough to assert that he isn't going to join the ranks of what could possibly be an easily exposable hoax just before one of the biggest points in his career just for the hell of it. I'm a Strieber defender and I'm going to defend him.

 

[Poi]

Decent argument there.

As another of his defender's, I also reserve the right to criticize some of this thinking. Sometimes he's off the wall, but I'm referring to his logic, not his experiences. He may do the same with my brand of logic! LOL

 

[Michael L.]

But William Henry isn't a guest; he is the regular fill in host. And I find him a major credibility hazard to anyone associating with him.

 

[Gil Bavel]

As for the Alienware aspect, I followed the link put up and here's what I got (repost):

It is indeed an interesting development.

Having watched this in particular and a number of virals it leads to a few conclusions:

1. If it was Alienware the launch would have been the time for the reveal as it would have generated an extra level of discussion about things and probably (albeit briefly) pushed the Caret business into the mainstream. The only counter to this would be that they didn't want to alienate (no pun intended) potential buyers b revealing they'd hoaxed them all along but I can't see that being a big dent in sales.

2. If we assume #1 is correct then we they must have had some serious meetings with their lawyers as they'd probably want to avoid any kind of hassle like the recent HB,HG vs DVC lawsuit. As they got the go-ahead I suspect they have decided that:

a) Widespread distribution and no claims for copyright have essentially made this public domain work by default.

b) Any lawsuit would actually be good publicity - sales figures for HB,HG and DVC jumped during the court case although possibly a boost in sales didn't cover the costs incurred by the losing side.

c) They've tracked down the creators and have bunged them some cash or the hoaxers have said it is OK to use as it raises the profile of the whole business.

d) They've figured the amount of cash hoaxers would get in a lawsuit would be negligible and not worth revealing their hand. Of course, if caret is done then they'd have nothing to lose. It may be this combined with b) has led the lawyers (and accountants) to conclude the worst case scenario is extra sales from a lawsuit cancels out any settlement, especially if a) means they'd actually have a good chance at winning a case.

e) Extraterrestrials currently have no legal standing under Earth law so they can go and get stuffed. Problems may arise if they can show occupation of Earth for long enough for them to get some form of squatters rights or the US government may have come to some kind of legal understanding granting them the status of migrant workers in return for access to underground bases and advanced technology. Alienware may figure they don't want to show their (grey and elongated) hand but it might be the directors have been pencilled in on the anal probe rota. I'm sure they have their own ways of getting their pound of flesh

3. They might be denying it as there is another phase in the viral but there haven't been any recent developments to keep the pot simmering and it would be odd to be a the point where you'd have to deny your links if you later owned up to it. Of course, the round of Caret reports might have been laying the foundation for something bigger that will emerge in the next year or so but Alienware would be left looking a bit silly.

So I doubt they are involved but they have probably put in some effort behind the scenes to cover their asses either with a payoff to the creators or with some kind of calculated risk that if they get sued they have things covered.

We'll see as if there is going to be any suing done the papers will probably be filed soon.

 

[Chuckleberryfinn]

There's a line drawn between Streiber's fiction and his non-fiction. The Grays, 2012, Majestic, Unholy Fire; all of his horror fiction as well as stuff like Warday, The Hunger, The Wild and so on are squarely fiction.

The stuff he preports to be real, that he calls "A True Story" from (if we really have to go all the way back to) Communion, up to and including the official unknowncountry email from which I posted--which he said he saw and did not give a wink or a nod despite any storytelling device--is meant to be read in the same light as the daily paper, which I'll submit is a hell of a lot more fantasy than anything Streiber has written.

The line between his fiction and supposed non-fiction is more blurry than you admit. Even Strieber himself says that his fiction contains a lot of non-fiction that he simply cannot verify. He thinks that there really is a girl who can and does communicate with the Grays via mental images for the military; he thinks that there are other humans out there from another planet, like sleeper agents, who are here combating the Grays. He probably even thinks that there is a smart little boy out there that the Grays want to assimilate. The difference is that he cannot verify it. Similarly, the passages that I quoted from his journal cannot be verified. Strieber says (go back to the quote if you don't believe me) that he isn't sure if the Master of the Key stuff is fiction or not. What!? How can you not know? Was he dreaming? How can you not know if you made something up or not? How am I supposed to react to that? I think it's just standard literary practice. That doesn't make Strieber a bad person. I'm not saying that. It makes him a clever author.

Alienware may make nice-looking, expensive computers, but as far as I know, they don't have the ability to create advanced prototypical drones with humming, electrostatic, as-of-yet unknown propulsion systems.

While we're on the topic--I long ago decided these were fakes. I did not believe the claptrap that LMH was reporting from Chad and the other witnesses that had only managed to take snapshots and not any film or video of these things in flight. I didn't, and I don't, believe the drones are real.

What Whitley reported, he said was "Humongous". At the very least, he might have seen something and thought it was a drone--but if he says he saw it, not in the context of a fantasy book, but in the context of an interim email to the unknowncountry membership--it strikes me as true, and I'm going to take him at his word.

