Shock Docs (2020–…): Season 3, Episode 4 - The Visitors - full transcript

[Whitley] This is
Whitley Strieber.

I wish to warn you...

this tape was not
originally made

for public use.

It is hard to hear.

So, there is very
frightening screaming.

It should not be listened
to by little children.

It will affect them negatively.

[Whitley screaming]

[Larry] Welcome
to Larry King Live.

Tonight, Close Encounters
of the Third Kind.



Whitley Strieber says
they're really out there

and they could be coming
to get you.

Now, here's Larry King.

Our first guest
tonight is author

of the runaway
bestseller, Communion.

He is Whitley Strieber.

[Whitley] What happened
to me was,

after I finally realized
that this was real,

-And you found
-I...

-people from another planet
-In the sense
that they were...

- abducted you.
- [Whitley] Well, people,

something that was non-human,
that was intelligent.

And I started
trying to challenge it

to get through my fear.



And over a period of months,

I formed a relationship
with them.

[Melissa] Whitley Strieber
was a New York Times
best seller.

He wrote
a book called The Wolfen,

which then became a movie.

Also, another book
called The Hunger,

which also became a movie.

This is a guy who's already

a known entity.

He's a great writer.
He's got a great career
ahead of himself.

Whitley Strieber
is also a person

who went through
something profound

back in 1985

and wrote a book
about it called Communion

that pretty much changed
the entire landscape.

How do you know
you're not nuts, Whitley?

[Whitley] Well...

[Melissa] Before this,
there's no conversation

of people being abducted.

And here, this known entity

writes this book and says,
this happened to me.

This is a landmark
in this field.

- You've taken lie
detector tests.
- [Whitley] Three, yes.

He was a chosen one.

It was not, uh...

not exactly a blessing.

It was an ordeal.

Briefly, for the benefit
of those who may not know

and of course, I guess
the Strieber story
is pretty well known.

What happened to you initially?

[Whitley] Just a lovely day,

exactly the kind
of Christmas Day

that a happy family

you know,
basically a wonderful
life situation

at that point would have.

And it snowed.

I'll never forget.

We went walking and...

the snowflakes were so...

they were like,

like under a microscope

when you see a snowflake,
all the crystals.

But they were big and they
would fall on your gloves

and we would look at them
and it was fascinating.

That was the quietest,

loveliest evening
you could imagine.

And then suddenly

a, a group of them are
coming toward him

and he gets taken
outside to the back porch

where he's placed on this cot.

That then takes him out
to a clearing in the woods.

I remembered

sitting in a circle
in the woods...

in the snow.

And then I suddenly
went up in the air.

I felt like when you're
going up in a fast elevator,

I felt my stomach
went, left behind

and I see the trees going by

and then I see the clouds.

Then, I'm in a little room

just like that.

[Melissa] It's frightening,

being completely conscious,

not having control of your body,

and then being shot up into

some kind of ship or room.

[Whitley] And I kept trying
to wake up

because I obviously
was not in bed.

You know, it had to be
a nightmare, right?

And, um...

I realized these creatures
were there.

They were funny looking.

They were like the workers.

And then there was this willowy,

kind of taller...

being with the great big
black eyes.

He was the leader.

It felt like a woman to me.

I kept trying to wake up

because I thought
I was having a nightmare.

I wanted to smell them
because I wanted to...

I was trying to get
some way of...

telling whether or not

this was real.

So, this one puts his hand up
against my face

and it smelled like cinnamon.

The smell of cinnamon
was grounding in one sense.

It made me think that

I was in a real situation.

In another sense,
it was extremely disturbing

for the same reason.

The real situation
I was in was very weird

and very provocative

with two different kinds
of extremely strange
looking creatures.

And I was physically helpless
and couldn't get away.

That's when they start
to perform experiments
on his body.

[Whitley] Blue ones open a box

and show me this needle,

and they're gonna put the needle

in my head, I...

How I know that, I don't know,
but I do.

And I start to say,
you're going to ruin
a beautiful mind.

But they put
the needle in the side
of my head, anyway.

It makes a cracking sound,

but there's no pain.

And then I find myself

having this thing thrust
into my rectum.

I remember a horrible feeling

of coldness went through my body

when that happened.

[Jeff] He wakes up
in the morning,

he feels like he's been in a physical fight,

he feels sore, hurting,

and, and shaken
by something he went through.

Just this,
this waterfall of emotions

and fear, it all comes
crashing down.

[Whitley] I had trouble
remembering my whereabouts,

and that was because
of the trauma that
was involved.

[Melissa] Something
happened to him,

but he's not
connecting the experience

with his body.

So, he feels separated.

Is he crazy?

I was gonna tell
his wife that.
What if she leaves him?

[Whitley] I remember
these big eyes

and I said to Annie,

"I think an owl
got in here during the night."

And she looked at me like,
you know, are you nuts?

Then at the same time,

my, my anus began to hurt.

And it hurt
a lot, as to the point

where I wasn't
comfortable sitting down
for very long,

writing, and I, you know,
I like to write.

And then I had a...

a red mark on my head,

on the side of my head and
I seem to remember someone putting a needle in it.

He cannot figure out
what happened to him

and he's not really sure
what to do.

This is a life changing event

that has sent him on a path of, "Am I crazy?"

And if I'm not crazy,

what does this actually
mean for me,

the world, my family, my life?

[Whitley screaming]

[Anne] We'd already been
married a long time

and we were very happy.

And all of a sudden,
I couldn't figure out
what was going on.

[Annie] Whitley changed,
and our relationship
with him changed.

He seemed very disturbed

and troubled and...

agitated.

[Whitley] So, I finally,
I went to the doctor.

I talked and he thought
he'd see hemorrhoids.

And he says,
well, "You know, Whitley?
You, there's a lesion.

You know, you've been raped."

And I almost threw up on him.

