From: Pony.Godic@f6.n1040.z9.FIDONET.ORG (Pony Godic)
Newsgroups: alt.paranet.abduct
Subject: Karla Turner Book
Date: 2 Dec 93 05:09:00 GMT
Organization: FidoNet node 9:1040/6 - <ParaNet/UFOR, Cairns Queensland


I have just finished reading "Into the Fringe" (Berkley Books, New York) by Dr
Karla Turner.  Whilst I appreciate the impact, and the snowballing stress,
generated by the incidents related by Dr Turner as having happened to her, as
well as family and friends, I found the book anecdotal with virtually no effort
at sifting possible hard evidence from such possibilities as hysterical
contagion, anxiety dissociation, FPP, FMS, maybe even more exotic possibilities
like TLE, MPD.  That contentious and questionable people and incidents were
mentioned, most taken on face value, is very troubling, e.g. Billy Meier, Gulf
Breeze.  Additionally, seemingly unrelated information was linked and its
significance considered, e.g. media reporting on, and advertising use of, UFOs/
abuctions.  Then, at the end of the book, despite small disclaimer, in case it
did not happen, we had abductees' predictions of impending catastrophe related.
Dr Turner and her husband were influenced by these enough to accept an
opportunity to move interstate to a less populated area.

For me, Dr Turner's book proved an illuminating insight into why abductions are
exploding in numbers.  By this I don't mean from the angle of, if abductions
are really happening this is what's going on, but from the angle of how
hysteria is spread.  I say this because there was an astounding reluctance to
seek mundane explanations for out of the ordinary, and seemingly non-abduction
related, incidents. Instead, phenomena like lights turning themselves on, dogs
getting from point A to point B, were taken as being indicative of abduction
activity.  As I read these things I thought there could be a problem with the
power in the house, or that someone could simply have switched the lights on
during the night.  People do sleepwalk, or simply do things when they're half
awake that they don't remember afterwards.  The dog could have moved because
the door wasn't closed properly and, after the dog passed through it, the dog
or the wind could have closed the door.

Having said this, I would like to state that my reaction to the book is not
meant as a criticism of Dr Turner.  I realize that she has gotten caught up in
abduction so heavily because of personal and therefore persuasive experiences.
Nevertheless, overall, I would like to make the observation that a PhD or other
academic qualifications do not necessarily mean that a person has an above
average ability to critically evaluate subjective experiences, let alone have
an informed opinion on UFOs, abductions, conspiracy lore, rumors etc.

Dr Turner certainly seems to have taken much of what she heard at face value
only.  Rumors of underground bases, government pacts with aliens, even
government monitoring of alien telepathic transmissions to abductees, not to
mention alien malevolence were not critically evaluated with regards to
alternative explanations.

Dreams, no matter how seemingly off topic they were for abduction, were taken
as masking abductions.  This really disturbed me, not because I'm saying they
could not have been masking abductions, but the possibility that they were just
dreams related to normal daily lives, part of which, at that time, involved
powerful abduction fears, did not seem to be taken into account, or, if taken
into account, only very briefly and glancingly and not seriously considered.

When it comes to Dr Turner's fear of being under government or other
abduction-phenomena related surveillance, there is again a stampede to a fear
reaction.  I know of a case here in Australia nearly 24 years ago where a
woman, with a contactee background, was surveiled by some individuals for
clandestine kicks.  This surveillance involved following and watching and even
trespassing on private property.  I heard about it many years after the event,
but met the woman around the time this was happening.  She took me through her
house showing me all the balls of light and aliens in there with her. I saw
empty space and a quiet house.  The point is, this woman had a core of
contactee experiences, suffered some personal crisis in her life shortly
thereafter which were unrelated to the contactee experience, then on top of
this some immature people decided to get their kicks from the mischief of
surveiling this poor woman.  Here in Australia, we call such malicious mischief
playing silly buggers. Maybe persons unknown were playing silly buggers with Dr
Turner and her family.  Obviously, such activity can greatly exacerbate stress.

That Dr Turner took nuisance phone calls and general problems with her phone as
indications of surveillance, or as being alien related, may follow on from the
above, or may be unrelated to abduction in any shape size or form.

The bottom line is Dr Turner's belief and suggestibility thresholds appear to
be very low.  Given her and her family and friends' experiences of mysterious
blood and small painless punctures and wounds, I can understand how very easy
it would be to get so caught up in abductions that your thinking becomes
seriously biased towards them.  Consequently, I am not criticising Dr Turner
for having become so frightened and involved.  Nevertheless, we must be careful
about fear and involvement, they don't prove that what is feared is actually
happening.  People are, afterall, capable of scratching themselves in their
sleep.  Nevertheless, painless puncture wounds, especially forming patterns,
are not as easily explained, although, of course, bugs do bite people, but one
would expect itching, and triangular patterns would seem unlikely.

