Whitley Strieber returns with another essay on the "visitors":

Twenty years ago tonight, at approximately three thirty in the morning on December 26, 1985, I heard odd noises and felt as if I had fallen out of bed. I opened my eyes to a scene of such extraordinary horror that I am still suffering from the effects of that moment, two decades later.

What I saw before me was a small room like the interior of a tent, populated by enormous insects. These insects were at once strange, distant-seeming creatures, totally unlike me and not communicating any sense of the human at all, and yet at the same time aware of me in a way that eloquently and terrifyingly signaled intelligence.

I'm inclined to accept Strieber's account as basically factual, albeit embellished by subjective impressions, buried desires and the understandable longing for meaning when confronted with the bizarre.

Throughout the years I've followed his tale I've experienced incredulity and not a little confusion -- but I've never laughed. (And I can't wait for his new novel, "The Grays.")