<span class="SFPTagline"> From SCIFIPEDIA </span>

Communion is a work of nonfiction by Whitley Strieber, documenting his experiences with alien abduction.

On December 26, 1985, Whitley Strieber reportedly had an experience in which he thought he was abducted from his cabin in upstate New York by nonhuman beings of some kind. He wrote about these experiences in his first nonfiction book, the best-selling Communion (1987).

Communion is generally interpreted as a claim of alien abduction, but Strieber says that he draws no firm conclusions about the nature or source of his experience. He refers to the beings as "the visitors," a name chosen to be as neutral as possible, and leaves open the possibility that they are not extraterrestrials and even that they exist only in his mind. He has repeatedly expressed his frustration with what he feels are fantastic claims incorrectly attributed to him.

Strieber went on to write three more books about his experiences with the visitors, Transformation (1988), Breakthrough (1995), and The Secret School (1996). Each was commercially less successful than the last, and all three are now out of print.

Other visitor-themed books of Strieber's include Majestic (1989), a novel about the Roswell UFO incident; The Communion Letters (1997, reissued in 2003), a collection of letters from readers reporting experiences similar to Strieber's; and Confirmation (1998), a nonfiction book presenting purported evidence for the reality of UFOs and abductions. A novel, The Grays (2006), conveys his cumulative knowledge, experience, and impressions of alien contact through a fictional narrative.

Strieber wrote the screenplay for the 1989 movie Communion, directed by Philippe Mora and starring Christopher Walken as Whitley Strieber. The movie covers material from both Communion and Transformation and introduces some new themes not present in the books.