Customer Reviews

Into the Fringe

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Though a few years old, the power of these experiences has not diminished in the least. The events that took place over a relatively short period of time were more than the average person deals with throughout their entire life. Traumatic would be putting it lightly. This is a prime example of average people being subjected to extraordinary events that they have little to no control over. As with many books of its kind, the author presented some predictions of future events that have not come to pass in their expected timeframe. Thankfully the focus of the book was the experiences themselves and not the family's interpretation of them.

Ufology lost one of its more dynamic researchers when Karla Turner died of cancer at age 48 in 1996. One of Dr. Turner's most admirable traits was her commitment to putting everything on the table in terms of her research and her own abduction experiences. Others might keep the most fantastic and bizarre facts about their cases under the vest, but Turner firmly believed that even the craziest and nonsensical aspects of any abduction experience was of potential significance and should be openly discussed. She did exactly that in Into the Fringe, her personal exploration of the abduction experiences she was suddenly forced to come to terms with with over the previous year and a half of her life - experiences that involved not only her, but her husband, her son, and a number of family friends.

A lot of things in this book are hard to believe, especially the experiences of her son's roommate, who was seemingly abducted or visited on almost a daily basis at certain points. Turner's own chronicle of mysterious body markings also suggests much more frequent interactions with aliens than is typical. She also speaks of a great deal of poltergeist-like activity she and those around her experienced - such as lights or the radio being turned on during the night on a routine basis. It really is difficult to come to terms with her reported experiences because they include so many strange and atypical factors, but there can seemingly be little doubt about Turner's sincerity. Skeptics would also argue that Turner's acknowledged interest in finding out everything she could about UFOs and aliens colored or otherwise influenced her reported experiences, but I don't think this charge holds much water. For one thing, she describes things seldom if ever reported in previous alien abduction reports. Second of all, Turner was a highly educated scholar (with a Ph.D. in Old English studies) with a firm grasp on reality.

The experiences detailed in this book became the springboard for Turner's own research in ufology and alien abductions, so you'll need to consult her later books, Taken: Inside the Alien-Human Abduction Agenda and Masquerade of Angels, for her conclusions and working hypotheses about what is truly going on. I can tell you, though, that she did not believe that aliens were here to help us and she did not blindly accept any alien abduction at face value, arguing that the aliens are exceedingly deceptive. Her passion and commitment to laying all of the abduction facts out on the table are sorely missed.

Dr. Turner's book is an excellent sample of the "abductee" mindset. I felt deep sympathy as I read her obviously sincere account of her descent "into the fringe." The problem with Dr. Turner's book is that there isn't really any evidence that she's actually experienced what she believes she did. Many of her experiences could be explained by sleep disorders and strange dreams. I've met and talked with other people who believe that they've been abducted by aliens and while I didn't doubt their sincerity, I couldn't go along with them. Another part of the problem is that Dr. Turner, like almost everyone else who believes that they've been abducted, immediately immersed herself in the literature on the subject. This provided her with a "script" and meant that her experiences were contaminated with the expectations that the members of the abductee community passed on to her. I want to offer my deepest condolences to her family-her early death was truly tragic. To people who believe that they've been abducted by aliens, I urge you to consult mainstream counseling and reconsider your experiences. Many of the events that Dr. Turner felt validated her fears were actually trivial and commonplace-anyone reading this could probably strip naked and find marks and scars they were unaware of and couldn't explain. In addition, Dr. Turner describes being terrified by a lecture by John Lear, a man who made fantastic claims about an alien/government conspiracy but who offered not a shred of evidence for his ridiculous stories. All of these things snowballed in Dr. Turner's life. It's a shame.

Dr. Karla (also known as `Kandy') Turner was a professional academic (an English PhD) and educator who lived in Arizona and died of cancer on 10 January 1996 at the tragically young age of 48. For several years before her death, she worked to publicise the reality of the alien abduction phenomenon to academia and to a wider public audience. She was a popular and respected public speaker on the subject - you can find videos of her lectures on the web - and between 1992 and 1996 published three books about how this intrusive phenomenon had affected her family.

`Into the Fringe', published in 1992, was her first book and chronicles the process whereby she and her family became aware that abduction by alien entities was the likely origin of all the strange events which had been happening to them. These included multiple close-proximity sightings of UFOs, episodes of missing time (some of several hours' duration), night-time visitations, odd and often dramatic patterns of body scarring and various poltergeist-type activity experienced by different members of the family, especially by her husband Casey and son David. It's essentially a narrative written in the first person about the journey from puzzlement and ignorance to some understanding of what might be happening and their eventual reluctant acknowledgement that the abduction phenomenon, reported in such consistent detail by so many other people, was the only explanation to fit the data and that in their case the fit was an exact one.

ITF details how Turner sought help from Barbara Bartholic, Oklahoma-based long-time UFO investigator and colleague of Jacques Vallee, to help understand the phenomenon in more depth. Bartholic used some hypnosis to aid memory recovery and both Karla and Casey had several such sessions with her.

One of Karla Turner`s most controversial claims was that the US Government, or elements within the Government, were actively interested in the phenomenon and occasionally abducted known alien-abductees in order to glean information from them, using drugs to control them and wipe their memories. She provides some detail, in the final chapters, of how they became convinced that these so-called `MIL-ABS' are, or rather were in the 1990s, a reality. The book also describes interactions with some human-looking entities (`hybrids?) and how abductees have recognised each other in the `everyday' world. The author did not believe these alien intrusions to be in any way benign, and was definitely not any kind of `New-Ager.'

ITF's 13 untitled chapters run to 239 pages including a short epilogue. There is a brief bibliography but no index. All three of Karla Turner's books are in great demand on the second-hand book market and almost impossible to find except with high price tags. If you find even a `fair' paperback copy of ITF for less than US$30 you'll be lucky, and a `fine' or `like new' copy will set you back close to US$200 - if you can find one at all.

Literary questions aside, I found this book totally gripping. It is unfortunate that Dr. Turner (PhD in English) is dead because as her experiences went on she became more and more astute in her observations. I believe this was her first book, but it lays out the mind-bending events that started her research. In my opinion, in her later works she edged closer to the truth, coming to pretty much think, along with people like John Keel and Jacques Vallee, that UFO events are both psychic and physical. They really do happen in a realm of virtual reality which the experiencer is unable to separate from everyday life. Yes, there are scars and implants, but does that mean the beings who did this are from Alpha Centauri -- or are they lying demons working wonders?

Wow, as shocking as it may sound, you've got to read to understand the trauma in her life.

This account starts out very interestingly but then falls into bland accounts of body markings left by aliens. The marks supposedly left by the aliens are discussed in such detail that I found myself scanning over much of those parts. Additionally, the people in this book don't think very logically. They never set up some sort of video recorder at night to see what was happening during their "abductions". It was almost as if they wanted to be abducted so they could sit around and talk endlessly about the markings left on their bodies. There is also reference to something important which is going to happen just after these incidents occurred in 1988. Well it's been 10 years and the only thing that happened is I wasted my time reading this book.