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Alien Abductions in the Gingerbread House by Karla Turner, Ph.D.
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World renowned UFO researcher Jacques Vallee has repeatedly referred to the similarities between UFO and abduction reports and the stories of folklore and fairy tales. I disagree with Dr. Vallee on many, many points of ufology, but here I will grant that there is one fairy tale which does have something important to tell us about the alien abduction phenomenon. It is not, however, what Dr. Vallee might think. The story of Hansel and Gretel presents a lesson that every abductee should heed. These innocent children, wandering lost and frightened in the forest, came upon a gingerbread house that seemed to offer them shelter and sustenance. The owner of the house, a wizened old woman, was frightening to them at first, but their hunger pushed the children to accept her offer to come inside and be fed. They entered the gingerbread house and promptly became the old woman's captives. Kept in cages, the two children were abundantly fed. It was not for their benefit, though. In fact, they were being fattened up for the oven! The deceptive nature of the gingerbread house and of the old woman's offer of food worked quite well. It is the deceptive quality of this story that holds a warning for humans who are abducted by aliens. Like Hansel and Gretel, we are initially terrified by our encounter with aliens, but in too many cases, our fear is overcome by the words of our abductors and by the thoughts and experiences they present to us. I, too, am an abductee, and my quest to discover the nature of my own experiences led me into abduction research over the past four years. Working with many other abduction cases, I have learned just how basic the deception of alien actions can be. My family and I also delved into our own experiences, both past and present. Barbara Bartholic, a dedicated UFO investigator from Tulsa, Oklahoma, worked closely with us and helped us fill in the gaps in our recollections of strange encounters through hypnotic regression. Ms. Bartholic, by the way, began her own research as an assistant to Jacques Vallee in cattle mutilation investigations, so her expertise in ufology is wide-ranging. I have recently written a book, Into the Fringe, about the startling and often disturbing results of our personal investigations, and it [was] published by the Berkley Publishing Group in November 1992. My interest soon expanded past the merely personal, and for the past several years I have worked as Ms. Bartholic's research associate, exploring literally hundreds of sighting and encounter cases with her. And what I've learned through this work has raised far more questions than answers. In fact, it has taught me to be wary of those researchers who do claim to have answers. I have yet to hear of a single theory or explanation that accounts for all of the data. Some researchers have pointed out patterns of events in the abduction experience, such as the physical examination, the taking of sperm and ova, and the later presentation of a hybrid baby to the abductee. Other patterns include the training of the abductee in some way and the delivery of a warning of some upcoming global disaster. Yes, these events are frequently reported, as one researcher has said in boring repetitious accounts, and it is tempting to think that the explanation for alien abductions may lie in these patterns. So the researchers announce that the problem is solved. The aliens are doing cross breeding experiments, ufologists tell us. Never mind the overwhelming evidence against the viable commingling of different species. Or, we are told, the aliens are here to save us from destroying ourselves and our planet through violence, drug use, epidemic disease, pollution, and resource depletion. Never mind that these problems have grown worse, not better, since the ETs began visiting us. Most infuriating of all, we are assured that there are no actual aliens, that our experiences spring from our own subconscious turmoil or from our need for fantasy fulfillment. Never mind that many abductees are young children, too young to be suffering from such psychological disturbances. Well, then, the resourceful researcher counters, the imagined aliens must spring from some collective human super-psyche that is mirroring our failures and dangers back to us. This particular theory adores the archetypal gray ET, because it resembles some sickly fetal form of humanity and must therefore be an objectified warning of what our species is in danger of becoming if we don't mend our ways. Never mind that many, many abductees have no dealing with grays, but instead are victimized by robust reptoids and insectoid-type aliens. Not to mention the totally human-looking blond beauties and black-headed, black-robed clan with the widow's peak hairline. No, too many researchers seem to find a theory and cling to it in spite of data that contradict it. And it is the ideas of these researchers that dominate ufology. But if the public had access to the raw data, to the first-hand reports of abductees, especially those unfamiliar with UFO-oriented books, magazines, and lecturers, they would find a much less neatly organized set of patterns. These "virgin" cases - people uncontaminated by ufological literature - supply a staggering picture of human-alien contact events. What follows here is an overview of these "virgin" reports, a list of recurrent experiences that, taken together, gives us a close-up view of what the aliens are doing here on earth. This data doesn't tell us for certain just what sort of creatures the aliens are, or what their purpose here may be. But it does tell us what humans are experiencing and what they are observing in the actions and capabilities of the aliens. Every detail in the following list has been reported by more than one abductee, and in many cases the details have turned up quite frequently. ABDUCTION "CHECKLIST". If these reports can be believed - and there is no reason to doubt the honesty of the reporters - the abduction phenomenon includes the following details.
