Ulster County unidentified-object report — December 26, 1985

Whitley Strieber located the experience that became Communion at his secluded cabin near Kingston in Ulster County, New York, on the night associated with December 26, 1985. His own website identifies the bedroom and places the episode at about three in the morning, while acknowledging uncertainty about what happened. The book’s opening distinguishes journal recollections written before hypnosis from material reconstructed later. In his later first-person account, Strieber recalled noises, waking somewhere other than his bedroom, and confronting an insect-like face with very large black eyes. Short figures in dark-blue clothing moved nearby in what he remembered as a small round room. He initially tried to understand it as a nightmare; afterward he recalled an owl-like impression and a disturbance rather than a complete, continuous sequence. He described the experience as deeply traumatic. He sought medical advice and eventually contacted Budd Hopkins, who referred him for hypnosis. Details developed through that later process must remain distinct from his initial conscious memories. His account of examinations and other disturbing procedures is testimony, without independently recovered evidence establishing the room as an extraterrestrial craft or identifying its occupants. Communion appeared in 1987 and became a major bestseller. Strieber has continued to describe the beings as visitors while questioning a simple extraterrestrial explanation. The plate shows a non-graphic interpretation of his remembered chamber, with modest covering for the witness; no unsupported external saucer shape or invasive procedure is added.