74 lines
4.5 KiB
Plaintext
74 lines
4.5 KiB
Plaintext
10-Aug-87 19:47 MST
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Sb: AP 08/07 0818 Abductions
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------ By STEFAN FATSIS Associated Press Writer
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NEW YORK (AP) -- What angers Whitley Strieber most is the attitude of UFO
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debunkers who outright reject his claims in the best-selling book "Communion"
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that he was abducted by short, stocky, big-eyed humanoids.
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Strieber, the 42-year-old author of pop thrillers-turned-movies "The Wolfen"
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and "The Hunger," resolutely denies inventing his 299-page account of bright
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lights and midnight visits by alien beings to his remote cabin in upstate New
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York.
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"I believe I am telling the truth," Strieber said in a telephone interview.
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"`Communion' never demands that you believe in UFOs or that you believe that the
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visitors are physically real.
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"All it asks you to do is place into question some of the paradigms about
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reality and the nature of the mind," he said. "I'm not asking more than that."
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"Communion," which has sold more than 250,000 copies and was No. 1 on the New
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York Times non-fiction best-seller list for three weeks, details Strieber's
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reported contacts with alien visitors in 1985-86.
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In the book, Strieber says on one occasion humanoids wearing gray body-suits
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carried him to a small depression in the woods and later to a messy chamber. The
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visitors, he says, physically assaulted him, inserting a "shiny, hair-thin
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needle" in his head and a long, scaly object in his rectum.
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"It wasn't dreamlike in any way -- you don't get a needle mark in your head
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from a dream," Strieber said. "I felt like I was being raped. ... It just didn't
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strike me as being hallucinatory or dreamlike in nature."
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Co-author of two books about nuclear war and the environment, "Warday" and
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"Nature's End," Strieber said he has received more than 2,000 letters from
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readers, over half of whom claim some kind of alien contact.
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He is forming a referral service network of doctors and counselors -- not UFO
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investigators -- for people who have written to him claiming paranormal
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experiences.
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"People know that something is going on and it's not understood by science,"
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Strieber said. "The result of this is they're just simply not going to buy the
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debunkers. They shouldn't believe them. The real problem we have now is that the
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debunkers are frightening the scientific community into not taking a
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clear-headed look at this.
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"`Communion' has been done with a lot of care and a lot of attention to
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candor," he added. "There's no reason that someone with a good reputation can't
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take it seriously and study it seriously."
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Many details of Strieber's alleged encounters emerged during hypnosis
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sessions with a New York City psychiatrist, transcripts of which are included in
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the book.
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Strieber says he underwent a battery of physical and psychological tests that
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showed him to be normal, and also passed two polygraphs. The bottom of each page
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of "Communion" asserts that Strieber's is "A True Story."
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"I believe it so completely that I can take a lie detector test and pass," he
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said. "I cannot be convinced -- not by myself, not by a psychiatrist, not by
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anybody -- that there is the slightest doubt this is real."
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Strieber, who includes his wife and 8-year-old son among witnesses to the
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paranormal happenings, is writing a sequel entitled "Transformation" about
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subsequent visits.
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The author received a $1 million advance from the publisher for "Communion"
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but said negotiations haven't been completed for the new book, which details his
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struggle to come to terms with being the apparent subject of alien experiments.
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"Transformation" includes one "major" encounter and three minor ones with the
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same humanoids, Strieber said. The sequel is about his transformation"from a
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frightened victim to someone who is going to tell it like it was, damn the
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consequences."
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He said he no longer fears when he will be "visited" again.
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"I just live my life," Strieber said. "When these happen it's always a little
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startling. But I don't think in terms of when it will happen again."
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The author said he had no interest in UFOs until his first encounters.
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"It just didn't seem to matter very much," he said. "My concerns were peace
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and the environment."
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"When I was 11 or 12 there were (outer space) movies ... but it wasn't
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something that we thought was particularly real. It was science fiction, but you
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don't expect science fiction to be real."
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------
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("Communion" is published by William Morrow.)
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Copyright 1987 by the Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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