Communion: A True Story (9 page)

While there is a long tradition in the fairy literature of the Middle Ages of the use of wands to grant insight, and the angel in the Book of Revelation is said to strike the elect thrice between the eyes and cause them great suffering, modern accounts of visitors contain only one oblique reference to this process. A woman who had an enigmatic visitor encounter in the fifties slowly became insane thereafter. As she did so she would claw at the center of her forehead in the same place where I was struck with the wand, to the point that she gouged herself almost to the bone.

It would be easy to say that the material revealed here is the work of a mind making opportunistic use of some nocturnal disturbances to gain contact with fears that it needed to explore. The glaring difficulty with this supposition is that the whole transaction remained hidden in amnesia until many months later. There is the additional problem of the witnesses, and the "clap of thunder" coming before the "lightning."

The easy route would be to dismiss this material as entirely psychological. That would also be a mistake, at least until the physical effects are explained completely, in detail, and satisfactorily.

A terrifying thing happened to me. Perhaps it involved visitors from somewhere-maybe even from inside the human unconscious. For me, though, the most important thing about it was its essentially human effect. I was a human being, and my part of things involved having a human experience. Even if there was a visitor, it seemed clear that concentration on the human part of the encounter was the key to understanding what meaning it may have for me.

And if the visitor was no more than wind in the eaves or the moon lighting the fog . . . then it was a key to what I mean to myself.

Events of December 26, 1985

SESSION DATE: March 5. 1986

SUBJECT: Whitley Strieber

PSYCHIATRIST: Donald Klein, MD

We met again a few days later. I had occupied myself with other things during the previous four days. but it was hard. It was a great effort not to go to the library and get half a dozen books about close encounters, and another half dozen about possible psychosocial causes for such experiences. But I agreed with Dr. Klein and Budd Hopkins that I must remain as ignorant of this material as possible until after my hypnosis.

Yet I kept remembering that face, darting, the sharp dark eyes glistening, and the silver wand glittering as it rose and fell.

I couldn't believe it could be anything other than an act of mind. While I was prepared to accept that there may be a visitor presence on earth, I was not prepared to find one of them at my bedside practicing psychotherapy with a fairy wand. Surely it wouldn't be that personal.

Surely it would be at least
a little
like what we would expect.

But there are deep, deep waters running here. If these are indeed visitors, they know us well . . . better than we know ourselves. More than visitors, they may simply be "others," an aspect of being which we have not yet understood.

No matter what exactly is made of it, the combination of all the flying-disk sightings over the past two generations and the smattering of abduction accounts certainly suggest that something strange is going on. Maybe just a strange form of hysteria, but if so an awfully strange one . . . that combines huge lights, little scampering feet — and intimate intrusions into the soul.

Budd Hopkins told me that first hypnosis sessions were often traumatic. These memories are buried for a reason: They are frightful in the extreme. When they first emerge, the mind lives through the panic it has been avoiding. While my experience with the wand is almost unique, the being I saw wielding it is of a type commonly reported.

It was during this week that I began to have a relationship with my own memories. There had been a being present. I had seen it. And I had seen others in December. I remembered the way they had smelled, the way it had felt to be carried by them, the way their pace had looked inside.

I felt complex emotions, ranging from the deepest inner unrest to what I can only describe as an urgency to compliance. I wanted to come together with them on my terms, to find some sort of mutuality.

I have never felt so tiny, so helpless. My boy's words haunted me—" . . . a bunch of little doctors who took me out on the porch . . ." There is nothing so hard as being a parent frightened in the night for your child.

When I returned to Dr. Klein's office, I described myself as "uneasy." He said, "Is that all?"

I admitted: "Terrified."

"Very understandable."

We began the session covering December 26 as soon as I was comfortable. Again, Budd Hopkins was present and allowed to question me under the same rules agreed to in the previous session.

"I want to take you back to December twenty-sixth. Going back to December twenty-sixth. Arid you are having supper. You are going to talk to me now, but stay completely asleep. Completely, deeply asleep. Where are you having supper?"

