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Confirmation NBC Television Special; Broadcast February 17, 1999 An edited version is believed to have been broadcast in Japan in late 2000 Executive Producers: Mark Wolper and Whitley Strieber Writer/Director/CoExecutive Producer: Starling Price A Brief Chronology of UFO and Alien Encounters by Whitley Strieber, from Confirmation press kit Excerpts from interview with Whitley Strieber, from Confirmation press kit For more visuals from the special, visit Steve Neill FX Excerpt from Mike Jarmus interview with Whitley Strieber, February 1999 Whitley Strieber Offers 'Confirmation' of UFOs, by Kate O'Hare, Tribune Media Services (Chicago Tribune) 2/99 Where We Stand, A Statement By Whitley Strieber written the eve of the Confirmation television special, 10 Feb 1999 Transcript of MS-NBC television's Hockenberry interview with Strieber, Hopkins, Mack, and Nickell, 16 Feb 1999 DVD edition released in Hong Kong, 2004. 93 minutes, removable subtitles in English and Chinese. Region free, NTSC.     Judging from the typographical errors on the front and back covers, this is not an official release, and is likely sourced from VHS.

A two hour network special exploring questions raised in Whitley Strieber's book of the same name, Confirmation: The Hard Evidence of Aliens Among Us? presents a general review of major UFO and alien encounter events from the last fifty years. The program is hosted by Robert Davi of the NBC cop show Profilers, who appears to be on the verge of laughter as he ominously intones the possibility of aliens among us while walking around a dark forest.      The “hard evidence” alluded to in the title is presented in a segment about so-called “alien implants” found within the bodies of some experiencers. These “implants” are discussed by podiatrist Dr. Roger Leir and the surgical removal of one such object from the hand of a 45 year old male subject is shown (filmed August 17, 1998 in Texas). Confirmation also includes recreations of a series of abductions experienced by Jesse Long (featuring stylized alien models created by artist Steve Neill). NASA footage of unidentified objects recorded during space shuttle missions is shown, and an alleged home video from Mexico of a metallic saucer flying behing an apartment tower is examined by special effects artists who reveal technical flaws that suggest it was only a digitally composed special effect (a conclusion that Strieber has subsequently said he disagrees with [on Dreamland, July 2000]).       Confirmation features snippets of perspectives from Budd Hopkins, Dr. David Jacobs of Temple University, Michael Lindemann, Dr. John Mack, and many others who have studied the question of alien encounters, including those who believe these experiences are misperceptions and lies; these so-called “skeptics” include Joe Nickell and Philip Klass of the CSICOP organization. Whitley Strieber himself appears only briefly during the Jesse Long segment.       The program was originally conceived with Charlton Heston as the host, playing on the strength of Heston's narration of The Mysterious Origins of Man, an acclaimed and controversial NBC documentary about forbidden archeology. Efforts were also made to get noted scientists such as Stephen Hawking involved. But these plans, as well as hopes for involvement from celebrities who are said to believe in alien contact — such as David Bowie — were not realized, and what emerged was at best poorly received.       Writing to the New York Times in response to criticism of the special, Whitley Strieber said, “Unidentified-flying-object and close-encounter episodes are the most extensive and readily available phenomena for research that science has refused to address since the Roman Catholic Church forbade its experts to look through Galileo's telescope.” Alien figures by Steve Neill Promotional photographs courtesy of NBC Television.

NightWork Television Series Pitch; Preview reel completed 1999; not developed. NIGHTWORK demo reel credits Whitley Strieber ... Host Jack Larson ... Whitley Strieber Dr. Roger Leir ... Himself Billy Scudder ... Richard Hoagland Jeff Rense ... Radio Host Christian Port ... Young Whitley Alexa Rense ... Little Girl Krista Vernoff ... Young Mother Melanie Winter ... Anne Strieber Licia Davidson ... Alien Voice Whitley Strieber ... Executive Producer Bob Verne ... Producer Steve Neill ... Director, Co-Producer Gillian Neill ... Writer, Assoc. Prod. Saba Moor ... Casting Dir., Assoc. Prod. Andrea Matzke ... Line Producer Barry Conrad ... Director of Photography Billy Scudder ... Unit Production Mgr Jesse Ericson-Onuf ... Script Supervisor Kai Wagner ... Sound Jeff Perkins ... Asst. Camera Peggy Portanova ... Make-up John Shea ... Special FX Make-up Gene Barsamian ... Prod Coordinator, Still Photographer Randi Besse ... 2nd Unit Prod. Mgr. Aaron Steffans ... Best Boy, Electric Mike Hardy ... Key Grip Tony King ... Grip Steve Neill ... CGI Effects Scott Coulter ... CGI Consultant Jason Martell ... Documentarian, Webmaster Taryn Scudder ... Kid Wrangler

