Communion Book Cover

[Giddierone]

Anecdotes about people seeing the cover of Whitley Strieber's Communion (1987) for the first time and it triggering a reaction in them such as the shock of recognition or the sudden stirring of a memory are numerous.

Some time later I was in a bookstore in La Jolla. I noticed a book on display by Whitley Strieber called Communion On the cover was a drawing that captured my attention. An oval-shaped head with large inky eyes staring straight ahead.
I bought the book and immediately began reading it. It was Strieber's personal account of being abducted by aliens. He wrote of waking up in his cabin in the woods of New York State and seeing an owl staring at him. He spoke to the owl, then two beings, who looked like the figure on the cover of the book. appeared in his doorway and escorted him out of the house. He wrote that he had smelled burning cinnamon and smolder-ing cheese around them, so I burned some myself to see if that might excite a memory, but it didn't.
While I was reading this book my daughter. Louise, called from Portland. "Dad, there's a book I want you to read. It's called Communion.
"I'm reading it right now."

Dancing Naked in the Mind Field, (geneticist) Kary Mullis, 1998

I did not think much about any of these things again until 1987. I was walking through a bookstore when a strange picture caught my eye. It was the cover of a new book called Communion. Mesmerized by those huge black eyes of the creature on the jacket, I bought the book immediately, hurried home, and read it cover to cover.

The Abduction Enigma - Kevin D. Randle, 1999

Maureen explains that in 1988 she passed Communion in the book-
store: "After seeing the cover of Communion and being both drawn and
repulsed by it, 'cause it terrified me, I read the book and that's when I
realized that a lot of things Whitley Strieber had written about sounded
all too familiar to me."

They Know us Better Than we Know Ourselves - Bridget Brown, 2007

Rima Laibow was a psychiatrist who had a private practice outside of
New York City. After a patient of hers in 1988 happened to see an image of
a large-eyed alien on a book jacket, she confessed to Laibow she had
fragmentary memories of encounters with similar creatures.

Intimate Alien, David Halperin, 2020
(the same anecdote appears in After the Flying Saucers Came - Greg Eghigian, 2024)

Fast forward to 1987. I'm nearly forty years old, a tenured professor of religious
studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. I'm in a book-
store on Franklin Street, across from the campus. Prominently displayed
on one table are several stacks of a hardcover book called Communion,
by one Whitley Strieber. A face stares up at me from the book jacket.
It's a face I've never seen before, though all of us will see it many
times in the years to come. Shaped like a light bulb, as light bulbs used
to be. Dominated by two slanted, enormous, anatomically impossible
eyes: almond-shaped, black, without iris or pupil or any visible lids, each
with a gleam of white amid the blackness and just the hint of a split run-
ning from end to end. I've never seen anything like this—not in Close En-
counters of the Third Kind or E.T., not in the UFO literature of my youth.
I have no idea that this face and the being to which it's attached will
become an icon, a cultural staple, instantly recognizable when used in
cartoons and comic strips, taking its place in three-dimensional miniature
on the dollar-store racks at Halloween time, alongside the plastic witches
and ghosts and spiders that are the traditional, time-honored inhabitants
of the boo-I-scared-you gallery.

Intimate Alien, David Halperin, 2020

Others who describe similar encounters with the cover include immunologist and ufology commentator Garry Nolan. The list goes on, but it seems the book cover can't be mentioned without someone telling of a similar reaction upon first seeing it.

It was painted by Ted Seth Jacobs (1927-2019). He was an accomplished realist painter and draftsman.

The cover illustration he created with Whitley Strieber is a marked departure from his other art.

Alien Abduction researcher (and also an accomplished artist) Budd Hopkins hated the cover saying it was "Pinheaded" and the proportions were all wrong.

Folklorist Thomas Bullard did a comparative study of hundreds of alien abduction reports in UFO Abductions: The Measure of a Mystery. Volume 1: Comparative Study of Abduction Reports, 1987. He followed it up in 1999 with What's New in Ufo Abductions? Has the Story Changed in 30 Years?

One of the notable changes he tracked was the description of the eyes of the aliens people claimed to encounter. Between 1966 and 1996 there was what he called an "unmistakable trend" toward larger darker eyes.

In the early days these eyes often had irises of human or smaller size. A steady darkening has followed, with only 17% of the eyes described as wholly or almost entirely dark in the first period, while this description grew to 48% in the middle years and then to 71%. Here then is one abduction motif that has changed too dramatically to ignore or to excuse as an accident of faulty reporting.

But, something also occurred in that time period 1966-1996. Artist Margaret Keane (1927-2022) created and popularised a distinct style of big-eyed figure whose eyes included large dark irises. They were almost exclusively female.

Details from Keane's young women (from left to right) Daisy, 1963, Draw Double, 1963, Girl With Long Hair, 1964, Bouquet, 1968, Girl of the Island, 1965

Proportionally the Communion cover resembles Keane's art far more than it does existing depictions of aliens (as Budd Hopkins might have agreed — see above). They share very similar proportions, head shape, chin shape, long neck, and other grey alien-like characteristics: pallid skin tone, slight smile, small nose, faint eyebrows. They nearly always gaze directly at the viewer. They almost never had ears and often had long slender fingers without nails.

