Alex Malarkey, co-author of the best-selling Christian book The Boy Who Came back from Heaven, has admitted he made the story up.

The book, billed as a true story, described Malarkey's alleged visit with angels in heaven after being paralyzed in a car crash and spending two months in a coma.

Malarkey, who is now a teenager, wrote an open letter published on the Pulpit and Pen website that the story was fabricated. The book's publisher, Tyndale House, has pulled the book out of print following the announcement.

"I did not die. I did not go to Heaven," Malarkey wrote in the open letter. "I said I went to heaven because I thought it would get me attention. When I made the claims that I did, I had never read the Bible." Meghan DeMaria