[This text describing NightWork was written at the time of the original concept and is no longer current]      A potential new series based on Whitley Strieber's life and travels has been proposed by Steve Neill. Principle photography for a ten minute preview reel was completed the last week of January, 1999. “It will cover all aspects of Whitley's experiences, ranging from the Secret School to his official studies into the cases he's studied, including the implants. With over one hundred and fifty thousand letters and numerous classic cases we ought to get a few seasons out of it, to be sure,” says Mr. Neill.       The preview reel will be pitched to the studios to secure funding for the development of a one hour pilot. “It was written by my wife, Gilly Neill, and directed by myself,” says Mr. Neill. “It will have effects that could have never been done in the Communion movie days; digital animation and effects has been my new career these days and the sky is not the limit.”      Asked if this program would be similar in format to SIGHTINGS, Tim White's magazine-format investigative television series that Mr. Neill provided impressive special effects for during it's run, Mr. Neill replied, “It was created as a dramatic week to week series like the X-Files, based on the real thing. This project is totally dramatic, no Sightings format at all.”      Jack Larson portrayed Whitley Strieber in the demo reel, with the real Whitley Strieber serving as host during the show's introduction. The demo reel included a recreation of Whitley's experience of accompanying the visitors to a home in the middle of the night (described in Breakthrough) to witnesses a young girl's interaction with the beings.      The development of NightWork came into conflict with another project. In April 1999, the Sci-Fi Channel announced plans to develop a television movie called Beyond Communion, the production of which would have conflicted with the development of NightWork. A none-too-pleased Steve Neill announced in late November 1999 that NightWork would be reconceived radio show host Jeff Rense becoming the series' focal point. However, neither NightWork concept was ultimately developed, and the Sci-Fi Channel's television movie similarly did not enter production either. Whitley Strieber, portrayed here by Jack Larson, enters into meditation in the woods to confront his fears

On June 6, 1998, after 20 months of no encounters, Whitley Strieber had what he describes as “the best, the most incredible, the most enlightening encounter of his life.” He describes the face to face meeting with his visitor as a “marvel” and one that left him in a “kind of spiritual whirlwind.”
      Since that fateful meeting, the pace and intensity of Whitley's life has increased. His current involvement in the visitor experience hasescalated his creativity to an all-time high. He is working on a new book, entitled The Coming Superstorm, about his incredible encounter; he is actively involved in an ongoing battle in what he terms as “the war for the human soul.” His June 6, 1998 encounter was the most profound of all. Every word the visitor uttered contained “whole, vast oceans of other words and meanings.”
      As we journey toward the millennium, enjoy a special conference treat as we get an overview of what the visitor experience has meant to our world and what it may mean in the new millennium, told by one of the greatest scribes of our time as only Whitley Strieber can say it.

Our Exploding Future
Cost as of 1999 was $15.95 for the tape, plus $2.00 shipping and handling.
Check the Project Awareness website for current information on availability.

The first videocassette produced by Whitley Strieber. Originally sold via mail order from the Communion Homepage (and now available from Amazon.Com), this brief video demonstrates meditative techniques, and also shows snippets of some of the best video footage of unidentified aerial phenomena (including a particularly convincing “foo fighter” playing peek-a-boo with some clouds, seemingly aware it was being observed).
      The following synopsis (written by Whitley Strieber and presented on his website) was created when the working title was the First Contact Management Video, in early June 1996. The actual tape was produced a bit later.

The First Contact Management Video

We Have A Problem

Close encounter is among the most challenging of all human experiences, and in general we don't handle it well. Some of us love it and can't get enough of it, others hate it and can't make it stop. Most of us have very mixed feelings.
      We have trouble remembering what happened to us, and when we are in the contact environment, most of us feel as helpless as animals on a veterinarian's examination table.
      This can all change. Over the past ten years, I have evolved powerful meditation techniques that make my encounters more fruitful.