It seems obvious that Strieber and Jacobs were aware of Keane's art. I'd argue they used it as a template.

So, since Keane's art (which was very popular, her lithographs were mass-produced) already existed in the culture many years prior to Communion might those anecdotes of triggered memories and the sense that "I've seen that face before" have something to do with Keane's creations?

 

[NorCal Dave]

I always thought it also resembled the alien in CE3K:

Obviously, not exactly, but the general shape of the head, no ears, small mouth and nose with big dark elongated eyes.

This fella predates the book by 10 years and was likely a riff on the zeitgeist of the time, including the Keane art.

 

[MapperGuy]

As I recall my first impression was "not very plausible".
If those are eyeBALLS then the eyeballs and the sockets that enclose them take up 100% of the interior of that skull.
Give that picture to an anthropologist who does reconstructions of skulls from the partial skulls recovered by paleontologists and ask them "would this work"? How does that skull even work with eyeballs that large?

 

[Todd Feinman]

Keane's art looks like Twiggy. It was also popular to accent the eyes with eye shadow etc at the time. Google AI:
"In the late 1960s, the "Mod" makeup movement transformed eyes into the main focal point of the face. Black eyeshadow was used alongside graphic eyeliner to create a dramatic "cut crease" effect. This technique faked a deep, wide, doe-eyed socket to make the eyes appear as large and doll-like as possible."

Keane was influenced by Modigliani. Modigliani eyes.
African masks and Cycladic art influenced many artists:
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/picasso-and-african-masks--300474606377112871/


Source:

Source: https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1373835009423441&id=100064915741092

There was the "Yellow Peril" racism; slant-eyed racism. The inscrutable Asian eyes.

Wish I could find a short story written by girl in the '20s I ran across. Maybe I'll look for it again. She dreamed that "a moon" came to her window, little moon men came out with little wands and took her up a ramp where she was held prisoner inside, until the "Queen of the Moon" showed up. She had black eyes and silver hair, Apparently they thought she had a "moon baby" and when they found out they were wrong, they returned her to her room. Sounds familiar. Piece of creative writing from a little girl. So the ideas might be older.

Also Nosferatu:
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/480xn/p0bsj4kt.jpg.webp

Egyptian Medjed: proto-alien:
YouTube video

The Communion head looks like the Cycladic sculpture. With big black inscrutable eyes. Like the sculpture, there isn't much room for a brain; it's all face / mask.

 

[John J.]

Some related discussion/ similar things people here might find interesting in thread
Origin of iconic alien face?
and to some extent thread Claim: Time-Travelling Humans are Causing Close Encounter Experiences

If those are eyeBALLS then the eyeballs and the sockets that enclose them take up 100% of the interior of that skull.

Kind of agree (maybe not literally on the 100% )

The very large eyes of some "Grey" descriptions are difficult to understand in terms of mammalian anatomy.
Eyes are not spherical, but their dimensions in each axis are similar,

approximately 24.2 mm (transverse) × 23.7 mm (sagittal) × 22.0-24.8 mm (axial)

(axial=visual axis, front to back of eye), source as above. [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25431659/#:~:text=The size of a human adult eye is,may vary from 21 mm to 27 mm.]
This means that a "Grey's" eye, if following the pattern of homo sapiens (and our ancestors, and most other mammals) would extend back into the head at least as far as its maximum visible "length" on the face, reducing volume available for other structures-such as the brain.

Edited pic from that post

This is just to illustrate my point in a simplified way (eyes and cranial vaults aren't really spherical).
The sagittal CT at right is a 41 year-old woman. A mid-section CT would show a larger brain, but wouldn't show the eye.
I have cherry-picked "Greys" with big eyes, not all illustrations show eyes this large-
-but strangely enough, I couldn't find a photo of a real one!

The front of the skull between the orbits of the Communion alien's eyes would be very narrow.
Maybe that's why their bodies are always being found inside crashed saucers- the airbags go off and it's Goodnight Vienna. (Or Corona, NM).

 

[Todd Feinman]

I think some have suggested the big black eyes are some form of biotechnological lenses or sensors or something. And that greys are not meant to be a viable species, but have been engineered as surrogates or helpers for bigger aliens. That's just one kind of occupant. Stories Lost on YouTube has illustrated stories from Europe and other places. Often a weird little guy hanging out by the road in a remote location near a craft of some type.

 

[John J.]

I think some have suggested the big black eyes are some form of biotechnological lenses or sensors or something.

It would be interesting if we could find a suggestion like this that pre-dates Ray Santilli's 1995 Alien Autopsy film hoax, Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_Autopsy_(1995_film), in which a pathologist or whatever uses tweezers to lift a dark film or membrane from an underlying white-ish eye.

