Alien Abduction as Enlightenment

Whitley Strieber is among the most prominent figures writing on ufology and the alien abduction phenomenon. He played a significant role in popularizing the latter via his 1987 book, Communion, and the subsequent film inspired by it (in which Christopher Walken portrayed Strieber). That popularization would in turn have an outsized impact on 1990s pop culture, an impact still felt today. Over the course of many books authored in the intervening decades, Strieber has articulated an evolving spiritual worldview founded largely on his own ongoing experiences with anomalous entities, a worldview in which trauma has a major epistemological function. I provide a summary and assessment of key components of that worldview, and of the experiences upon which it is based.