He Sees Dead People. "The Key – A True Encounter" By Whitley Strieber

Now that Whitley Strieber has come forward to talk with Jeremy Corbell and George Knapp, taking advantage of the current UFO infatuation to peddle his usual woozy stuff, it made me recall the review I wrote of Strieber's later book, The Key. I am wondering how much of Whitley's wacky claims Corbell and Knapp even know about. Do they still think that Strieber is credible?

By the way, in this interview posted June 27, Whitley says, "I think we're right on the edge of the truth coming out, I think we're very close" to UFO Disclosure. Let's add this to the long, long list of Disclosure predictions. Maybe this time he'll be right? 😂

Jeremy Corbell, Whitley Strieber, and George Knapp.

( My review of Strieber's book, The Key – A True Encounter. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin Group 2011. ISBN 978-1-58542-869-4. 256pp, $15.95)

Reprinted from The Skeptical Inquirer, July/August, 2011 

He Sees Dead People

In 1987 Whitley Strieber, already well-known as a writer of fantasy and science fiction like Wolfen, The Hunger, and other tales published the supposedly non-fiction book Communion about his ongoing encounters with ET-like beings he calls “the visitors.” It was on the New York Times bestseller list for many weeks, followed up by Transformation in 1988, and then by numerous other paranormal-themed books, some admitted to be novels, others not. Imagine if Steven King had written a masterful horror novel, but claimed that all of the ghostly goings-on really did happen to him, although he could offer no proof of any of it. That’s where we stand with Strieber.

Whitley with his late wife, Ann Strieber, in 2012.

In The Key, Strieber writes, “my experience between 1985 and 1993 with creatures that appeared to be alien was associated with a surprising side effect, which was simultaneous contact with the dead, who would appear along with the visitors, and not as ghosts.”  What a pity he didn’t mention those dead people when he wrote about “the visitors” in Communion or Transformation.

The Key begins in 1998 when Strieber says that, late one night during a long and grueling book promotion tour, a mysterious man unexpectedly knocked on the door of his hotel room.  Against his better judgment he let the man in, who proceeded to engage Strieber in “the best conversation I’ve ever had,” described as “deeply, profoundly new” and “richly textured.”  What did this ordinary-looking man, who came to be called “The Master of the Key,” have to say? Gems like “The energetic body has a spin, or vibration. This can go infinitely fast. It can reach beyond the speed of light, and exit time altogether.”  Or, “All being includes all elements of the earth, and thus all are part of all bodies. We are the consciousness of the planetary level that it has spent all of its life evolving, each and all of us.“ The Master would seem to be on the fast path to a Nobel Prize in physics, except for being disqualified by his admission that he was dead.

There is also some dark conspiracy about Mars that is only hinted at in statements like “Mars was murdered by you.” As for crop circles, they are “two dimensional portraits” created by dead people. The Master also warned “Warmth being retained near the surface by greenhouse elements results in cooling aloft. A massive and extremely powerful convection can arise that results in a storm so great that it changes the climate permanently. The next ice age will begin soon, and this will lead to the extinction of mankind.” Strieber is the co-author of the ridiculous eco-disaster novel, The Coming Global Superstorm, along with Art Bell, the late night conspiracy talk show maven, from which was made the movie The Day After Tomorrow.

As you might surmise from a skilled storyteller, The Master walks out the door, and disappears mysteriously into the night. Say what you want about Strieber’s credibility, but he does know how to turn a fine phrase, and how to spice up a story. Still, Strieber, the Master’s ventriloquist, comes across as a rather loopy and preachy social activist, but as the late George Adamski surely realized, nobody would care about his political statements unless they actually came from the Venusians.  And however preachy, at least The Master isn’t as long-winded as John Galt.

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Strieber had more to say about seeing Dead People when he spoke to the International UFO Congress in 2012.

Streiber returned to the theme of contact with the dead that he first began to promote in his book The Key. Dead people, he says, dress in a brown monk's cowl, "Jesuit clothing." Some of the visitors think it is possible for mankind to Evolve, while others apparently are not so optimistic. That is why the visitors are so cautious and stealthy. Afterward, mankind will be changed completely, and come face-to-face with the dead. Strieber still says he does not know exactly who "the visitors" are, but he knows that The Dead play a large role.

(This book review also appears on my Debunker website, along with another piece describing my Close Encounter with Whitley Strieber in 1988.)

8 Foot Tall Aliens Land in Las Vegas Back Yard!!!!

So, you've probably seen wild stories about this on the news:

"Big, shiny eyes. Towering nearly 10 feet tall. 100% not human." the Los Angeles Times.

"Vegas police respond to report of '10-foot creature' in yard after green flash across sky." CNN.

"Aliens among us? Vegas UFO report latest in UAP sightings investigated worldwide." USA Today.

And many other places. UFO stories are good for "clicks", for ratings, and the wilder, the better.

Note the time stamp: 2023 May 1, 06:49 UTC

But let's look at this carefully. From this video, it is obvious that the object is a brilliant meteor fireball. I've seen many such videos before, and even a few such fireballs with my own eyes. Now in this copy of the video, we can see the time stamp (for some reason George Knapp's Channel 8 seems to have chopped it off in their copies). And when I saw the time stamp, I realized, since the American Meteor Society records such fireballs, this gives us something to investigate.

American Meteor Society map showing observers' locations. Trajectory was east-to-west.

The American Meteor Society states, "We received 21 reports about a fireball seen over AZ, CA, NV and UT on Monday, May 1st 2023 around 06:48 UT."  This exactly matches the time stamp on the above video. There is no doubt remaining, what people saw that night, all across the Western states (and not just in Las Vegas), was a brilliant fireball. Watch the video on that AMS page, and you will see how absolutely brilliant the meteor became for just a second.