Spritually Enlightened? It becomes clear from these details that the beings who are doing such things can't be seen as spiritually enlightened, with the best interest of the human race in mind. Something else is going on, something far more painful and frightening, in many, many abduction encounters. There is a theory current in ufological research that says abductees who perceive their experiences in a negative way only do so because they themselves aren't spiritually or psychically advanced. Persons with higher cosmic development have positive alien encounters, so the theory goes, and those who have painful or frightening experiences are merely spiritual Neanderthals. This is a pet theory of researchers who claim that aliens, whether objectively real or not, serve as "mirrors" of our spiritual nature, on an individual or a species-wide basis. Strieber has voiced this theory, for instance, in Majestic, where he says, "In the eyes of the others [the aliens], we who met them saw ourselves. And there were demons there." Having worked with so many decent, honest, positively oriented abductees, however, I believe this theory is wrong. It is worse than wrong - it is despicable, as despicable as blaming a rape victim for the violence committed against her. This attitude leaves many abductees feeling doubly violated, first by the aliens who took them and then by the UFO researchers to whom they turn for explanations and help. Perhaps it is easy to understand why such a theory would be so popular. Humans have a deep need to believe in the power of good. We need for the aliens to be a good force, since we feel so helpless in their presence. And we need for some superior force to offer us a hope of salvation, both personally and globally, when we consider the sorry state of the world. I think the aliens know this about us--they know that we want and hope for them to be benevolent creatures - and they use our desire for goodness to manipulate us. What better way to gain our cooperation than to tell us that the things they are doing are for our own good? Looking at the actions, the results of alien interference such as the long list above, there is a great discrepancy between what we desire from them and what they are doing to us. Not all abduction reports are filled with frightening or painful events, of course. Many people say that their alien encounters felt benevolent, that their abductors treated them kindly or at least with a scientific detachment. Some abductees recall being told that they were "special," that they were "chosen," and that they have an important task to perform for the benefit of humanity. Given such a positive message, the abductees may ignore the fear and the pain of their encounters and insist to themselves and to others that a higher motive underlies the abduction experience. And, in some cases, all that an abductee remembers is a benevolent encounter, and so has no reason to assume any negative action has occurred. Intensive research now shows that at the core of the human-alien interaction there is a clear pattern of deception. We know, for instance, that "screen memories" are often used to mask an alien abduction. Such accounts abound, in which a person sees a familiar, yet out-of-place animal, like a deer or owl, a monkey or a rabbit, and then experiences a period of missing time. The person often awakens later to find a new, unexplained scar on his body. Uneasiness about the encounter will persist, however, and far different memories may start to surface in dreams or flashbacks, and then the person seeks help to explain the uneasiness. Quite often, hypnotic regression is used to uncover the events behind the "screen memory," and that is when a typical alien abduction surfaces. The most recent research in which I've been involved has turned up yet a second sort of screening process. If it turns out to be accurate, then thousands of abduction cases are in urgent need of re-examination. The typical scenario of undergoing the regressive hypnosis usually results in penetration of the initial blocked memories. The abductee then recalls an encounter, hitherto un-remembered, such as undergoing a physical examination of some sort, perhaps having body tissues removed or having a gynecological exam. Other typical reports include the taking of sperm and ova, of being told of an important task to be carried out, or of receiving a warning of upcoming disaster. In most cases, both the abductee and the investigator come away from the hypnosis session feeling that they have discovered the truth about the experience. Rationalization leads them to believe that the aliens' purposes must be scientifically objective or benevolent. The less threatening and more benevolent the hypnotically recalled event seems, the more satisfied are the investigator and the abductee. "That wasn't so bad, now, was it? These beings are our friends, or at least they are not our enemies." And everyone goes away with a sense of relief. I have yet to hear of a researcher who actually questions the uncovered scenario. However, from several recent cases, it is apparent that these recovered memories may well also be yet another screen, masking events that are much more reprehensible. I will explain one such case, to make the point clear. A Strange Report A man in his late 40s came to us to explore several alien-related events in his life, and in the interview he told of a strange, although not apparently alien-oriented episode that had haunted him since childhood. When he was ten years old, his grandmother came to visit in his home, and since the house was small, she shared his bed on the first night of her visit. During the night, the boy was awakened by a loud male voice. He couldn't understand what the voice was saying, but it sounded angry and was addressing the grandmother lying beside him. The next morning, he asked his grandmother, "What was that voice in the bedroom last night?" His grandmother, with tears