"In the country."

"Tell me who's there."

"Anne and our son."

"How are you feeling now?"

"Nice."

"What are you doing?"

"We're having super."

"What are you eating?"

"Goose. Cold goose. It's a used supper ..

Christmas dinner. And cranberry sauce. Sweet potatoes."

"How do you feel?"

"I'm very happy. I'm feeling great."

"Had you been feeling great the previous few weeks?"

"[Long silence.] I had a hard time up until Christmas."

"What sort of hard time?

"[Long pause.] Was-scared. Unhappy. I felt like the world was caving in on me. Kept thinking there were these people hiding in the closet. Went all through the house every night.

Checking."

"Were you checking anything out?"

"I was checking out the house."

"Did you have any idea why you were searching?"

"In case there might be somebody hiding in the house."

"Who might be hiding?"

"People. Them. Those people."

"Did you know about those people then?"

"Yeah."

"What did you know?"

"They might be hiding in the house."

"Did you tell anyone about it?"

"No. I didn't know about 'em."

"Did your wife ask you why- you were looking in the closet?"

"No. She never saw."

"You hid that from her?"

"Yeah. And from my boy. I've got a gun."

"What sort of gun?"

"Riot gun."

"When did you get that?"

"October."

"When in October?"

"We went to the gun store. About . . . the leaves were falling .... I don't know, I think it was . . . in October . . . middle of October . . . but I went right out and got it . . . ."

"What did you want it for?"

"Protection."

"From what?"

"Not sure. I just have the feeling sometimes . . . there are people in the house."

"I'm going to take you forward in time, forward in time to the evening of the twenty-sixth.

You're going up to bed to go to sleep."

"Yeah."

"Going up to bed to go to sleep now. I want you to tell me everything that happens. You are going to remain calm, and tell me what happens."

"We go to sleep in bed. I have a real good book to read. Give Anne kiss. Can hear the snow on the house, a little bit of snow. Turn out the light. I go to sleep. Did I turn on the burglar alarm? Hmm. I listen to the radio for a while. They have on 'Our Front Porch'? Jazz.

S'late. Turn it off and the whole place fills with quiet. Now I'm getting sleepy. Go to sleep.

[Long pause.] Definitely . . . think . . . I hear 'em. I hear them. Comes right in the door, looks like he's wearing — cards. God damn! I can really see this! He looks like he's wearing cards.

On his chest, this big, square blue card on his chest. An oblong one down on his middle. And he has on a — a round hat. And he's wearing a face mask with two eyeholes and a round hole between them down toward the bottom and he's moving real fast. And he makes stands beside my bed and makes a gesture to the door. And there's a hell of a lot of them! Filing into the room! I'm talking about a lot of them. They're not wearing the cards. They're wearing overalls

— coveralls — blue. I can see their heads, which are bald. Time to get up. I get up. I'm scared, you see. I'm scared as hell. I take off my pajamas. Scariest to see Anne. I have to say good-bye to her now. There's two whole rows of 'em. I'm going out. They're moving me.

They're moving me. They're moving me. Are they moving me from hand to hand? They're little bitty people. I feel like I could almost pick. one of them up with one hand." (I was taken downstairs onto the front porch, where I saw a sort of black iron cot.)

"I don't like the look of that thing. That's a cot. or like a bed. Only-it's for me. I feel sick inside. Just
sick
! I'm not-I'm not. I'm just sort of watching all of this. Because it always starts like that where you don't know it's not a dream, but it's not, you know. And when they came in, like two big lines of them cane right in the door. The whole room. I mean, there were a lot of them. You're talking about a whole bunch of them.

"I don't know where they are now. I lie down on the cot. It dust gets . . . sort of jumbled. I remember I thought it was almost like getting into the electric chair. And it goes off the back of the porch and I know this is a dream because I'm flying. I'm flying so this must be a dream.

I don't want to see the last of that house, though. I don't. I don't want to see the last of that house. [Sobs, gasps.]

