Science of the Fringe

The science of the Fringe case files is very... Well, to sum it up, ridiculous. However, it turns out that scientists and researchers outside of the FBI and the Fringe Teams are actually trying hypotheses and getting funding for ridiculous experiments. Fortunately, these researchers aren't unethically using the world as their testing grounds for experiments and kidnapping people to experiment on like ZFT did. However, the science that these people are exploring is still questionable at times.

In comparison to the sciences from the Fringe files, what I like to call real-life fringe science is actually more based in actual physics and actually obeys biological laws of the real world. The Fringe files' science is... It just doesn't make sense sometimes. During my exploration of the Fringe files, one of the more intriguing cases, I found is a disease called Bellini's Lymphosemia in one of Agent Dunham's report that was associated with the radioactive compound that overheated the gerbil heads in that one experiment I tried to recreate.

Apparently a component of the compound was an alleged "cure" for Bellini's Lymphoscemia. I was unsure at first if the disease existed so I checked with a few of my sources in the medical community. I found that there is no such thing as Bellini's Lymphoscemia. This seriously makes me think that the Fringe files are some elaborate FBI prank on my department. But they seriously shouldn't have the resources, or even the time to have made an elaborate thing like this. Plus there's no reason that they would want to even do something like that.

Well, moving back to the actual topic of this blog-- in our real fringe science some of the things that they're trying to do are... interesting, to sum it up. A few examples of their experiments are trying to apply quantum physics to AIDS and cancer research, cold fusion and telekinesis. However, sometimes ideas that come into the fringe science community are from non-scientists or researchers that don't even have an understanding of freshman-level physics.

Fortunately, there are actually societies that are made up of professionals that go through theories and actually conduct experiments to study unusual phenomena. One such organization is the SSE, or Society for Scientific Exploration. They have a journal about their findings that is also peer-edited by other people in the science community. Their journal has been collecting articles since 1987 and has published articles about topics such as quantum and biophysics, consciousness studies, alternative medicines and psychology.

The people within these communities actually don't condone what they think is bad science. When the SSE has conferences, they allow speakers up to talk about their theories and studies. But when they think that someone is doing bad science, the members of the community offer constructive criticism to stop them from continuing in the wrong direction or doing something unethical.

Some scientists actually are able to gain funding for their fringe science experiments. I'll summarize and analyze some of my favorite examples here.

Luc Montagnier is the man who discovered the human immunodeficiency virus in 2008. However, in 2009, he proposed that electromagnetic energy signals emanate from the DNA of bacterial pathogens. He said that the radiation should be at low levels, at 1000 Hz and that it should be able to survive extreme dilution. This is quite ludicrous because electromagnetic energy comes from sources such as light. Also his theory was based off of the work from another scientist who worked in fringe science as well. Montagnier took Benveniste's theory that immunoglobin molecules could be highly diluted, which is the model that Montagnier based his diluted electromagnetic energy signals on.



So, fringe science in the real world is thankfully not as diabolical as ZFT's world experimentation. Fortunately, most of the science in the fringe community is still speculative and any research that is actually being done is ethical due to the SSE and other scientists and organizations that keep "bad science" out of the fringe science community.

ZFT Related Experimentation

The aftermath of the radiation therapy for Bellini's Lymphoscemia patients after ZFT got their hands on them

The victim's autopsy from the incident above.

Dr. Bishop holding up a piece of a literal human bomb

.

 The victims were injected with a compound that crystallized them and turned them into living frag grenades when exposed to a certain frequency.

Gallery of Non ZFT related experimentation

The image that got me here in the first place because Agent Kirk couldn't hold his lunch down

Another victim of the case from above.
A computer programmer figured out a way to kill people
through a computer virus he manufactured by liquefying their brains

Experimentation on Children

Child experimentation is something that no one should condone. There are many reasons why we shouldn't experiment on children, especially the kinds of experimentation they were subjected to during the Cortexiphan trials.

Cortexiphan is a highly experimental and dangerous drug created by Doctors Bell and Bishop. The FDA did not approve of this drug, so the doctors took the drug and found children to experiment on in secret by setting up two daycare centers in Wooster and Jacksonville. The drug was developed because they theorized that, at birth, people have approximately 100% access to their brain's potential. This capacity diminishes as we grow older, making children the prime subjects to test their theory. Cortexiphan was meant to be a drug that halted the decay of the brain. During their creation of the drug, Dr. Bishop discovered that Cortexiphan also had regenerative properties when applied to brain tissue. While it could not regrow the brain's capacity to 100%, it could heal any damage done to the brain.

Trials on adults proved that the drug could only work on children, and that it was also an extremely dangerous drug. All of the people subjected to the tests died a few hours after the drug was administered. Dr. Bishop stated that since children's brains were still in development and more plastic than brains of adults, the drug was more free to create unique neural pathways in a subject's brain without causing as much damage as it did in the adult trials. Once these pathways were created, they would remain in the brain forever, even if the drug burned up in the subject's system.