Oh!

He said, "Well, why don't
we do this?

Let's do some
psychological tests.

Let's do some medical
tests and see where we are."

Between that time...

I had looked up

what happens to in a marriage

if one member of the marriage
becomes mentally unfit?

And the answer was that

Anne would have a very
hard time divorcing me.

I'm trying
to protect her from ending up

with this helpless,
useless husband on her hands

when she's got
a little boy to raise.

I don't want her to suffer that.

[Anne] So, he started, he would
start picking fights with me...

and trying to make me
mad, and then I'd get mad

and he'd say, "Well, why
don't you just divorce me?

Why don't you just leave me?"

[Whitley] I wanted
her to divorce me,

but I didn't want to tell her.
I thought I was going crazy.

Then I, I had a...

After the tests all
came back normal...

I swear to God, I did
not know what to think.

I thought to myself, "How
do I tell Anne this story?"

And so I called my friend,

Timothy Greenfield Saunders.

[Timothy] He seemed
a little disturbed.

And I said, you know,
Whitley, what's going on?

He goes, well, I don't
know how to say this,

but, you know. And
I said, what, what?

And he said, he finally,
kind of, got it out and said,

"I was abducted by aliens."

I was the first person
he had ever told

about the abduction.

I could tell from the way
he was speaking to me

that this was very real to him.

Uh, I mean, I thought
he could have had a...

a psychotic break or
something. I didn't know.

But it was not put on,

you know.

[Whitley] And I said, "I'm trying
to figure out how I tell Anne this."

He said, "Whitley, I have
no idea what happened,

but I think that you just tell her what you remember,

that's all you can do."

And...

she was very nervous

because she thought I
was going to say, it's over,

the marriage is over.

And...

so I said, I have
a story to tell you.

And he said to me,

"I think I've been
abducted by aliens."

And I said to him,
"Oh, thank God,

I don't have to get a divorce."

[Melissa] Anne helped
him get through the trauma.

She was able to get
him to that next level

where he was
comfortable with his story,

and then he could help change
the landscape of, of the space.

I guess that was the
moment when we...

began to be able to
handle this crazy story

of being taken
up in the air and...

seeing the insect people

and the visitors and then...

being raped and all
this stuff was in my head,

but I did not know
what to do with it.

My brother had sent me a book

called Science and the UFOs.

And in the back of it
there was a description

of an experience
very much like my own

or quite similar to my own,

that was recounted by a
researcher called Budd Hopkins.

[Jeff] Through the mid '80s,

Budd Hopkins was one
of the biggest names

in UFO research.

[reporter] He has written
two books on the subject,

the latest of which
is called Intruders.

My name is Debbie Jordan-Kauble,

and I am the central figure in
Budd Hopkins book, Intruders.

I noticed a strange
light in the pumphouse

of my parents swimming pool.

I was concerned with prowlers.

My father had a shotgun

and I picked it up.

I continued on back
across the yard,

I checked the pump house

and I suddenly felt...

it was like a hot
flash times ten,

and my skin felt,
like, it was on fire.

Little gray guys.

There were six of them

and they seem to come
from every direction.

It was about eight
feet in diameter,

it was shaped like an egg.

Three or four, like, skinny arms

that came out of
the center part of it

and down to the ground.

There was one
point where I felt like

something stabbed me in the ear

and I, in my head...

saw, like, a knitting needle
that was hot with heat.

Whatever happened
during that time

just wiped from
my mind completely.

The next day when I woke up,

there's this mark
in the backyard.

Eight foot diameter circle

had like a 49-foot swath

that went all the way
across the backyard.

And all the grass in it

just, kind of, turned this grayish brown and laid down.

The first thing that
came back to me

as I'm looking at this mark,

I was like, I see these
two big black eyes.

So, he got me in touch with...

the best forensic hypnotist,

probably in the United
States, Dr. Donald Klein,

who was the head of the New
York State Department of Psychiatry

and had used his forensic
hypnosis techniques to solve,

at that point in his career,

72 different crimes.

And so I was
comfortable with him.

[Whitley] This is
Whitley Strieber.

You're about to listen to
my first hypnosis session

with Dr. Donald Klein

conducted on
March the first, 1986.

I wish to warn you.

So, there is a significant
amount of screaming.

It is very frightening
screaming.

It should not be listened
to by little children.

It will affect them negatively.

[Donald] Eight...
going to sleep.

Nine... going to sleep.

[voice of Whitley]
I saw something

that looked like it
had a hood on it.

Yeah.

Standing by the wall,

near the corner in our bedroom.

And I don't want it...

to be there.

- Listen. I can't listen to it. I'm sorry.
- [Donald] Okay.

I can't do it.

When I hear my voice,

the fear comes back
into me immediately.

And it's just
impossible to do it.

I can't listen to it.

It's a beautiful weekend.

And...

we take some friends, Jacques Sandulescu and Annie Gottlieb,

up to the cabin with us.

And we have...

lovely dinner on Saturday night,

come home, we chat for a while

and everybody goes to bed.

Between three and four I think,

the whole place was
suddenly flooded with light

and it was so bright,
it woke me right up.

I thought, "Holy God,"

the roof has been set
on fire by the stove.

Then the light goes out.

[Whitley] It wasn't human
and it wasn't an animal.

It felt like, maybe, the way a snake
would be interested in someone.

And it struck at me.

It had this little thing...

in I just wanna say its hand

because it was moving like that

and when it moved
it through the air,

chitiz, chitiz, like
it was electric.

And it hit me in the head
with it twice in the forehead.

And I saw the...

then, I didn't understand.

It's just horrible,
terrible images.

Uh, and he's shaken by them.

I saw my son dying and
I saw the world on fire.

And now...

of course, the world is on fire.

[sobs]

One of the things that's
so telling in this audio

is that Whitley not only
sounds like he's this primal fear,

but you hear his Texas
accent come back.