What about those 8-foot-tall aliens reportedly seen in the back yard? Well, it turns out that Angel, the guy who claimed to see the aliens, now has a YouTube channel named "Alien Society 51." On it, he tells his yarn about how two giant alien creatures supposedly invaded his back yard. Here is another interview with him, where he tells how the alien went into his fork lift. Believe it, if you can.

Honest, I'm not making this stuff up!

Some people are suggesting that a circular pattern in the gravel in his yard was left by the saucer landing, although Angel did not strongly make such a claim. In any case, photos from Google Earth reveal that this pattern already existed more than a year before the supposed incident. 

In January, 2022, a twitter account called "Alien Society 51 NFT" was created, and some have attempted to link it to Angel. NFTs ("Non-Fungible Tokens") are a type of digital ownership certificate, pertaining to works of art. While a few people have profited greatly from such "investments," they remain highly speculative. That NFT account never went beyond its initial posting. Other than the name similarity, I have not seen anything to connect "Alien Society 51" to "Alien Society 51 NFT."

 When a transparently bogus story like this makes national headlines, usually without a hint of skepticism or investigation, it shows the sorry state of UFOOlogy, and so-called "journalism," today.

Story of Dramatic New "UFO Whistleblower" Begins to Crumble

So, unless you have been living under a rock these past few days, you have seen the breathless, uncritical news coverage about the latest "UFO whistleblower" making extraordinary claims. His is a former Intel guy named David Grusch, who has recently been turning up all over the credulous media, making claims of 'secret government crashed UFO retrieval programs.' How to know which reporters are credulous and foolish? That's easy: if they ran with this story on the basis of no evidence at all, that's them. And Grusch admits all this is only hearsay - he says he hasn't seen any crashed saucers, or even any photos of them. Or of the alien bodies that he says were found inside......

David Grusch

It began with an article in The Debrief by Leslie Kean and Ralph Blumenthal, "INTELLIGENCE OFFICIALS SAY U.S. HAS RETRIEVED CRAFT OF NON-HUMAN ORIGIN."   Where have we seen those names before? Yes, the authors of the now-discredited 2017 New York Times story that launched the UFO mania about Tom DeLonge, Lu Elizondo, etc. (Kean is now also a major promoter of belief in Spiritualism and ghosts, but that is the subject of another posting.)

The problem for Kean is that her 'respected source' can't keep his mouth shut. "Government Whistleblower Claims U.S. Has Recovered Alien Bodies, Is Covering It Up." 

I don't care what lies he is telling other people, what he told us is TRUTH!

This has caused Leslie Kean to back away from her earlier, breathless endorsement of Grusch's tales. John Greenewald, Jr. of The Black Vault writes,

Kean states that the "UFO whistleblower"'s claim about "dead pilots" and bodies from the "non-human craft" was never discussed with her, she doesn't want to talk about it, nor would she have published it.

How could you not have heard about that during the vetting process, and why would you not publish something that could change the human race if you felt the source of your story was credible and his claims were true?

In other words, Kean is saying, "My source only lies half the time." 😅

And the more interviews Grusch gives, the more wild stuff comes up. In an interview with the French newspaper le Parisien, Grush said,

In 1933, a bell-like craft, around ten meters in size, was recovered in Magenta, northern Italy. It was kept by Mussolini's government until 1944 when it was recovered by agents of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS, a former US intelligence agency). Ironically, it predates anything the public has heard about for decades, such as Roswell, etc. I was authorized to talk about it by the Department of Defense's Office of Prepublication and Security Review.

Well, if Hitler could have his Nazi flying saucers, why can't Mussolini have his, too?

Nazi flying saucer

UFO grifter Dr. Steven Greer wrote,

Dr. Greer met with this whistleblower in March 2022 in Culpepper, VA and has been providing him with information about facilities and operations.

So Greer claims that he has been providing information to Grusch, and not the other way around! "In fact, Dr. Greer mentored this key whistleblower David Charles Grusch." To which Grusch replied,

I have not been mentored by anyone, and my public disclosure has been done independently under my own free will. I emphatically request that Steven Greer cease using my name to promote his personal agenda”.

But it is beginning to appear that Grusch's entire tale might be just be recycling the same old stories we've been hearing for years. Citing comments made elsewhere,  Area503 notes on Twitter that

Grusch's insider information comes from Hal Puthoff's employee at Earth-Tech International: Eric Davis??

No wonder
@DoD_AARO
 found his testimony to lack credibility.

This is getting downright silly now.

As more 'connecting links' between the old cover-up tales and the new begin to be noted, Jack Brewer adds,

Looking like Kean's "multiple insiders" are Elizondo, Puthoff, Davis... because of effing course they would be. If so, what a complete waste of time, of which these people should be ashamed of themselves.

In other words, these are the same, familiar old claims, from people who have been involved with Bigelow, TTSA, etc. The collapse of the current extreme Disclosure mania will surely rank as one of the worst black eyes in the history of UFOOlogy. Persons seeking to hasten the general acceptance of UFO belief by hastily embracing welcome (but dubious) claims will have damaged that acceptance almost beyond repair, once the dust settles from this fiasco.

UFO newbies apparently have no idea that this "Disclosure tease" has been going on for more than seventy years, and always comes up empty. Every few years (at least), some new set of rumors begin to swirl, usually based on some dramatic claim, that 'government secrecy about UFOs will soon be ending!'. But of course, it never does. You can't "stop" something that never started.