The author of Communion, Transformation, and now Breakthrough, explores his five year retreat from public life to understand the personal impact of alien involvement in his life.

In this book, Strieber explores his sudden desire to retreats from public life in 1989. At the time he said he would not return until he had something fundamentally new to say about to the aliens that he had come to call the visitors.

During this time Strieber embarked on a five-year struggle to understand. The aliens responded by taking ham on an astounding extensively witnessed journey of revelation. The aliens answered many of Strieber's questions. The aliens showed him many incredible things.

Strieber observed aliens interactions with a terminally ill friend. At his isolated cabin, he had a face-to-face encounter with a creature from another world touching hands across the Gulf of the unknown. The overwhelming impact of what Strieber discovered made him search his own soul as well.

Strieber also talks about a government cover-up of extraterrestrials living on Mars. In 1984 Strieber became aware of a government cover-up. This was the year he met Richard Hoagland who brought the NASA photo of the face on Mars to the public attention.

This picture was taken by the Viking Orbiter in the 1960s. It had been discovered by two NASA scientists who examined the pictures by using computer imaging techniques.