in her eyes, pulled him tightly to her and said, "That was the devil." She said nothing more about the episode, but she did insist that her son take her back to her own home immediately. It was an unreasonable request, and her son tried to talk her out of it. But the grandmother was adamant, and finally her son agreed to take her home the following day. The entire family made the trip of over a hundred miles back to the grandmother's farm, and within an hour of their arrival, the grandmother suffered a massive stroke and died. Ever since that event, the man had felt a heavy burden of guilt associated with his grandmother's death. Yet there was no conscious reason for him to have felt that way. The entire event was poignant and mystifying, but in all the alien encounters he had subsequently undergone, he had felt that the aliens were his friends and were helping him by expanding his psychic abilities. A regression session was arranged, and in the course of the hypnosis, he was asked to look at that childhood experience. What he recalled was an abduction in which he and his grandmother were taken to a spacecraft in the company of reptilian aliens. He remembered the aliens telling his grandmother that they were interested in learning about her knowledge of medicinal herbs, and they offered to exchange medical information of their own. They gave the boy and the grandmother a liquid to drink, explaining that it was beneficial and would make the grandmother feel young and attractive again. So both of them drank the liquid, and the man remembered seeing his grandmother indeed looking much younger. That was the extent of his recollection. Both he and Ms. Bartholic, who was conducting the regression, were puzzled by this, because there was nothing in the episode to account for the guilt he had felt about the grandmother's death. So Ms. Bartholic deepened the man's trance level and asked him to look at it again, with much clearer vision. And what he then recalled was much more disturbing. The abduction, at first, followed his initial recollection. But when the liquid was drunk, he now remembered a very strong feeling of change in his body. And he saw that the grandmother didn't actually look younger. Instead, she was placed on a table and approached by one of the reptilian aliens who wanted to have intercourse with her. The liquid had acted as an aphrodisiac, yet the grandmother resisted and said that since her husband's death she would not have sex with anyone. The reptilian laughed and disappeared from the room momentarily. When he returned, he was accompanied by a man who looked exactly like the dead husband. At this point, the grandmother agreed to have sex, but as the act was in progress, she suddenly realized that the image of her dead husband was a cruel illusion. It was actually the reptilian on top of her, and she cried out in great resistance for him to leave her alone. Once he was finished with her, he lifted up the little boy and placed him on top of the grandmother, forcing another sex act upon the both of them. Then the grandmother was removed from the table and the little boy was victimized himself by the reptilian, forced to have anal and oral sex. The grandmother protested violently, pushing the reptilian away from her grandson and interposing her body between them. "By Jesus," she shouted, "you will not touch this boy!" That must have been the wrong thing to say, because the reptilian became very angry and threatened her. "You will die for that!" he told her, and the two people were returned to the bedroom from which they'd been taken. The next morning, the grandmother told the little boy that the devil had been there the night before, and that was when she insisted upon being taken home. And, as it turned out, she did die immediately thereafter. This, then, was the cause of the man's lifelong sense of guilt about her death. He had been forced to have sex with her, and her death had followed shortly after. But none of this story would have emerged if Ms. Bartholic had done as most investigators do and stopped the regression after uncovering the story about the exchange of medicinal knowledge. There are other cases in our files that show a similar deception at work in the initial hypnotic recall. We cannot trust that first memory, it is clear, for like so much else in the abduction experience, there may well be further maskings of events. Before we allow ourselves to believe in the benevolence of the alien interaction, we should ask, do enlightened beings need to use the cover of night to perform good deeds? Do they need to paralyze us and render us helpless to resist? Do "angels" need to steal our fetuses? Do they need to manipulate our children's genitals and probe our rectums? Are fear, pain and deception consistent with high spiritual motives? Reprinted with permission by Elton Turner and Kelt Works, Inc. This article was first published in UFO Universe, Vol. 3 No. 1, Spring 1993. Copyright 1993 1700 Broadway, New York, NY 10019. Karla Kandace Turner, Ph.D. was a highly respected abduction researcher, author, lecturer, and teacher. She received her Bachelor's degree from the University of California in Sacramento, a Master's degree from the University of Nottingham, Nottingham England, and her Ph.D. from the University of North Texas in Denton. She authored three books about the abduction phenomenon: Into The Fringe, Taken, and Masquerade of Angels. In 1995, Karla contracted a very dangerous form of breast cancer immediately following an abduction experience. She lost her battle with cancer on January 9, 1996 at the age of 48. Karla has been greatly missed by those her knew her and by the many people she helped through her books and research. If you are interested in learning more about her and her views about the abduction phenomenon, we highly recommend that you read her articles on this Web site and her books, which can be read on-line at http://www.karlaturner.org/ |
