I have always been really interested in the unexplained and the paranormal. When I was younger I was more into that stuff as a hardcore believer, and Whitley Strieber’s books were, for me, the pinnacle of proof about the abductee phenomenon, where people would be snatched by aliens and methodically sodomized for some reason only understandable to natural born Altaarians.
Now I see myself as more of a Fortean when it comes to this stuff – open-minded to the “damned” data that scientists ignore because it doesn’t fit in with their worldview, but also more than a little ironically skeptical. And I’m more and more interested in this stuff – especially the abductee phenomenon – as elements of sociology and not cosmology. Still, I have come to believe that Strieber is essentially full of shit, which is nice, as I was previously deeply concerned that a higher level of intelligence from the universe was sending a message of peace to mankind through the dude who wrote The Howling.
Streiber has shifted away from “non-fiction” and has put his tales of E.T.s into fiction. The latest is The Grays, where the diminutive big-skulled aliens of the title are the “United States of the cosmos” – the run things behind the scenes here on Earth as well as across the galaxy.
While the book isn’t published yet, Sony is paying Black Hawk Down screenwriter Ken Nolan three million smackers for his 75-page scriptment of the novel. There isn’t a whole lot more information, but it is known that the lead role is a woman. Whether she gets sodomized I couldn’t tell you.
This, of course, isn’t the first Strieber alien book to be a film – Communion, based on his "non-fiction" work, embarrasses even Christopher "I will star in any goddamn thing" Walken.