Uh, it's not there
in the beginning,

which means he's
going all the way back

to his earliest days.

I, you couldn't make that up.

I mean, it is,
it's like visceral.

You can feel it in your heart

because somebody's trapped
and being forced to, like,

witness something...

horrific.

[Whitley] If it is aliens

and they are doing this.

Most people, including
me until recently,

just didn't even believe
the dead existed.

They only think that
when a person is dead,

they're dead.

But, um, I don't, know,

I don't know that's
true anymore at all.

[Jeff] These visitors

are now intermingling
with, with the dead.

At first we were
talking about aliens,

but now we're talking
about spirits and ghosts

and everything, all
at this one property.

And it makes the story
a whole lot stranger

than it ever was.

And it already
was pretty strange.

[Whitley] The actual
experience at the house

on October the fourth,

probably lasted,
maybe, under 5 minutes,

maybe under a
minute, for all I know.

Then there's a big bang,

then the light goes out.

And then when it came to the
surface during the hypnosis session,

I walked out of there
a different person.

And I've never been back.

I'll never be back to the person

who was alive in me before then.

I'll never go back.
I can't go back.

It's a blind test.

Whitley just says, "Can
you please do this for me?

Can you go through
this regression?

They're gonna ask a
few questions and that's it.

They don't even
know what it's about..

[Jeff] Jacques
remembers thinking,

"Oh my gosh, I slept to noon.

How rude of me."

But then the light goes away

and he goes back to sleep.

Jacques and Annie
are staying in the room

directly beneath
Whitley and his wife.

Annie remembers the sounds.

So, what the hell
was that about?

That, that it was somehow

masked or suppressed,

that we had no memory of it...

and then we had
such a vivid memory of it.

[Melissa] Can you explain
the light in the window

and the pitter patterin'
of feet, unless...

it suggests that whatever
Whitley experienced

really did happen.

[Annie] We couldn't understand

why if these things had happened

in the middle of the night,

we hadn't reacted more.

It was as if we were
sort of immobilized.

[Jeff] Clearly, everything's
just coming together.

All these pieces of the puzzle

just come together all at once.

And then Whitley has to assume

that the rest of his experience,

what, what he
remembers and recalls

through his regression
must also be backed.

When the monster's
not in the closet

and it's real, it's a
different experience.

It's as simple as
that, my friend.

Anne listened to the tapes...

"Just, just come here."

and...

took me in her arms.

It was Anne

who suggested to Whitley that,

that he write this down,

that he put this in a book,

uh, that he's he's bold,

he's courageous,
put it out there.

And also, as a
writer, I understand

that sometimes that's how
you exercise your own demons.

[Whitley] She was
the one who decided

to call the book Communion

because she said
that's what it's about.

And I said, "Boy, it sure
doesn't seem like that."

She said, "It will,
Whitley, it will."

And now it does, of course.

I literally sat
down beside him...

and he made a sketch...

of the face, as I talked,

on this little piece of board.

It's what I remember
on that night,

the 26th of December.

There was something, um...

immensely powerful
and knowledgeable...

about that face.

A little amused,
actually, like...

this individual had known

that I was going
to be very upset...

and had

now that I was going nuts...

she was sort of just
kind of rolling with it.

[serene music playing]

[Jeff] The book comes out,

I mean, well about
a year and a half

after the actual
event took place,

which is pretty
quick to write a book

and get it published.

And suddenly it's
this huge bestseller.

How do you know
you're not nuts, Whitley?

If they're real, why don't they
land on the White House lawn?

Well, because we're not ready.

We are not ready

to take away all of
our belief systems

and our understanding
of this world.

[Annie] I'm not a
believer, I'm an entertainer.

I don't believe or
disbelieve much of anything,

but I will entertain
almost anything.

[Whitley] The cover of Communion

became the de facto

image for what an
alien looked like.

And to this day, I think it is.

[Melissa] Back in the 1980s,

there's no images.

This is the first image

of these faces

that we now see all the time.

[Jeff] This book cover
stops people in their tracks.

They saw this entity and said,

"Wait, I've seen
something like that, too."

I didn't even notice
the title of the book

when I bought the book

because all I could
see was the face.

[Raven] I was
frightened at first.

All these years, I've
been seeing this thing

and having these experiences.

And then, how could I not

notice this face?

And I don't mean this is a joke.

But I want to say something.

Well, if they come
here tomorrow night,

who's ever on this show is off?

If your people
come here tomorrow,

- they're on, guarantee.
- Oh, okay.

-Okay? [indistinct] -I'll tell,
I'll try to communicate that.

Please, tell them.

[Annie] Whitley's
career took a real

90 degree turn at that point.

He was no longer
a horror writer.

He was a, uh...

documenter of this...

and an explorer
of this phenomenon.

[Melissa] What's
great about Whitley

is that he couldn't
just believe,

he wanted to have more evidence.

[Anne] Whitley, just kind of has a last minute whim.

He put our then
mail center address

in the back of the book
and invited people...

who were having
similar experiences to write.

And we got

hundreds of
thousands of letters.

In fact, the mail center

finally stopped taking them.

They made the, they
made the post office

come and deliver them
directly to our apartment.

Two or three postman
would come up

with these huge bags of mail

and pour 'em on
our living room floor.

And I just didn't know
what to do with them.

Annie starts opening them.

And I said, "You can't possibly read those letters."

And she says, "Oh, yes, I can."

[Jeff] What Whitley
Strieber did with Communion

was basically make this,

uh, accessible to everyone.

And when people read this book by the millions,

uh, so many others came forward

and said, "That's me, too."

[Melissa] "Dear Mr. Strieber,

I've just finished
reading Communion.

I feel compelled to contact you

to say thanks

for having the courage

to address the subject.

Approximately 23 years ago,

I had what I've always described

as a UFO experience."