Now There's A Solution

The video I have made reveals my techniques in action. It includes the multi-tone chanting process that I have evolved as a powerful focusing tool. You will not have heard anything like this before, not even if you are familiar with overtone chanting.
      Use of the techniques in the tape, I feel, can really help the close encounter witness to become an active participant in his or her relationship. Armed with the video and lots of determination, you can make your relationship into what I promise is the most incredible of all adventures, and I mean that from the bottom of my heart.
      You can also use it to end your relationship if you prefer, or at least change it to be less rough and more enriching.
      You can even use it to start a relationship if you are willing to work hard and be patient.

How You Can Do It

It took me ten years of close encounter to get to the point that I could create a system that would be genuinely effective, and twenty years of meditation before that. But it won't take you that much time, because you can leapfrog on my work.
      As more and more of us do this, our relationship with the visitors will come into better focus. They will see that we are trying, for the first time, to communicate, and what is now a confused, often dysfunctional relationship, is going to start to work better--maybe a lot better.

Pure Balance
© 1997 Whitley Strieber

Six Days in Roswell is a mockumentary from the team that created the more-or-less officially sanctioned Star Trek documentary Trekkies. In dead-pan style a la Spinal Tap, the film purports to document Minnesotan Richard Kronfeld's experiences at the 50th anniversary of the Roswell event in Roswell, New Mexico, in July 1997. In fact he is an actor, but not everyone he interviews, including Whitley Strieber (seen briefly), seem to have been aware of this.

Six Days in Roswell
© 1999 Benevolent Authority Productions
Produced by Roger Nygard, Directed by Timothy B. Johnson, Starring Richard Kronfeld

Whitley showed the people who attended a 1996 workshop a special video tour of the cabin. It was done by a friend of his who was a video producer/artist of some type. The video was excellent and very informative. It also showed a funny side to Whitley. The artist did a lot of Twilight Zone type of references complete with psychedelic special effects. Whitley often was self deprecating and laughed at the many “wacky” references to Communion (at the same time, he also spoke very eloquently and frankly about it). One thing that came across from that workshop is that Whitley Strieber is a very fun loving person. He can be a bit too earnest, serious, whatever you want to call it. But it is much more accurate to say that he has a very good sense of humor, maybe it's one of the things he uses to deal with all of this. Whitley said that he does not show this video in public, it's a “limited release” type of thing. [Thanks to L. for this description] [Drew Cummings may have been the videographer; Whitley Strieber has mentioned Cummings as one of two videographers who have stayed at the cabin].

A professionally recorded videotape of Whitley's discovery of the ruins of the secret school in San Antonio's Olmos basin (a wooded area of about 8 square miles that subsided about 40 feet during an earthquake four centuries ago). This was shown to the public during the book tour for the Secret School. The video was originally intended to be a segment on a SIGHTINGS type of television series that was to have been called Contact. Unfortunately the program was never developed so these public showings were the only chance people had to see this segment. Perhaps this videotape, and the one filmed at the cabin described above, will turn up on an authorized biography program sometime in the future.

Update: The video footage of the discovery of the “secret school” is believed to have turned up on a DVD titled Exploring the Supernatural Vol. 3: Miracles, Mysteries. The DVD, which Amazon.com described in it's official review as “crappy”, can be found with a little searching for less than six dollars. Exploring the Supernatural Vol. 3 © 1998 Madacy Entertainment Group

