The novel, The Fifth Door is the first volume of a spiritual-sci-fi trilogy titled, Strangers in Strange Worlds. The three novels making up this story are discreet episodes linked together by some of the same characters. The first episode is a current-day story of an unknown object detected by various robotic spacecraft, eventually appearing in Earth orbit less than a kilometer from the International Space Station. The initial encounter lasts only hours but its effects last for many years. After the object is gone, the ISS crew is left to ponder what has happened to them. Upon returning to Earth their reception in their various countries varies from curiosity to outright hostility. One individual, Norah Clark, an American is treated particularly harshly, her experience being totally rejected and suppressed by her superiors. As her story unfolds it becomes clear that Norah has been greatly underestimated by those superiors at NASA and that her experience aboard the ISS has transformed her into a new order of being which they utterly fail to comprehend. Unfortunately, Norah is unique among her ISS comrades whose experiences upon return from orbit range from almost immediate death during some form of interrogation, to suicide. But Norah, once she escapes the control of NASA, puts her newfound abilities to use in wonderful and sometimes miraculous ways.