So I am not defending the California drones from Lake Tahoe, Bakersfield, Capitola, Sequoia National Park, Canoga Park and Big Basin State Park that witnesses reported to LMH. Although the story about the park ranger that, when asked what that "strange object up there is", simply replied, without looking at it, "Oh, those are part of the park service, no big deal" or whatever, _does_ strike me as the type of writing Strieber is known for.

I _am_ defending Whitley. For those of you that still question his Communion experiences, I'm sure you'll recall that he immediately submitted himself to a battery of tests, and was found to be 1) not crazy, 2) not to have any kind of altered or injured brain problems and was 3) found to be mentally stable, in good health and not abnormal in any psychiatric way (sane). The alternative is to call him a liar.

I have already said that there may be some truth to Communion. There have been some witnesses, evidently, to strange phenomena at his cabin. I don't know how much of it is real, however. I don't know what to think about Communion, if it's real or not, etc. Strieber's writing style produces that kind of an attitude, I think, as I showed you before. As for all of the drone stuff, I more or less agree. Maybe he saw something and didn't get a good look at it. Maybe he thought it looked like a drone from those pictures. But that's very doubtful. Those things were made up by a bunch of hoaxers. They don't exist.

I'm unfamiliar with any of this Pleidians nonsense, I've never heard about it until this thread.

He calls them "blondes," actually. Just once he considered that they may have been Pledians in a discussion I listened to on google video. Still, the idea that blondes or whoever follow him around, read his books, is pure fantasy.

Perhaps Whitley is one of those people that attracts bizarre activity to himself. Maybe he is a sensitive. I don't know. I'll agree that he's a talented storyteller; I enjoyed the Grays thoroughly.

Yes, perhaps he is one of those horror authors who attracts paranormal phenomena to himself that resembles horror fiction. It's a strange universe, so perhaps you're right about that. I, too, enjoyed "The Grays" very much.

To say "everything Strieber says these days comes off as so much bullshit" is an opinion, and we're all welcome to them. Just as we're welcome to make judgments about the drones having not seen them. They look photoshopped to me, too. But Whitley Streiber seems to have seen more legitimate UFOs than most entire MUFON membership roles.

An opinion, yes. I think it's a good opinion. He doesn't just write fiction about 2012 and call it fiction, as you said. He talks during interviews about how he thinks that a lot of it is surely real. Master of the Key, 2012, etc., does indeed sound like pure fantasy, even though Strieber says that some of it is true.

In a letter to President Reagan, Dr. Edward Teller reported a danger "from space" of RPVs, or "remotely piloted vehicles" that, if went unacted upon, could be very dangerous. There have been reports over the years, far too many to count, of UFOs operating in the infrared or ultraviolet spectra, that were only seen because of a total fluke, or perhaps because they shifted their frequency for some reason. One in recent memory was filmed with Flir photography by the Mexican Air Force. Invisible to the naked eye. Mysterious effects around UFOs have been reported as long as UFOs have, the things have bent railroad tracks.

Yes.

Exploring the mysteries of the paranormal is why we're all on this board (if you're here for some other reason, you're being disingenuous, and should be sent packing). Whether you're a believer, a debunker or a skeptic, or just along for the ride, you're presumably here to unravel the hard to believe to get at what's really there.

What's your point? I think that Strieber isn't clear about the distinction between his fiction and non-fiction? Therefore I should be sent-packing? I'm not really interested in exploring the mysteries of the paranormal? You are very touchy. Someone doubts your guru and you want them to be booted from the forum?

But I think I know Whitley well enough to assert that he isn't going to join the ranks of what could possibly be an easily exposable hoax just before one of the biggest points in his career just for the hell of it. I'm a Strieber defender and I'm going to defend him.

What are you referring to? The movie being made about 2012?

Now, to say something nice about Strieber, because I don't want this whole discussion to be badmouthing him: I think that the guy has about 10 times more talent than I do. I write some fiction, but I'm not even in the same league as this guy. The Grays was an extremely entertaining book, as was Majestic. Those two and Communion are the only Strieber books I've read. I've skimmed through The Key.

Mark Twain was criticized in his time for writing entertainment/art stuff instead of heavy philosophical or didactic work. Now, he's considered by many to be the best American author ever. I don't think that Strieber will surpass Twain as the best American author, but I certainly do think that some of his books will become classics. I like his fiction a lot.

Whatever UFOs turn out to be, scholars will go back and start reading the stuff UFO researchers are writing now. Imagine that disclosure happens in, say, 100 years or so. Maybe Strieber or Fowler or Dolan or Dick Hall or whoever will have been forgotten for a while, but those future generations will pour over their works and study them in history classes in Universities for a very long time.