So, this is another thing.

She writes this
letter and saying,

I respect you, but also,

look, I'm also a sane person.

I'm a normal person.

Uh, I have a great job.

I have a great family.

Uh, I, I write to you because
I've had this experience.

[Anne] And one of the
most common things...

was people would
write and they would say,

I was walking by

the window of my local
book store and I saw...

the book Communion
and I saw the cover

and I had to stop
and buy the book

'cause I had thought
I was the only one

who had ever seen that being.

And I never told anybody,

I never even told my husband,

I never even told my wife.

[Whitley] Lori Barnes,
back in the '50s.

Remember, this is
a time before anyone

thought about
anything like this.

She's lying in bed in
her apartment in Queens.

Her husband is on a gig.

He's a, a pianist.

There was no one
else in the apartment,

and I was quite pregnant.

And I heard

a terrible ruckus.

And then, these three...

little beings...

came rushing in.

And I was

absolutely horrified.

His skin was sort of gray.

He was terribly ugly.

He said don't be afraid,

we're not here to harm you.

We're only interested...

in the little girl
you're carrying.

At that time,
nobody knew this fact

of what they were carrying.

[Whitley] It puts
his hand on her...

wrist and says,

"Why do you fear us?"

And she says,
"Because you're so ugly."

And it then says, "My dear,

one day you will
look just like us."

[Lori] And then,

everything went dark.

And the next thing I knew...

it was daylight.

And I came to.

[serene music playing]

I met Whitley

because of that letter

that I wrote to him.

And I got a call

from Anne...

to become Anne's secretary

and helped Whitley

and Anne

with many thousands of letters.

This is a letter from Raven Dana

in response to Whitley
Strieber's Communion,

dated February 20th, 1988.

[Raven] I was probably only

30 pages or so into the book,

and I thought, "Oh
no, I need to write him."

Probably, four
or five years old,

are my earliest
memories, uh, and...

I had had numerous
experiences growing up.

It was just, uh, kind
of a strange part of life.

In my earliest years,

I had experiences as a child

of something standing
at the foot of my bed.

And it was the
classic figure that

you would see at the, on
the cover of Communion.

And that went on
for a number of years.

And then it stopped, then faded.

It's very close to
what I saw as a child.

The eyes were bigger,

the skin was grayer.

Um, but it's very it's familiar.

I mean, that was my,
my first experience

of looking at the books was...

that sense of familiarity, like,

I know that face.

Um, and it was, you
know, a little frightening.

One of the most
extraordinary letters is this.

A woman is driving
with her daughter...

in New Mexico...

and...

they have an
incredible experience.

[Anne] UFO was
hovering above their car.

This is textbook,
this is very common.

They're both taken
up in it, very common.

They go into a craft,

they're taken into other
rooms for a physical exam.

[Whitley] These
beings tell her...

not only that...

they're from another world,

but also she's a
member of their family.

Then, after exams are over,

they suddenly find themselves

back in their car and
they're missing time.

And the little girl
says to the mother,

the little beings
said they were sorry,

but I have bugs in my body

and they couldn't
get rid of them.

And I'm going to die soon.

This is six or
seven-year-old child.

So, they drive home.

And a few months later,
the little girl comes down

with incurable cancer
and she does die.

[Whitley] These are
stories of life beyond life.

Incredibly powerful stories...

involving life and death.

[Anne] It's not
straight science fiction.

It's not straight UFOs.

It's not beings
from other planets.

There's something else going on.

And I think, if we
could figure it out...

we know a lot more about
how the world really works.

Now that Whitley's
opened the door

to everything that's gone on,

he starts to have these memories

from even his
childhood back in Texas.

In my investigative work,

I usually find when
a person has had

an abduction experience.

When they get regressed

or they get further interviewed,

they realize
they've had a lot of

other weird experiences

that they couldn't
explain as a child,

or they go back to their family

and, and they ask,

"Has anything happened to you?"

And usually, 80% of the time...

there's always some kind
of generational connection

to these otherworldly beings.

When the book,
Communion, came out,

something really interesting that
happened with Whitley's family

was that his uncle came forward.

He was a colonel in
the Air Force at the time.

[Whitley] He was
present at right field

when the debris from the
Roswell incident was brought in.

He asked me to
come see him at...

Air Force retirement
place where he lived.

[Jeff] Whitley's uncle
would confide in Whitley

that we were told by the general

not to talk about
the Roswell wreck.

But he saw it

and said, this was otherworldly.

This is no weather balloon.

[Whitley] And just
forget these stories

that it didn't happen,
it did happen.

And then he introduced me
to his commanding officer,

General Exum.

General Exum said to me,

and I'm quoting him,

"Everyone from Truman, on down,

knew that what we had
found was not of this world

within 24 hours
of our finding it."

And there is a memo
called the Twining memo,

where General Twining describes

the functionality
of these craft.

And it's exactly the
same functionality

that you see in the Tic Tac

and gimbal videos.

[man on radio] [indistinct]
look at that thing.

It's...

[Whitley] Written years ago

and General Twining said

that he had...

not only seen the bodies,

but had encountered

a living... being

that was one of these aliens,

as he called them.

[Melissa] If the uncle was there

and he's like, things are real,

nothing happened to the uncle.

But the idea is now the beings

are targeting the family.

[Whitley] Anne was
vehement about it.

She wanted to continue to go,

because she felt like,

we needed to do this.

We needed to,

to, understand this
as best we could.

[Jeff] When Whitley's
son is seven-years-old

and on spring break,
they come up here

for a few days, which
is very normal for them.

[Whitley] I would go
downstairs every night

and check on him.

I sometimes would
sit outside the door

of his room with a shotgun.

[Jeff] And then one night

at 3:00 in the morning,

Whitley wakes up startled

and he's panicked.

And his first instinct
is to run downstairs

and check on his son.