"Where is the snow? We're way out in the woods. way the hell. You know, I can't understand this because I've gone so far from- It's like there's vines right on my shoulder.

[Long pause.]" (I was trying to hear one of them, who was explaining something to me. But I could not repeat what I heard. Whatever it was, it terrified me. I opened my eyes.)

"What woke you up?"

"I don't know if I can tell you. And also I'm not sure I'm awake. Am I awake?" (The room had a vague look to it, and I felt deeply relaxed.)

"Hard to tell at this point. Why don't we try to go back in. Very quiet. Relaxed . . ."

"It was real clear at first. Then just this second it got —"

"Things will be slowed down for you. We'll go through this very slowly."

"OK."

"Slow and relaxed. Slowing down for you. Back to this time. Are you floating?"

"No, they're carrying me. At least they're around me. You see, what's so funny is I'm lying down and I can see the sky. I can see the clouds. And-they're all around me, though. And I'm naked and I'm not cold. And I can see the sky. This thing has like . . . there's two places for my arms . . . and it's not like a bed. It's got places for my feet and it's got a place for my-head. I'm lying on it and I'm looking up at the sky and I can see . . . things-like the clouds.

And they have a-there's like a swarm of them, they're around me. And I have a feeling — I don't feel very much. I feel very numb and funny. Not bad. It's kind of nice. It's a feeling like you're just sort of numb. And the next thing I know I'm sitting' . I'm still in this thing but I'm sitting in the woos. It's almost as if it became a part of me. Like a — It keeps me in it, you know, but if I move around it stays with me. And I'm not going anywhere, that's for sure.

Because this thing just stays right with me.

"We're sitting in a little — we're sitting in a hole. Like a little hole. I'm just like this.

[Shows a semi-reclining position, hands as if grasping the arms of a chair.] I remembered someone sitting right over there, but now I don't remember it. Or they're not there anymore.

[Pause.] These people are scaring me. Terribly, because . . .
whooof!
Right up! Just shot right up. Yeah, that scared the dickens out of me. I saw the trees down there! Now they've got a floor under me again."

"You went up?"

"I just shot right up out of the woods. In this chair. this thing. I just went
whoompf
, right up out of the woods." (Other people have. reported this sailing up into the air also. I did not see what I entered...Very high?"

"Yeah, you're telling me! I went way up. Right up. I must have gone up a hundred feet.

More than a hundred feet. Up past the trees. Just like that.
Whooompf
. Right up out of the woods. It was like going up in an elevator. Really felt it. I mean, I felt it. Right up.
Whoof!

And now they've got a floor under me. I know this is no dream. I sure hope I get home again.

I'm glad they took that thing away. I'm sitting on a bench in a little room. [Sniffs.] And it smells funny. Smells somethin' like cheese in here. Smells kind of nasty, to tell you the truth.

It's not clean in here. Here's something. Somebody talkin' to me. There is somebody talking to me. Now she walks right past me in the front. And she's wearing a tan . . . suit. She looks like a little person made out of leather, sort of. I see the head real clearly, and you got — you got — it like, you know, makes you sick. kind of, because you know — I can't — I don't know where this thing could be going." (The little room. usually round, is almost a universal experience. A tan suit is also common, as is the description of the skin. Gloving leather has been described. This being, by the way, did not look even a little human. Her looks coincide with one type of visitor that is often described, especially the eyes.)

"'You know what, I think you are old? Are you old?'

"She says, 'Yes, I'm old.'

"She's lookin' — lookin' at me. [ Moves head back, then to left and right, as if being held by the chin and examined.] She's lookin' real close. She's got a matchbox. No, it's not a matchbox." (In this exchange. I remembered a deep, basso profundo voice. She then told me that an operation would he performed.) "'Aww, what is it? What do you mean an operation?

What do you mean, an operation? What do you mean, an operation?' I'm getting real scared again. Real scared. Because I cannot do a thing about this. I don't even want to look up at this.