Aliens Among Us, the first disc in the box set Aliens: The Complete Truth, could easily have been subtitled “An Interview With Whitley Strieber.” But for some reason, Whitley's name is nowhere on the outside of the packaging, so the fact that this disc presents a nearly full length interview with Whitley is something of a secret.
      The program begins with snippets of comments from David Jacobs and other researchers of alien encounters, and then the focus quickly shifts and stays with a highly charged interview with Whitley. The 40-minute interview appears to have been recorded in England behind the scenes of BUFORA's “A Day of Abductions” event in 1996, or possibly at the 1996 UFO Expo West held in southern California at which Whitley presented not one but four separate lectures and workshops. This was clearly a time in Whitley's life in which he had much to say; he had been in a self-imposed exile from the subject of alien encounters for nearly five years.
      The interview is disturbing and provocative. Coming about a year after the release of Breakthrough, Whitley is quite vocal about his motivation for taking his life story to the public, the repercussions from doing so, and his thoughts on how the alien encounter experience may require mankind to take the next step in our evolution towards a consciousness free of hierarchy. People, Whitley says, are powerful and creative creatures, and the potential that people may become aware of this as they enter into relationship with the visitors threatens the status quo; Whitley condemns the shadow government – elements funded by but not answerable to the elected government, who in the past allowed such criminal and unethical experiments as MK Ultra to victimize innocent people – who may now be engaged a sinister effort to prevent an evolution in consciousness from occurring. During this part of the discussion, Whitley's left ear turns red and Whitley suggests that a small object that he says was placed within his ear by the shadow government (an episode described in Breakthrough) has “turned on” during their conversation, leading to speculation that the subject may have upset whoever was listening. (Whitley has subsequently mentioned this incident in other interviews).
      The interview is presented largely without edits, which is to the program's credit and is most welcome, though the program is visually uninteresting (amateur quality). They seemed to know they had a good interview on their hands and they let it run. At the very end of the program, there is an additional couple minutes of comments recorded in a pipe-filled service area of the convention building, presumably a few moments before Whitley went on stage. I had seen a part of this “pipe” footage before (a few seconds of it appears on the BUFORA lecture tape) and it was nice to see it gathered here. In short, this is a nearly complete interview in a generally unobtrusive program, and for that reason is highly recommended.

Aliens: The Complete Truth
© 2000 Madacy Entertainment Group

Breakthrough: Beyond Transformation
Direct-to-Video, 1996
also known as
 An Evening With
Whitley Strieber at the Writers Guild

A presentation by Whitley Strieber on stage at the Writers Guild Theatre in Beverly Hills, CA. Amateur video quality. (The front of the video box reads “Breakthrough Beyond Transformation by the Author of Communion” – could they possibly have fit in more book titles?).

Breakthrough: Beyond Transformation
© 1996 MUFON Los Angeles

Whitley Strieber's first talk in the UK in several years, a presentation in Sheffield, England on April 20, 1996, titled “The Secret School” (part of the “BUFORA: A Day of Abductions” event). He relates a couple stories from The Communion Letters, and plays selections from Tim Edwards' videos of unidentified flotsam jetting through the air, but this second-hand material seems to be presented without an overall theme. Despite the title of the talk, nothing from the then-upcoming Secret School is spoken of.
UK title: The Secret School (1997)
US title: Abduction 2: Into the Unknown (1999)
Warning to UK readers: In the UK there is another video called Abduction 2: Into the Unknown, featuring almost exactly the same cover art, but having nothing to do with Whitley Strieber. It appears that the box art was produced by a freelance graphic artist who sold the cover art to two different companies on two different continents, each of which used it for entirely different videos.

A superior effort for a direct-to-video release, Encounters of the 4th Kind interviews with Whitley Strieber, his friends and family at the New York countryside cabin made famous by the book Communion. In addition, the video presents a behind the scenes look at the making of the film Communion. A “panel of experts” including Report on Communion author Ed Conroy are also interviewed in mock-Larry King style. Hosted by actor Roddy MacDowell, who also voiced the audiobook edition of Communion.

Encounters of the Fourth Kind: A Report on Communion
© 1991 MPI Home Video
Out of Print

Video recording from the 1987 Angels, Aliens and Archetypes Symposium, an event put together by U. Conn professor Ken Ring and Alice Agar of the Omega Foundation. Angels, Aliens and Archetypes was a two-day symposium featuring some of this country's foremost visionary thinkers considering the premise that human encounters with the Other are real on many levels. They are perhaps most real “at the seat of the soul,” where, as Novalis wrote, “the outer and inner worlds meet.” Whitley Strieber's presentation, previewing the release of Transformation, is still available from Sound Photosynthesis as a Video #V69-87, or Audio #A251C-87 (main presentation) & #A251cc-87 (question and answer)

Many such videos of live presenations exist, usually in poor quality. We list this one because it is one of the few videos from the era.