He opens the door to the bedroom

and his son is gone.

[Melissa] You can
imagine the terror.

Your son is now missing.

[Jeff] Something
in Whitley tells him

to go outside to the backyard.

And when he goes out
there, he sees this craft

just above the tree
line and it's huge.

It's, it's, filling the sky.

And the thought occurs
to him, "Oh, my God!"

They've taken my son.

[Whitley] It looked like
he was in the bed at first,

but when I went near the
bed, I, I, couldn't find him.

Then I ran outside

and there was this
huge star in the sky.

And these two tall men

came toward me.

Something inside of Whitley

tells him to go back inside,

back into the cabin.

And as he reaches
for the doorknob,

there's almost, like,
this static charge to it.

But he doesn't care,
he's gotta get inside.

[Whitley] The
next thing I recall

is being back in the house

and finding he was
there in the bed.

[Melissa] You
have to be relieved

that your child is
back in their bed.

But you also
have to be terrified,

because did he get hurt?

Did something happen to him?

[Jeff] The next morning

everything seems
okay with Whitley's son.

He seems to be
acting pretty normal,

but the discussion is strange.

[Whitley] He wrote

the most lovely little poems

about the night.

We wanna go out
beyond the quasars

to see what's there.

"Reality is God's
dream," he said that.

He said he had seen this
eye looking down at him

and he had floated in the woods.

He said, "Is it a dream, Dad?"

Whitley, I can't,
I can't imagine

what he must have
felt, like, inside, but,

but, he just, kind
of, reassured his son

that everything was okay.

He didn't wanna
scare his own child.

I let it go.

We, you know,
because we had decided

that we would not

pursue this with our son,

because at the time,

if my imagination
was running rampant,

we didn't wanna infect
our little boy with that.

[Jeff] It's Whitley's birthday,

and he starts to have
some strange sensations,

like, like, feeling
this electric charge.

And the electrical devices

around him are going haywire.

His radio is doing weird things.

There's strange
images on his TV.

And that's when he realizes

this is not just
at night anymore.

This isn't just when I'm asleep.

This is around me all the time.

[Whitley] I did think
that there might be

something weird about the area

than I came across

these Hudson
Valley UFO sightings,

and I realized this
has all happened

30 miles from the cabin.

[Melissa] Hudson Valley

is, is, a hotbed

for people that
have been abducted,

for UFOs in the sky,

for any kind of experience.

[Denis] I was driving home

from a church social

in the village of Brewster,

which is about 55 miles north

of New York City.

And I looked up
and there was lights

just parked in the sky

and it was quite spectacular.

I pulled my car over

and got out

and, uh, right next
to Interstate 84,

the whole Interstate

had come to a stop.

Now, people are actually
getting out of their cars

and pointing at this object

hanging over the Interstate.

[Frankie] I looked
up into the sky

and there was...

I don't even know what it was,

but it was just, it was

so ginormous

that it was not a blimp.

You know, some people
were saying, "Oh, I saw a V."

I saw some neighbors of,
uh, an adjoining house nearby

and I'm like, "Look
up, look up, look up."

[Denis] Approximately,

5,000 to 7,000 people

witnessed an object

hovering in the sky.

So, I was coming south on 87

and, uh, I had a flash of light

hit me in the eyes

while I'm driving the truck.

It was strange,
because it wasn't just

a regular beam of light

from a car or
anything like that.

It was a light from
a long distance.

And all of a sudden, I see
out of the side in my eye

in the sky

was this big...

ship.

It was a, a, boomerang shape.

This thing was like, uh, you
know, 500 feet above me.

It's not making a sound.

It was, uh, it was big,

even bigger than a 747.

So, this was
hovering over the truck

for about five minutes

and then disappeared.

Gone.

[Whitley] The area

turned out to be
a big UFO hotspot

and I was right, right,
in the middle of it.

[Whitley] In May of 1989,

I was lying in bed

Anne was asleep beside me.

It was about 11 o'clock at night

and I heard

the crunching of
gravel in the driveway.

Scared the dickens
out of me, of course.

And...

the next thing I know,

I can't move.

I can't see anything.

And there's someone
pushing very hard

on the side of my head.

Whitley had another incident

where he, kind of, woke up

and got pushed
down into the pillow.

[Jeff] There's a
pain behind his ear,

and when he wakes
up, there's blood specks

on the pillow.

And this is when he believes

he was implanted

with some device behind the ear.

[Whitley] It was
very scary indeed.

And the main door

of the garage is open,

wide open.

Even though the alarm
system is still armed.

Whoever got into the house

got in that way.

[Jeff] So, Whitley
feels this lump

behind his ear, like
this, this, implant.

[Whitley] I wanna take it out.

I feel it. It bothers me.

Sometimes my ear turns red,

and gets hot,

and it creeps me out.

And I find a doctor

who's willing to
take a look at it

not as an implant,

I didn't tell him that.

And he says he feels it.

And he says, "Well,
it feels like a little cyst.

I'm sure I can pull that out."

[Whitley] He deadens the ear

and opens it up.

[Whitley] And he
touches it with his scalpel,

and wheesh, goes
down into my earlobe

on its own, moves on its own.

[Anne] I can see
you've just raised it

and now it's,
uh, I don't see it.

It's like a little
tiny white disk.

So, he, sort of, pulls back.

He knows I wrote Communion

and now he's made
the connection.

I'm trying to take
an alien implant

out of this guy and
I'm, I'm, done here.

[Jeff] At, at, some
point, the doctor says,

"I don't think I
can get this out

without mangling your ear.

And so they stop the
procedure at that point

and Whitley comes home,

and it's Anne who suggests,

hey, Whitley, maybe
you wanna leave this in.

What if this is some
way to communicate

back and forth? What
if this is now opening,

uh, a two-way...

communication with these beings,

whereas before they
had to come to you.

