Mar 25 2008
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Abduction Researcher Karla Turner
The 1994 MUFON convention featured one speaker whose book I had read and who I wanted to speak with. Fortunately, I had an excuse for an interview because of a zine I was publishing at the time.
The researcher was female, a rarity in the UFO field. She had written two books on the abduction scenario, Into The Fringe, and Taken, which impressed me as different views on the subject than were making the rounds at the time. There was little discussion of breeding programs or alien takeover of our genetic material. Instead, she examined what the phenomenon meant to the individuals involved, on a personal as well as a symbolic level.
It was with a little nervousness that I introduced myself to Karla Turner. She turned out to be a polite, charming, and intelligent person, although I don’t know why I expected otherwise. Perhaps it was the forthright tone in her writing, which conveyed a strong dedication and no-nonsense attitude.
She agreed to an interview, which we conducted at the hotel in Austin where the convention was held. At this point, I was willing to accept most of the abduction stories as true, at least as many of the witnesses reported them. I still have little doubt that Turner was sincere and honest about her experiences, and those of her husband, who had both been subject to strange visitations for many years. She didn’t really care about people who questioned her interests and tended to ignore all but those who could offer useful information in her quest for answers.
The interview was published, and Turner took me seriously enough to keep up a correspondence for two more years, until her death in 1996. We talked on the phone once every month or two, and she suggested people and subjects that I might want to study. Most of them had little or nothing to do with abductions.
Strangely, almost every piece of mail that I received from Turner showed evidence of tampering. Some were simply left open, while others were sealed in plastic with an apology from the US Post Office. I asked her about this, and she began to send envelopes with a piece of tape over the flap, writing “sealed by sender” over it. The tampering stopped. This sort of thing happened with only one other person, and he was a cattle mutilation researcher.
One experience made me wonder about not just Turner herself, but the whole subject of abductions in general. On the night before our interview, I woke up four or five times: at 1:11, 2:22, 3:33, etc. This is the only time this has happened in my life. Turner and others later told me that this was a little-known experience of many who had claimed anomalous interludes with the UFO phenomenon. My host in Austin, Wes Nations, told me that his neighbors had seen people in khaki outfits looking around his home the day after I left, and that a fire had broken out soon after they disappeared. It did little damage, and may have been a coincidence, but made all of us wonder just what it was that Karla Turner had uncovered.
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March 25th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
OK this reminds me of Sara Jane Olson being in the news recently — aka Kathleen Soliah. She and I used to write an activist newsletter together with two other people. She used to cook meals for us at her house and she would drive me to my place and I saw her act in a play. Anyway she was supposed to get out of jail and apparently the government decided just to keep her a year longer based on some trumped up excuse.
What never gets mentioned is that the terrorist group, the SLA, that she was involved with, was started, lead and promoted by someone trained in the FBI cointelpro program — Donald DeFreeze or something.
So the FBI and the CIA routinely infiltrate and even create fake terrorist groups — all for broader psychological and political disinformation. This basis for Kathleen Soliah’s actions are never mentioned in the press. She wanted me to write a letter about it for a local, small free weekly but I thought, instead, she should have made it the focus of her trial.
And so we can see how such a “witch-hunt” overwhelms any type of meaningful analysis.
March 25th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
Man, what a great interview!
And it is peculiar to note that on Amazon, her first book can be bought by less than 3 bucks, but her other two are over US$45!!
It would be interesting to read that “Masquerade of Angels” book.
March 25th, 2008 at 9:13 pm
Greg: you say:
“At this point, I was willing to accept most of the abduction stories as true, at least as many of the witnesses reported them. I still have little doubt that Turner was sincere and honest about her experiences”
What is your current hypothesis?
March 26th, 2008 at 3:46 am
That’s a terrific interview Greg - thank you.
RPJ you may have discovered this but a pdf of Karla Turner’s ‘Masquerade of Angels’ is available on her website: http://www.karlaturner.org
March 26th, 2008 at 3:48 am
Greg,
I realize this question is a little off the subject of abductions, but have you ever seen a UFO?
March 26th, 2008 at 10:30 am
Thank you Ellis!
March 26th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Drew,
Your comments also bring to mind the Judy Barri case.
I don’t think the authorities were out to get Karla, but they sure were interested in what she was doing, for some reason.
March 26th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
RPJ,
Thanks for the kudos. My naivete at the time of the interview shows through, but that probably helped!
March 26th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Gavilian,
I’ve mentioned this in other posts, but currently (and that is only currently) I tend to think that the literal “aliens” belief is not wholly correct. It is probably more that our preconceptions, imagination, and influence of abduction researchers and popular culture get in the way of what the actual abduction experience entails.
If there are really extra-human entities interacting with us (and I think that there are) we probably can’t get far enough outside of our own views to confront it for what it may actually be. That’s why I think that subjective impressions may be one key to understanding. Look at the DMT research by Rick Strassman, and the history of indigenous and shamanic beliefs, as well as the evolution of abduction scenarios over the past 40 years. We have probably crossed paths many times in the past with something that is not us.
March 26th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Curious,
This is also something I have mentioned in other posts, but no, I haven’t really seen anything that I could unequivocally state was a true “unidentified.”
March 26th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
All,
If you are interested in other interviews by myself and my friends who co-founded the Excluded Middle magazine, please consider buying a copy of Wake Up Down There!, a collection of the best articles, features, news, and reviews from the magazine, which was published from 1992 to 1999.
I knew I shouldn’t have put up that link!
March 26th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
I was going to say something about abduction researchers’ authenticity indicators like passing through screen doors, etc. but I think I don’t care anymore and besides that is sooo nineties.
Funny how people seem to think that humans stopped evolving 100,000 years ago when significant evolutionary changes can happen in a few generations.