(don't worry, it's a dummy alien made by a guy called John Humphreys, filmed in a flat in Camden, London)

This might have been an homage to/ inspired by the British 1970 TV series UFO. In one episode, it is found that a captured aliens white eyes are due to large contact lenses , a scene shown in the show's montage-style opening sequence

This seems to have become a bit of a trope. In the claim discussed in the "Biologist claims to have studied alien bodies (EBOs - Exo-Biospheric-Organisms)" thread, the claimant wrote

Eye: Like the skin, the eyes are covered with a semi-transparent biosynthetic film that offers the same environmental protection, while providing protection against certain wavelengths and light intensity. When the film is removed, a more traditional eye is revealed.

And that greys are not meant to be a viable species, but have been engineered as surrogates or helpers for bigger aliens.

How would anyone know? If someone saw big and little aliens with a visible division of labour, did the aliens tell them why this was?
We have no testable evidence that ETI exists. Perhaps people should provide evidence for aliens, let alone aliens of different sizes with professions before speculating about why this should be.
Maybe smaller aliens are juveniles with less status. Or the alien species is more sexually dimorphic than we are. Or has undergone caste-based divergent evolution to some degree.
That's assuming there are tall chief aliens and smaller alien minions, a bit like in Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977).

 

[Todd Feinman]

It all seems kind of absurd. I don't keep track of abduction stories or UFO occupants, really. I'm quite surprised to hear these stories about craft and "biologics" etc. and that we have a number of these craft. I'd have to see some proof. I feel like the true nature of what is going on is more mysterious, and these tales represent some attempt at obfuscation. I don't know, but for reasons of national security and ethical reasons, it has to be nailed down.

 

[Giddierone]

Keane was influenced by Modigliani.

and Botticelli (she emulates the head tilt here: edited image) and many others.

If those are eyeBALLS then the eyeballs and the sockets that enclose them take up 100% of the interior of that skull.

What if their skulls go backwards like this? Plenty of space! (a frequent claim is that the alien faces are only seen from the front).

Men from the Stars, 1953 comic art.

I think the closest thing to her enormous big-iris / big-eyes are the Sumerian votive figures. But, i've never seen her mention them as an influence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tell_Asmar_Hoard

I think some have suggested the big black eyes are some form of biotechnological lenses or sensors or something

There's loads of theories, like that they are masks worn by humans, they're robots, they're puppets, they're non-physical projections etc.

I was surprised that books like this by John F. Moffitt don't even mention Keane and her connection to the alien face.

 

[Eburacum]

One likely influence on the Grey alien myth is the concept of a highly evolved human race, which may exist far in our future. Here is an illustration of the 'Future Human' as imagined by H.G. Wells.

Of course aliens would have a completely different evolutionary history to our own, so they would probably share few human traits.

 

[Giddierone]

Wish I could find a short story written by girl in the '20s I ran across. Maybe I'll look for it again. She dreamed that "a moon" came to her window, little moon men came out with little wands and took her up a ramp where she was held prisoner inside, until the "Queen of the Moon" showed up. She had black eyes and silver hair, Apparently they thought she had a "moon baby" and when they found out they were wrong, they returned her to her room. Sounds familiar. Piece of creative writing from a little girl. So the ideas might be older.

Interesting, there are a bunch of stories with a "Queen of the moon". If it was actually later maybe it could be a child's retelling of The Moon Colony by William Dixon Bell, 1937

A girl is abducted:

They lifted the girl in their arms, and carried her aboard a large airship. While they were taking her up a steel-like ladder Joan had an opportunity to observe the machine carefully. It was the biggest thing she had ever seen in the way of an aircraft, being eight hundred yards long, three hundred feet wide. In shape it was an elongated cylinder, and she knew enough about modern metal to discover that it was made of beryllium—a wonderful new material impervious to heat or cold. The walls were hollow, and heavily armored so that it was proof against the strongest shells. The openings were sliding doors with an inner door of glass. Thus, when the outer door was closed, the entire ship seemed compactly built without an opening. It was propelled by rockets fired from long metal tubes located in the bow, in the stern, and on both sides.

It has a "Queen of the moon" and group of pygmies and an army of cricket-like insect minions who do her bidding.

https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/47576/pg47576-images.html

Or maybe it's Gertrude's Visit to the Moon (1903)
- the moon comes down to a girls window and she travels on a sled pulled by white moths up a shaft of light.
- There's a King and Queen of the moon. The prince gives her a present, a box with a ring inside.
- As she's trying it on she wakes up in her bed
https://archive.org/details/sixgiantsandgrif00edey/page/12/mode/2up?q="Queen+of+the+moon"

 

[Todd Feinman]

Yeah! There were all kinds of interesting serials in the papers back then. It sounds similar to Gertrude's visit; I'll bet she read it.
After my first UFO experience in 2010, I went through the LOC newspapers, Oregon newspapers, California newspapers, Trove, newspapers.com, and a couple of other places constantly for about a year sifting through search results. There is a lot in there, and unexpected things.