Before author Whitley Strieber’s encounter with the unknown inspired, The Visitors, the latest installment in Travel Channel’s “Shock Docs” series, it inspired one of his best-selling books, Communion (1987). (Which in 1989 was then adapted into a movie of the same name starring Christopher Walken.)
It all started with three words that, when strung together, never fail to sound ominous: “They are here.”
In his case, Whitley Strieber uttered them while under hypnosis to uncover why he was having horrible pain and dreams. These simple words set off an exploration of one of the most fascinating and frightening real stories of alien abduction ever recorded.
That’s what Shock Docs: The Visitors explores. It premiers on Monday, September 5 at 9 pm ET/PT on Travel Channel and streams the same day on discovery+. Let’s unpack this special.
About The Visitors
In 1985, while spending Christmas at his family’s cabin, New York Times best-selling author Whitley Strieber had a terrifying encounter with “visitors” not of this world. He went on to tell his harrowing tale of abduction, experimentation, and mind control in the book Communion: A True Story, which depicted the alien he encountered on the cover.
After Strieber’s story swept the globe, he received hundreds of thousands of letters from readers who had similar encounters, convincing Strieber that we are not alone.
Little did Strieber know, his journey into the unknown was far from over. Over the decades, rare interviews under hypnosis detail how beings subjected him to disturbing experiments, recurring encounters, and visions from beyond the grave. Rare video shows a surgeon attempting to remove an alien device implanted behind Strieber’s ear.
For the first time in nearly 40 years, Strieber agrees to return to the cabin and the stone circle that marks the spot of his first abduction. But he’s not the only one. Investigative journalist Melissa Tittl and UFO researcher Jeff Belanger also conduct a paranormal investigation. (Incidentally, UFO Witness Tittl’s co-star, Ben Hansen, will appear in another “out-of-this-world” special, Jack Osbourne’s Night of Terror: UFOs, which starts streaming on discovery+ on September 3.)
Could this property be a portal to an alien world, or is there something about Strieber himself that remains a beacon to the visitors?
Ultimately, Strieber and the team attempt to crack the mystery that still remains unsolved to this day. Why are these entities visiting us? Do they come with a warning? And what does this world have to do with the next?
The Visitors Trailer
For More Info
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Check-In
Did you know that Whitley Strieber had had a real-life close encounter of the fourth kind?
I don’t know what rock I’ve been living under, but this came as news to me.
Courtney Mroch is a globe-trotting restless spirit who’s both possessed by wanderlust and the spirit of adventure, and obsessed with true crime, horror, the paranormal, and weird days. Perhaps it has something to do with her genes? She is related to occult royalty, after all. Marie Laveau, the famous Voodoo practitioner of New Orleans, is one of her ancestors. (Yes, really! As explained here.) That could also explain her infatuation with skeletons.
Speaking of mystical, to learn how Courtney channeled her battle with cancer to conjure up this site, check out HJ’s Origin Story.
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Wow, I had no idea about Strieber. I feel so sorry for what he’s gone through. It does sound terribly painful and traumatic. Personally, I believe he was abducted, but if it’s all a figment of his imagination, it’s STILL terribly painful and traumatic.
Oh, Priscilla, your comment…filled with SO much love and compassion. I wish I could either clone you, bottle up your goodness, or in some other way make it possible for there to be more of what you have in this world!