Whitley Strieber was born in San Antonio, Texas, on June 13, 1945.

As the son of a successful lawyer he grew up in the quiet suburb of Terrell Hills. From very early years he seems to have been aware of the darker and more alien side of the universe. Despite the security of his affluent home, he remembers that as a child he was frightened of visits from spacemen. His imaginative interest in outer space let him to turn himself into a "little green man" with the help of friends who daubed him with paint, and to send a frog ten miles up in an experimental backyard balloon. For Strieber these activities were the precursors of a lifelong interest in space, technology, the occult, extraterrestrial phenomena, and humanity's relationship to other creatures.

After receiving a B.A. degree from the University of Texas in 1968, he went...