Personally, I was very interested in the physical side of Dr Turner's
experiences, but frustrated that no attempts at video surveillance,
verification of wounds, via photographs, not to mention attempts to discover if
any  alien drugs were in their systems immediately after abductions, were
mentioned as having been attempted.  Considering the alien tendency to inject
Dr Turner and her family, I would have thought a research strategy involving
physicals would have been in place, or the effort at least made to get it in
place, but there's no mention of it.  For me, anecdotal reports are not proof
positive.


Also of interest was the poltergeist and other anomalous activity reported,
particularly with regards to her son's friend, James.  But, unfortunately, the
reports are yet again anecdotal.

Speaking of James, I found it very disturbing that when asked to identify a
woman as one he'd encountered in relation to abduction, Dr Turner did not
accept it when James said the woman shown to him was not the woman.  She
theorised that his denials were the result of alien mind control in relation to
this woman.

I think Dr Turner's mind set is best evidenced by her reaction to her son
having related that at the end of a restless night he awoke and had two
pictures come into his mind.  One of a desert like scene, the other of a 15 ft
tall tree trunk or irregular column covered in thick, dark brown fur.  A little
later she read Strieber's "Majestic" which she relates Strieber says is "a work
of fiction that is based on fact."  In this book, there is an incident
involving a person in a desert setting who finds themself under a giant spider.
At first the character saw its legs as "a forest of thin trees."  Then, "It
took me time to understand that I was looking at tall black legs, many of
them."  Dr Turner wonders at a possible link between a single tree like column
covered in brown fur and black spider legs (plural).  She was so affected by
this that she could not read further and asked herself, "Had he (Strieber)
invented the material... or had it come from someone's actual recollections?"

Given the above, is it any wonder that Dr Turner used to occasionally awaken in
a state of exhaustion, even apparently on rare occasions in a dissociative
state?  Stress colors our dreams and our dreams can therefore be very
exhausting.  That stress from escalating abduction fears may have caused such
exhaustion doesn't appear to have entered Dr Turner's mind.  Rather the
exhaustion is assumed to be abduction related.

Amazingly, despite all this anxiety re abduction, Dr Turner did not attempt to
investigate with a view to getting hard, or compelling corroborative evidence.
What was on the surface, or retrieved via hypnosis, was taken as proof of
abduction.  In relation to hypnosis, I found the questioning often leading, but
given that the hypnotist believed strongly in abductions this is not
surprising.  However, what frustrated me most was that Dr Turner and her family
were reading about abductions, going to lectures about abductions, actively
discussing abductions with their hypnotist-reasearcher and others.  Their heads
were full of this stuff, so even if extremely careful questioning was employed,
I feel the results would be in danger of being colored by what had been
absorbed via said books, lectures, discussions.

In closing, I would like to point out that Dr Turner's abduction questions
began at a time when she and her husband, "...were financially solid and very
happy in our marriage.  Yet for several months, we had been attending separate
counselling sessions in an effort to find out why we'd developed physical
symptoms of stress." Because Dr Turner's life was going through a period of
stress, which she states was unrelated to her marriage, I have to seriously
wonder, since she said, "I suddenly decided to buy a paperback I'd seen for
months at the mall bookstore.... `Communion' by Whitley Strieber," if the face
on "Communion" registered in her unconscious mind. Accordingly, is it possible
that Dr Turner was in a distressed state, re the stess in her life at that
time, and unconsciously handled that by denying that there was a problem by
relocating all blame onto aliens, then, as a team, she and her husband, family
and friends, could enter into the unifying process of being explorers whilst at
the same time being victims.  I'm definitely not saying that this is what
happened, but it is a possibility that occurred to me.  If it occurred to me
then obviously it may have occurred to other people. Does anyone know if Dr
Turner has been asked this question?  If she has been, I would very much
appreciate hearing what her reply was.

In closing, although Dr Turner did try audio surveillance, the outcome was some
inconclusive anomalous noise.  I hope, therefore, that sales of her book will
return to her the necessary money to undertake comprehensive video
surveillance.  I also hope that she, or her researcher, are able to arrange for
medical exams the morning after an abduction.  Despite rumors to the contrary,
we still don't have any hard evidence that abductions are actually happening.
I'm not saying Dr Turner is not an abductee, only that until we are presented
with hard evidence, readers are left in the position of falling back on their
own tendencies to believe or disbelieve when reading books like "Into the
Fringe."  Unfortunately, such books are founded on their author's belief
tendencies.

--  
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