Now, maybe you can call to them.

Does that mean that the implant

is controlling his mind?

How he thinks?

Uh, is it just there
to monitor him?

We don't know. But
that's another thing.

That's, kind of, terrifying.

What is that they want?
Why are they here?

Whitley said, you
know, here's the thing

I, I, invite people sometimes

to the cabin who
have had experiences

that we feel are incredible.

I have a feeling that if
we bring people together,

something might happen.

[Whitley] Today, folks, we're going to go back in time

to 1989, to a little cabin

in Upstate New York

that most of you probably
are very well aware of.

But you may not know,

is that there were more than one

witness at that cabin who had
close encounter experiences.

[Raven] The film crew
was there and they were

setting up cameras in hopes of seeing if anything happened.

We chatted and we meditated

and, you know, we
went our separate ways

into our rooms to go to bed.

[Whitley] And what
happened there?

[Raven] What I remember was,

waking up feeling ah, warm.

I was hot and I pushed
the window open

and rolled back over
to go, to go to sleep.

Just a few minutes later,

I felt something
come on the bed.

[Raven] My first
experience wasn't fear.

My first experience was,

well, what do I do with this?

And as I thought that
the being raised a hand

and without even thinking,

without, without
letting myself give into

the strangeness of it,

I reached up and
touched those fingers.

When that happened, it
was a tremendous, um,

like a surge of energy
electricity current

that ran from my,

from the my leg up
the side of my body

and out my hand
where I had touched it.

And that's when it
just, kind of, struck me,

like, ah, I just touched the hand of
something that doesn't live in this reality.

You basically handed
me a notebook,

it said, you know, write
down what just happened...

- [Whitley] Yes, exactly.
- [Raven] ...which I did.

[Whitley] And I also
took a picture of you.

- [Raven] Yes.
- [Whitley] A picture which I still have

a Raven Dana who was,

obviously having,

in quite a state of shock

and having an allergic reaction

you can see the swelling...

- Mm-hm.
- [Whitley] ...all around her face.

[Raven] I had trouble breathing.

I was wheezing, my
eyes were red and glassy.

I didn't know,

that people who had experiences

often had allergic reactions.

So, again for me
the important things

are those, those
odd validations,

that I had this experience
and I'm not the only one.

[Melissa] A film
crew were all set.

They had the whole hallway,
everything, kind of, rigged,

with cameras, um,

audio devices, hoping
to capture something.

But, as soon as
this event happened,

everything shut off.

For years, I've been
trying to get this on video,

and I've gotten very little.

Nothing that you
would say is definitely,

something strange,
something non-human,

and whatever, for
whatever reason,

they don't want to be on video.

[Whitley] After theexperience,

life at the cabin
became very intense

for the next few years.

And the visitors
were there all the time

and all kinds of
things happened.

She says,

"I just saw my
brother on the road."

And we were all very surprised

because her brother had
disappeared 20 years before

and then the FBI had
eventually declared him dead.

[Lori] He was a very dear soul,

but he had, had
a very tough life

and had turned to drugs

and alcohol.

And then he dropped
from the face of the earth.

But he was there,

by your little shed.

I said "Shaun, look you,
what are you doing here?"

And he said,

"I came to tell you I'm fine.

Don't worry about me."

And he says that,

"You're in the right place."

[Whitley] And then he just
drifted back into the woods

and disappeared before her eyes.

And when Anne heard that story,

she said privately to me,

"The visitors will
be here tonight."

Because she knew of the connection
between the visitors and the dead.

So, this cabin has
become something bigger.

Some sort of portal.

[Whitley] This was truly
at the edge of the world,

at that time, that cabin and
what was happening there.

These are all people who were
having experiences at the cabin,

essentially anyone
came up there,

they would have
these experiences.

[Melissa] Could the
cabin, could this location

be a portal?

Is there something unique

about the ground, the soil,

the place,

that allows for visitors
to come through?

[Whitley] This is the circle.

This is the place where

I thought it happened.

I had those stones
put in there...

to mark it.

This is where it happened,
deep in this woods.

This was a very
special spot for him.

This was a place where he
connected with the visitors

up in their ship,

if you will.

There's something unknown here.

It's very provocative
and it needs study.

You wanna find
out how this works?

What it's there for?

If we do find out
the truth about it,

that's the first step
toward getting in control

of whatever it is
that's doing this.

[Melissa] With all Whitley's
success with Communion,

there comes a point where
he just can't sell any books.

He's kind of,

in a way blacklisted,

from some of the publishers
that he was dealing with,

and he has to sell the cabin.

[Whitley] The loss of that
cabin was a devastating blow.

When I left,
they'd left with me.

They followed me
and Anne to Texas.

They would wake
me up every night,

touch my cheeks,

hit my head,

make a school bell
sound in the living room.

But then it quieted down.

Then I hadn't seen
them for a long time.

Then everything
changed immediately.

[Whitley] She passes away,

on August the 11th, 2015

at 7:15 in the evening.

[Jeff] Within an hour
and a half of Anne dying,

Whitley gets a phone
call from a friend,

who said, "I don't know why,

I just heard Anne's
voice in my head

saying to call you Whitley.

Is she okay?"

And Whitley said,

"No, she's not okay,
she just passed away."

[Whitley] Finally, I realize,

I remember the conversation

from so many years before.

Anne said to me,

"If I die,

I'm gonna come back to
friends and I'm gonna tell them,

to get in touch with you.

And you do the same for me."

And I thought, "Oh, my God."

She's doing it.

She's doing it,
from the other side.

The previous,

January she started

making me, um, a memorize a poem

called The Song of
Wandering Aengus,

by W.B. Yeats and
I didn't know why,

but she was very insistent.

And it goes like this.

"When white moths
were on the wing

and the moth like
stars were flickering out.

I dropped the berry in a stream

and caught a
little silver trout."

