#6: What If It Really Happened? – Whitley Strieber, Ghost Taxis

whitley strieber

What If It Really Happened? – Whitley Strieber, Ghost Taxis

Serial guest Eric Mayson joins us for a dark and candle-lit trip through the spooky and scary. We wonder what happens if the unreal actually becomes real. Join us on a paranormal dive into the mind, as we talk about ghost stories, Whitley Strieber, and time slips. Ryan wants proof, Spencer wants more Star Trek references, and Mayson blasts a hiccup.


Hot Topics: Alien Nostrils, Where’d I Leave My Gun, Wolverine Dreams, What’s In Your Brain?, Mayson in 50 Years, Ghost Taxi Mayhem, and much more.

Music by Big Cats


Whitley Strieber

Spencer: Okay. This is the story of Whitley Strieber.

Mayson: What a name.

Spencer: If you guys would like to see the cover of his book to be sufficiently freaked out before we start this-

Mayson: It looks like an alien.

Spencer: Oh, here you go. We’ll pass it around.

Ryan: It does look like an alien.

Spencer: We’ll pass it around. It is indeed an alien.

alien abduction

Ryan: Oh God. Oh God.

Spencer: Whitley Strieber wrote a book in 1987 called “Communion” that documents his … experiences being abducted by aliens.

Ryan: If you had any questions about whether or not this really happened Whitley’s made it very clear for you by saying, “A true story by Whitley Strieber.” That’s on the cover of the book.

Spencer: Really quick, though, there’s actually a reason for that.

Ryan: Okay.

Spencer: Whitley Strieber was an author before. This was not his first book. He had written five or six books prior that were all fiction.

Mayson: Oh, so he’s like, “Just so you know.”

Spencer: This was a fiction author writing his first … in air quotes, nonfiction book.

Mayson: Is that the same thing as L. Ron Hubbard writing a bunch of science fiction for years and then being like, “Now I know God and also … “

Spencer: I guess I don’t know. I’m, again, we’re going to assume that Whitley’s telling the truth. Yeah.

Mayson: A true story by Whitley. Let’s hear it.

Communion

Spencer: This book came out in 1987. It’s mostly about events that happened at the end of 1985. Whitley owned a cabin in upstate New York and he and his family would …

Spencer: Whitley had this cabin in upstate New York and he would go up there with his family. He’d go up there when he was writing a new book. He normally lived in New York City and on December 26th of 1985 he had the following experience. He was asleep in his room the day after Christmas.

Spencer: He wakes up in the middle of the night and hears this noise coming from … The bedroom is on the upper floor of the house. He hears this noise coming from the lower floor and he describes it as this whooshing sound with air moving through. He said it sounded like there were a bunch of people running around the downstairs of his house.

Spencer: He hears these sounds coming from downstairs, gets up to see what’s going on. There doesn’t appear to be anything going on downstairs and goes back to bed. Then after going back to bed sees this three foot tall person enter his bedroom and-

Mayson: As in looks like a person, just like walking in the door?

Spencer: He basically describes your stereotypical gray alien so …

Mayson: Little green man.

Spencer: Three to four feet tall, gray skin, big eyes, small mouth, big head, that sort of thing. He sees this person or alien or he calls them visitors throughout the book and it’s standing in the doorway and it sees him and runs downstairs … at which point he gets up, grabs his shotgun …

Ryan: No doubt.

Spencer: … and chases this thing outside.

Ryan: Welcome to Earth! Punched in the nose.

Whitley Chases the Aliens

Spencer: He chases this thing outsid, doesn’t see it outside so now he’s just standing out there with his gun. He then blacks out after stepping outside and the next thing he remembers is being in the woods. He guesses he’s a few hundred yards from this cabin. He’s laying on the ground and now he’s surrounded by a bunch of these little aliens.

Mayson: In the woods.

Spencer: Yep. He then blacks out again and wakes up while being moved through the air, through these trees up onto a spaceship.

Ryan: Right. Okay, Whitley.

Spencer: Yep. Whitley is now aboard a spaceship surrounded by even more of these things.

Mayson: Nice.

Spencer: He’s on some, again, sort of the typical abduction story. He’s on some sort of medical operating table. He’s strapped down and he can’t move and they want to do a bunch of different experiments on him. They prick his finger at one point and they’re communicating with them but he said it’s not telepathic. You can actually hear them speaking to him.

Mayson: Do the aliens speak English?

Spencer: In English, I’m assuming … or they’ve got some sort of universal translator situation going on.

Mayson: I get it. If they’re here they’re smart.

Spencer: You don’t travel intergalactically if you’re dumb.

Spencer: He’s on this operating table. He describes it as a operating theater. There are people around-

Mayson: Like turn of the century kind of surgical advancement.

Spencer: Eventually, one alien approaches with this little metallic box that somehow it’s conveyed to him that this thing is going in his brain and he doesn’t really have a choice about it.

Spencer: He wakes up the next morning in his bed.

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