Well, I was re-reading a cool book - one that I remember from my early 20s called "Nature's End" by James Kunetka and Whitley Strieber, lo and behold I discover that one of the authors, Streiber, has revealed the greatest unknown fear from his life with a book published back in 1988 called Communion: A True Story.

I didn't know this, but it was on the New York Times bestseller list for seven months after publication.

It is the implausible story of his having been in contact with (to quote the dustjacket copy) "intelligent nonhuman beings in his isolated cabin in upstate New York." Encounters with "visitors" which, Strieber alleges, have been occurring throughout his lifetime.

Since the book was published, the subject of abductions by alien or "nonhuman" beings has brought forth a flurry of new books on the subject - thanks X-Files! - but Strieber's best-selling volume has faded from discussion.

Thisstory gets weirder, though, according to Wikipedia 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.

Since the book was published, 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. I haven't read any of them, but am trying to track down some copies.

Interesingly, moreso - according to Wikipedia - Strieber co-authored The Coming Global Superstorm (1999), a book about the possibility of rapid and destructive climate change, with Art Bell. He has said that it was based largely on things the Master of the Key had told him about the environment. The book served as the inspiration for the disaster film The Day After Tomorrow (2004), and Strieber later wrote a novelization of that movie.