Right after she passed away

just a moth kept
coming up everywhere.

[Whitley] I was in a conference,

all windows are closed,
it's February, it's cold.

And suddenly the
white moth appears

and starts flying
around the room.

Then I got a picture of it.

Whenever I left the house
and was talking about her,

the alarm system,
cameras would signal

something and there would be this
moth flying around in front of the camera.

And I thought my God,

my wife has created
a physical avatar

to signal her presence,

in the afterlife.

- Hey, Anthony.
- Guys, welcome.

- Nice to see you.
- Nice to see you.

- Nice for coming here.
- Yeah, thank you.

[Anthony] My name is Anthony,
I'm the owner of the cabin.

We bought the
cabin three years ago

in 2018.

We didn't really
know too much about it

until we were walking
through and then they had

mentioned that this
belonged to a Whitley Strieber.

I read the story back
in '87 when I was a kid.

It's always fascinated me,

so, I felt a real strong
connection to the house.

I do believe that the
property is a vortex.

[Melissa] I want to
check out that circle.

Why this spot?

Is this spot special?

In that it has some
kind of property

that allows for you to actually
connect with the visitors?

[Jeff] I'm here because of
what happened to Whitley.

I'm here because I get to walk

into the legend and
become part of the story.

When you have an
experience like that,

it's just such validation

for those big questions.

We're not alone.

There's something
more to all of this.

And I have proof,

even if that proof
is just my own.

[Melissa] The circle
is really important.

So, my thought process is if there's
gonna be any energy that's unusual,

it's gonna be at the circle

where people have
put their intentions

into meeting the visitors,

and there could be
some kind of anomaly.

- I'm sure it's a little bit easier for you to see.
- Okay.

[Melissa] The
owner of the property

has been searching
for the answer himself.

Anthony seems to know
a lot about the property

and specifically Whitley.

And then in the back
here is, is the creek.

[Melissa] He has extensive maps

to find circle.

[Jeff] It's in a bit of a dip.

[Anthony] Yeah,
you'll see the meadow.

And Whitley talks
about that in the book

about how it's at the
edge of the meadow.

[Jeff] So, we should be able to
get out there in less than an hour.

Yep.

I've noticed since we've
been here just how quiet is.

I haven't even heard
planes flying overhead.

Um, just what a remote area.

But that's also a little
frightening for some people.

- Right, the idea of being that isolated.
- Definitely.

Whitley had a lot
of security in place.

He really wanted to keep the
spot very protected and quiet.

And security is a
big thing for him.

I think that he wanted
to control the situation

with the visitors to
protect his family from that

and kind of isolate it just to himself as much as control.

Have you reached
out to Whitley Strieber?

I did reach out to Whitley
and, and he wasn't interested.

He said it was just
too painful to come out.

You know, after hearing
some of the tapes

of his hypnosis sessions.

When you hear the horror,
the terror in his voice.

I guess, I can't say
I totally blame him.

Yeah, Whitley did say that they
opened portals to other worlds

when he was here.

To have a person
where it happened,

in the place that it happened.

You just wonder if that,
you know, reconnects things.

- I can't help but wonder that.
- Me too.

This brings up a bigger point.

Is the encounter with the
visitors about the place,

about the cabin, about
the location of the cabin

or does it have
to do with Whitley?

[Jeff] I'm really excited to
stand where it happened.

It's one thing to read
someone else's experience.

It's quite another to
stand there yourself.

I can't help it,
I'm gonna look up.

I can't help it, I'm gonna see
if I feel anything with my body.

I mean, what would happen
if it actually did happen to me?

We could be next.

I don't think it's too far, but the
circle's just down around the trail I think.

[Melissa] It's
pretty remote, huh.

[Jeff] Yeah, we're out here

in the middle of nowhere.

It's cold, it's muddy.

Uh, it's gonna be rough
terrain getting out there.

I brought the gear for it,

and I'm just excited
to do our experiments...

around this incredible site.

So, I know, Whitley talked
about in some of his interviews,

how this was where he
would come to meditate

- and he'd bring others.
- Oh.

So, this is it.

Stone circle.

To think that one of the most
profound UFO encounters happened

right around here.

Oh, look, there's
these longer stones,

are these cardinal points?

So, I know that's west.

That's where the sun sets.

So, that would be north.

Did they actually
activate the location?

I think it could be interesting,

is that we can take the
rem-pods out of my backpack...

- Mm-hmm.
- And just test the perimeter.

- Sure.
- And see if there's any anomalies that come on.

[Melissa] Rem-pods are devices

that are able to detect any change in electromagnetic energy.

The thought process is

if this was the
place of contact,

if this was the place that,

that something came down and took Whitley up into the sky,

that the actual circle
might be activated.

[Jeff] So, the various
colors that go off

tell you how, how close
something might be to this device

or how strong the field may be.

Uh, the closer you are, the
louder it gets, the more it lights up.

- Yup. Make sure the antenna is up.
- Towards the inside.

Yeah.

We've created a perimeter,
surrounded that with the rem-pods.

[Jeff] We did it at each
of the cardinal four points,

north, south, east and west.

[Melissa] They do
not just sit there,

- they do not communicate with each other.
- Nope.

- And they are not connected.
- One does not go off,

because the other one goes off.

Once you set 'em up
and you get 'em in place,

the idea is you leave 'em alone,

and see if they start to act.

[Melissa] Last one.

- All right. Now, we sit and wait.
- All right.

All right.

[Melissa] Huh, did you see that?

[Jeff] Yeah.

And by the way,
we're not moving.

[Jeff] That was really weird.

[Melissa] Oh, I hear one.

[Jeff] It's this one.

Oh.

That's strange.

- It's reacting to something.
- Yeah.

[Jeff] South and east went off.

- [Melissa] This one's on fire.
- Look.

Two are going
off, north and east.