 

[Gil Bavel]

No, CBF, of course I don't mean you should be sent packing. And for the record, Streiber isn't my guru. But the sheer numbers of people that came out of the woodwork to write letters to the Communion Foundation (before the Intruders Foundation existed) to report the high strangeness of the VERY SAME VARIETY as Streiber's is cause for alarm, and justification for what he said he saw (back then)--unless, I suppose, you think he also wrote all the letters that were published in all those different voices in the Communion Letters. I suppose it's possible, but even so, several other books came out around the same time, within a few months of each other, including Budd Hopkins', and others. There were a whole cluster of books released around that period of 1987.

The consensus seems to be, from the responses that I've read, that people in general on the board seem to think that something did happen to Whitley that was--unusual. Paranormal. Visitors (Dude! Visitors! :0 ). The thing is, I don't have a problem with him mixing in non-fiction into his fiction to establish a vehicle for him to get information out that he either can't confirm, but suspects, or is classified. For instance, his uncle, Col. Strieber, claimed to have come into contact with the Roswell wreckage and bodies, but only after Whitley had published Communion, and only off the record. As far as the Grays go, I'm pretty sure the telepath they were using with "Adam" was based on the Alien Interview, which was allegedly smuggled out of Area 51, the one that made Robert Dean nearly cry when he saw it. That's fine.

But when Strieber is accused of going the other way 'round, mixing in fiction with non-fiction, as in this case, with sending out a missive to the masses that he saw a drone or something like it, that's totally different, I don't see the point, and it would be counterintuitive and counterproductive for him to do so.

Yes, the 2012 movie could be ruined by Whitley out and out lying about seeing something that's widely considered (even by me) to be a hoax. They're in pre-production right now. I'm a writer, too, there seem to be a lot of us on this board--I happen to be a screenwriter--and I can tell you that one thing he doesn't need right now is a scandal to ruin his current project. His book with Art Bell, The Coming Global Superstorm, was made into the blockbuster The Day After Tomorrow. He has had a hard time getting any other movies made from his work since Communion because it flopped like a dead fish at the box office. This is his big shot at redemption. He's not about to ruin it so he can hop on the "Chad's Drone Train" only to get knocked off.

Look at the way he purveyed this information. It was a one-off, not part of the regular updates to unknowncountry, he seemed excited, and what he revealed was down to Earth, not the ethereal mumbo-jumbo he writes about in his fantasy work. This was nuts-and-bolts stuff. He was reporting a sighting.

I'm not trying to validate any of the drones here. Just to try to get you guys to open your minds to the idea that just because we don't necessarily believe the drones are real doesn't mean that Whitley didn't see something that he thought was a drone. It wasn't the drone that I was posting about, it was his sighting. Whitley is a high strangeness guy. High strangeness happens to other people (Villas-Boas, the Hills, Cash-Landrum, etc.), but they aren't already-established, articulate writers with the ability to recount what they see to millions of people. I'm sure we've all wondered at some point or other whether Whitley was chosen _because_ of his literary gift.

As far as the Blondes, Pleiadians, or whatever following him around, I dunno. Unfamiliar. But I enjoyed most thoroughly the part of (Transformation, was that it?) the book where the two cloaked figures in the bookstore are at the endcap, looking through the books and talking about where and what he got wrong. There have been other accounts from him about creatures in the woods out by his cabin. Not everything has happened in the bedroom. Hell, if Whitley had stuck with the regressive hypnotherapy, there might have been another fourteen books.

I'm not sure I understand the point behind comparing Mark Twain to Whitley Strieber. Maybe in that they're similar in some ways. But one thing I'll tell you--you don't sell millions of books and get forgotten in a few dozen years. There will be copies of Whitley Streiber's work floating around in the post-apocalypse long after we're all gone. Maybe even more so than Twain.

The popular fiction of the day helps to define the worldview of that day. Just as Twain helped to broaden the worldview (and sense of humor) of the readers of his day, perhaps Strieber has been tasked with the same mission--but the subject matter he's supposed to convey is comparatively darker, with implications that run deep into the id of humanity. I think he's remarkably brave to keep coming back after being laughed at, shunned, accustomed to, revered, reviled, and hung out to dry by so many.

If he wanted to, he could have written Communion as a semi-autobiographical novel about a writer that has contact with aliens, or whatever they are, and then gone on to the next thing. He didn't. He stuck with it to try to understand whatever is going on and he continues to ask questions. He could have written Communion as non-fiction like he did with Majestic, the Secret School, the Grays and 2012. Yes, he's made and lost and made yet another fortune on it. But my point is, he could have gone on and written another ten books about The Hunger, etc. I find it interesting that much of his early work looks as though it could very well have been influenced by the abduction phenomenon before he was even aware of it. Warday contains scenarios that many abductees report--the destruction of Earth in nuclear fire--etc., ad nauseam.

Streiber is a pioneer, and it's true that the pioneers are the ones with the arrows in their backs. But the sheer vastness of similar stories that followed after he bravely came forward with his own experiences so bizarre as to strain credulity to the breaking point--surely that buys him some credibility? No, you don't have to agree with every point or hang on his every word. But he came out with whatever was happening to him and continues to do so--and I personally think he's earned our ear.