When I first saw the cover of Whitley Strieber's Communion, I was eight years old. The image sent all of the heat of life out of me; seeing that face, I felt as though my mind were pierced by a syringe. The attendant terror choked out all rational thought, and I became an animal desperate to get away from the image. However, something compelled me to read that book, and then many like it, until I couldn't go to bed at night without moving my bedclothes and pillows under my bed. I slept under my bed for at least five years, and most nights I could not go to sleep for hours because I could not stop thinking about aliens.

 
One night I woke to a silent house; my mom and brother were asleep. A strange green light filled the house, like super-luminous moonlight. I tried to rouse my mom, but my voice was paralyzed, and I felt very exposed standing in the upstairs hallway trying to midwife my voice out into the world. When crying out failed, I decided to sprint downstairs. I took seven stairs in one leap, like a deer. Landing in my house's entryway, my next stride took me into the living room. No sooner did I come around the wall dividing living room from entryway than I noticed something out of the corner of my eye--a wide, pale, bald head at the bottom of my field of vision... the head was wider than a human head, and its top curvature flatter than a human being's. I fainted before seeing anything more of this presence.

 
In college, while experimenting with mind-altering substances, I began hearing supernatural thrummings--even and especially when sober. This sound has been linked to UFOs, aliens, poltergeist, and ghost activity, so I won't belabor the point...

 
The point is this: one night, shortly after a couple tokes on a joint, I began to feel very vulnerable... not bodily, but mentally. What threatened me? Somehow I knew that the threat was demonic. As a sensation of the world collapsing in on me began to unnerve me, I thought to pray for God's protection. The collapsing sensation lifted immediately. I then asked God, "How am I supposed to handle the end of the world, these evil realities, if not with these drugs?" His answer was precious to me: "It's OK to feel sad, you know." Sad as opposed to terrified, desperate, hopeless, cynical, reality-denying, ignorance-embracing. I learned to call upon Christ that night. I learned that I'd rather weep for the world than fear it... after all, sadness is something you can feel WITH someone else, even WITH God.  
Terror, dread, and despair are things that, by definition, you can only feel alone.

 
PRAISE JESUS! Demons and aliens are real. Without Christ, we are like infants crawling around on the floor of a demolition derby.