- [Melissa] Huh, that's one going off.
- [Jeff] All four of them

- are going off.
- [Melissa] All four of them are going off.

[Jeff] Holy cow!

Right after we
had all four set up,

they all went off
at the same time.

These things don't
talk to each other.

They're each on their own,

they're not
connected in any way.

And for all of them to go off
at the same exact time is weird.

[Melissa] It's always
one, two, couple over here,

but all four at the
same time going off.

And, and again,

I have to remind
you, we're in a circle.

A circle that people have
been activating for years.

Huh...

they all stopped.

Did you see that?

[rem-pods beeping]

[Jeff] What? Do you hear that?

Yes, it's definitely
reading something.

[rem-pods beeping]

I just wanna get
a recording of it.

[Melissa] Do you think
it's like a Morse code?

[Jeff] I don't know,
but it's some pattern.

I've never seen one
of these rem-pods

make this particular sound.

I mean, it squeaks, it beeps,

but this was like
tones and spaces.

[rem-pods beeping]

This is really strange.

[Melissa] Whether
this is a portal

or the conduit is
Whitley himself,

or maybe it's both.

There's definitely something

trying to communicate
with humans.

[Whitley] I am in my office...

in Santa Monica, California,

where I produce my podcast,

Dreamland, every week.

These are two little
BaoFeng radios.

There is a frequency, 144.1

that is not in much use.

It's mostly a silent frequency.

If you turn one of these
radios on, on that frequency,

generally, you
won't hear anything.

Okay. Let's see what happens.

[radio buzzing]

[radio buzzing]

It's reacting to the
presence of my implant.

[radio buzzing continues]

[Melissa] I think it's
like a Morse code.

I don't know, but
it's some pattern.

[radio buzzing continues]

This isn't Morse code. I've
had this tested many times.

And then, this is not
a... it's not a known code.

Not a, not a
publicly known code.

I'm putting the pain behind me,

because it was a
really remarkable thing.

We were stitching two
worlds together at that cabin.

They will wake me up
in many different ways.

But for the first time,

the method chosen

was to push my phone

off of the table beside the bed.

And I heard the noise, of course, and jumped right up,

and there was nothing that
would have caused the phone

to where it would just fall
on its own all of a sudden.

I was thinking about this.

Should I do this?

I heard Anne's voice telling
me, "Of course, you should."

And...

so I am.

I viewed the loss of
the cabin at the time

as a catastrophe,

because of what we
had developed there,

in terms of a relationship
with the visitors,

and also our life
and our happiness.

And we'd raised our child there

and losing that
was really difficult.

I never wanted to go back again,

but...

I'm going to,

I'm going to face
the cabin again

one last time.

I guess the last
time I drove this road

was a couple of
days before we left.

And...

I thought, I would
never come back again.

But I'm here.

And I'm here to close this.

I'm here to end the story,

of the Whitley of those days.

We're just about...

just about there.

Oh, boy.

I am feeling this boy.

It's a...

a very complex
experience, emotionally.

Beautiful and hard,

sweet and extremely sad,

all mixed up into one.

Thirty five years
beyond Communion,

I am having

what is really the experience
of a lifetime with this.

It started out...

like a journey through
the depths of hell.

But now, it is at
the edge of heaven.

Hello, Whitley.

Anthony.

- Anthony.
- Anthony. My wife Azila.

-Hi. -Hi, welcome back.

Thank you for...

- letting me back in my home and your home.
- Of course.

- Come on in.
- Thank you.

I've been putting it off.

I never intended
to come back at all.

It was too hard.

But now I have done it.

And, um...

I'm glad, I'm doing it.

I'm glad, I'm doing it.

If something happens,
something happens.

But you know,

it's not about the place,

it's about the person
it's about people.

Because the experience
followed me when I left here.

Uh, big time, actually.
Really did follow me.

The Whitley who lived here...

is lying in that bed right now.

And when I get
up in the morning,

that Whitley is gonna stay here,

and when I leave here,

that Whitley,

that story is gonna
stay in this house,

and will be in this house
as long as this house is here.

I don't think that
they're necessarily...

here for bad reasons.

I think they definitely are
interested in our survival.

I am not the only
close encounter witness

who has this message,

that the planet is in danger.

It's almost universal

among the people
in the experience.

And what's the core
of that message?

Human survival.

So therefore, their message
is they want us to survive.

I never thought I
would see this again.

I'm glad I came back.

A few minutes ago,

I felt from deep within myself,

an upwelling...

of an emotion I have not felt in a long time.

That's what happened.

We can't forget
one little detail here,

and that is what was
said to Lori Barnes.

"One day you will
look just like us."

Do we know what the
human species really is?

Look at butterflies
and caterpillars.

How could you ever
convince a butterfly,

that it had been a caterpillar,

or a caterpillar that it
would become a butterfly?

Communion is about...

opening the door
in the human heart,

and in the human mind.

You are not what you think,

you are not a
body that will die,

and disappear.

Uselessly, pointlessly,

after all the billions of years,

your planet has
put into creating you,

don't imagine that
for one moment.

Let that go.

Let it go.

It was an extraordinary experience, theexperience.

It has been made a mockery of.

Most people really don't believe me, I know that.

But the truth is,

I am not crazy.

[Melissa] This book,
is the beginning

of a very big conversation
of what might be out there.

How can we
neglect all the people

that suddenly came
together and said,

"Oh, I've had the
same experience."

[Jeff] Whitley Strieber's
story stands out.

He called them visitors.

He didn't ask you
to believe in UFOs

or little green men
from other planets.

He said, "This is what I saw."

Whitley realizes,

the visitors are here
and they're here to stay.

[Whitley]
What happened to me,

I'm still not certain,

but I am certain of one thing.

This is something
very, very real,

and I think that will be
perfectly obvious to you,

when you listen to this tape.