Whitley Strieber

Whitley Strieber (born 1945) is an American author who, before his 1987 abduction book Communion, was already an established horror and science-fiction novelist — and who afterwards became the most formative literary voice of the so-called experiencer milieu. Communion became a massive bestseller, and its iconic cover face of the "grey alien" travelled from the book into popular culture. Since then Strieber has written extensively about his encounter experiences with non-human entities and runs the website Unknown Country.

• American author, born 1945
• Established horror and science-fiction novelist prior to 1987
• Described alleged abduction experiences with non-human entities in his 1987 book Communion
• Detailed, psychologically nuanced accounts of the encounter experiences
• Communion became a massive bestseller with strong cultural impact
• Book cover introduced the icon of the "grey alien" into popular culture
• Runs the Unknown Country website and remains a prominent voice in the experiencer community

For the UAP timeline, Strieber is the hinge figure between literature and the abduction phenomenon: he turned his own experiences into a mass-market book project and thereby shaped the visual and narrative vocabulary in which the abduction story has been negotiated in popular culture since the late 1980s.