This letter first appeared in S.P.A.C.E. Newsletter (Vol. 3 #10, Issue 34, December 1994). CNI News thanks Whitley Strieber and Harold Egeln, editor of S.P.A.C.E. Newsletter, for permission to reprint. © 1994 Whitley Strieber. May not be reprinted without permission.

An Open Letter From Whitley Strieber

I would like to thank Harold Egeln for allowing me to publish this letter. Sometime next summer, I will be bringing out a book called Breakthrough that contains proof that the visitors are real. They devised their proof with considerable cunning over a period of years, and it will not be possible to refute, only to deny. It did not involve killing any of them to bring the deniers their “dead alien body” but it is nonetheless powerful and compelling.

The book will also describe the past eight years of my life with them, which have been hard but also rewarding. I have made them rewarding because I have not been willing to give in to the fear, which I regard as a disease of contact. During this time, I have also received nearly a hundred and forty thousand letters from other people who have had experiences.

As most of you know, I have endured a great deal of harassment from the UFO community and the government.

This is what I want to write about at the moment. I watched, more or less in silence, as many charges were leveled against me, and the rumor mill churned endlessly with hateful stories. I carefully worked each rumor back to its source, and documented them all. I can prove that each one is false. Not one of the negative stories had any substance.

I have wondered why they have been so universally believed, to the point that I am a virtual outsider, a pariah. In part, this has been because of very natural jealousy. I don't blame anybody for it. In their position, having worked for years on this only to see an outsider come in and do what I did, I would be jealous, too.

But not all the backbiting has been due to that. In October of 1993, I received a listing of computer files of some sort that appeared to relate to UFO information stored in Defense Department computers. It appeared in my e-mail on CompuServe. I turned it over to a group of Congressional investigators who have been working for about four years on the fact that the secret government has apparently concealed large-scale programs from Congress, and done so illegally.

As a result, I have been subjected to continuous harassment. My home has been broken into, checks stolen, a virus placed on my computer, and files rifled. Men with night vision equipment have begun invading my property in upstate New York. All mail to my public address in New York has been intercepted and kept, beginning in October of 1994. There has been an organized pattern of arbitrary financial harassment worked through Chemical Bank, which has brought me to the edge of financial ruin.

All of this activity has been carefully documented and reported to the Congressional investigators. All of it is illegal. It is fundamentally illegal for federal officers to harass citizens. Moreover, the entire operation is against the law because it stems from an illegal act, which was to ignore Congressional oversight in the first place.

So I return, a frightened and desperate man. I do not ask for support for Whitley Strieber, but I do ask it for the proof that the visitors have given us. It is incredibly valuable, and I don't want to see it buried under a heap of false controversies and lies, just because it has come from me. The visitors put me in the position in which I find myself. I did not ask for it, scheme for it, or even want it.

Because I waited so long to publish this new book, it has received only a token advance. So I cannot be accused of being in this for the money, and people cannot excuse being hurtful to me on the basis of the fact that I'm rich. I am not rich.

Please, when the book comes out, don't attack it because of the least valuable or important thing about it, which is the author. I know that many UFO investigators hate and fear the visitors, and will do anything they can to try to keep them away from us. I also feel that there are numbers of people in the community who are somehow connected with the government, and spread fear and divisiveness on purpose, to lessen the community's impact.

But when something comes along like this proof, it is my hope that it will be used by every honest person in the community to advance the cause of contact. Given prudence and sober caution, I think that we can gain a great deal from the visitors – more, in fact, than we as a species have gained before in our whole long history.

I feel that I bear the responsibility for all the hostility that has been shown me. Maybe I was arrogant. Maybe insensitive of the feelings of UFO investigators and of the difficulties that they face. But please remember that there are people in the community who intentionally spread fear and rumors, who are, I feel certain, trained professionals.

I have a right to a place of respect in this community. I am not a liar and I have never hurt anybody. What I brought with Communion was valuable, and the proof in Breakthrough will be of greater value. It means that witnesses can hold their heads up and say, “I'm telling the truth, and if you don't believe it, you have an emotional problem.” It entirely shifts the burden to the deniers. It used to be that you had to work to see that the visitors were real. Denial was a passive state. It was easy, it was the line of least resistance. But now the roles are reversed. The proof can't really be refuted, so denial becomes an active effort to shove something away.

The visitors are getting closer. They are coming with an offer for us. We have an incredible chance to evolve, both individually and severally. A whole new way of being can emerge out of this. I don't want what I bring to be drowned in a cacophony of anti-Whitley Strieber propaganda and bitter hysteria. It is too valuable for that. So, please look to the material, not the man who has ended up with the responsibility to bring it.

This letter is an olive branch to those who have been attacking me. I forgave you inside myself the instant you attacked me. I bear you no ill-will. This is why I never fought back, except to say how cruel I thought you were.

It is also a plea to those who have wondered about the truth of the accusations: they are not true. Not one of them. Breakthrough is coming out this spring or summer. Please let it live.

– Whitley Strieber