On his 40th birthday, June 13, 1985, Whitley Strieber was six months away from an event that would change his life and ultimately also change the world. A little over a year after his December, 26, 1985 close encounter and abduction, he published Communion, which has turned out to be the book that started a process of contact with an unknown intelligence he calls "the visitors," and which has played an important role in leading the way to eventual acceptance of their presence and a new future for mankind as a cosmic species.

Now it's June 13, 2025, 40 years later, and he has given his life to this effort. Here, he looks back on the occasion of his 80th birthday to the high points of his long life in close encounter, and forward into the future of the human interaction with our visitors. He also tells some truly hilarious stories from his childhood, and some profound ones, and reveals for the first time some of the truly explosive things he has come to know.

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