Doctors Bell and Bishop began their trials in Wooster, Ohio. After those tests were complete, they began a second set of tests in Jacksonville, Florida. The children in the Jacksonville trials were apparently more receptive to the treatment. One such case is Olivia Dunham, who set fire to the building with her mind when Dr. Bishop was manipulating her emotions in an attempt to get a reaction from the drug that he wanted from her. The children in Wooster were not as fortunate to have their powers suppressed and their memories wiped like the children in Jacksonville. The tests were more successful in Jacksonville, but when the daycare center was about to be closed, Doctors Bell and Bishop had to cover up their progress to keep it secret from the government.

While the people who were in the trials gained exceptional mental abilities, many of these abilities turned out to be extremely problematic in their daily lives. This kind of experimentation should not be done on children because any lasting effects will be with them for the rest of their lives. Especially with a drug like Cortexiphan.

Of the subjects from the trials, only one known case was able to successfully reintegrate himself into society without having his memories wiped and powers suppressed by Dr. Bell and Dr. Bishop. In the case of Mark Little (formerly Cameron James) he was finally able to suppress his powers by learning to control his emotional state. But even then, Mr. Little could not engage in a full life because he had to avoid relationships with others and the emotional turmoil that sometimes comes with those relationships.

In addition, Mr. Little still holds abundant amounts of bitterness towards Dr. Bishop and Dr. Bell for ruining his life. Mr. Little's power was astral projection, but he eventually lost that power and was only left with the ability to incur the electromagnetic field that came with the projection. With some help from Agent Dunham and Dr. Bishop, Mr. Little was able to learn to focus his mind and control his electromagnetic powers. However, he still had little control over them in tandem with his emotions.

Also from the Wooster trials, Simon Phillips had an even harder time rejoining society, so much so that he gave up and lived in isolation for years so his power could not torment him. Mr. Phillips gained the power of telepathy, allowing him to hear the thoughts of people around him. However, with every thought Mr. Phillips hears, his brain is put under stress, causing him pain. He secluded himself to a cabin in the woods because it was too painful for him to live around others and try to master his powers.

Mr. Phillips only blocker from hearing other people's thoughts is Cortexiphan. He cannot hear the thoughts of other people successfully dosed with the drug. He eventually found another subject to settle down with and have a family with, but he has to still remain removed from society to keep sane and pain free.

The subjects of the Cortexiphan Trials were also later trained to become soldiers and that conditioning has stayed with them in their subconscious, even with the memory manipulation. Cortexiphan subjects continued to wear what was referenced as a "uniform" Dr. Bishop called the "blacks and greys" which allowed the Cortexiphan subjects to blend in to the background and avoid drawing attention to themselves. This effect on the children of the trials into their adulthood shows that children are malleable to suggestion and conditioning that can very well shape their futures and personalities.

The Cortexiphan trials can be seen as weaponizing humans as well, and should be an example against human experimentation, especially on children.

Children of the Cortexiphan Experiments

Children of the Cortexiphan Experiments

During one of their experiments, Dr. Bishop and Dr. Bell set up daycare centers in Wooster, Ohio and Jacksonville, Florida. The daycare centers were a guise for their true intentions, to get child test subjects for their experiments with a drug they developed called Cortexiphan. They theorized that people had infinite mental capabilities, which slowly diminished as they grew older. Cortexiphan was supposed to halt the decay of the brain and supposedly would allow them to access what they hoped would be nearly 100% of their brain capacity. 

 

A list of all the children from the
Jacksonville Cortexiphan trials
compiled by Agent Dunham

The following content is a compilation of the known Cortexiphan subjects that worked with Fringe Division.

Nick Lane

As a child, Lane was a part of the Jacksonville trials and was a close childhood friend of Agent Dunham. Dr. Bishop created a “buddy system” for the children in the trials, and while all of them grew to be friends in the program, he made sure that they created strong empathic bonds with one other individual to help them cope with any stresses the trials created.

Lane was later reunited with Agent Dunham in 2009 when he began killing people through his own emotions. His new mental capabilities had developed as what Dr. Bishop called “Reverse Empathy” or empathetic transference. After being “woken up” by a man who visited Lane in the Veteran’s Mental Hospital, he developed this ability. Lane was able to make everyone around him feel his emotions.

Lane tried to do his own detective work on the Pattern and fringe events after discovering his ability. However, after some time with no luck, Lane became depressed and suicidal, which later started to affect other people and made them kill themselves, which gained him the attention of Fringe Division. His experiences of killing these people were being transferred to Agent Dunham’s unconscious mind, leading the Fringe Team to investigate.

In the end, Lane was put into a drug-induced coma by Massive Dynamic, then taken out and trained by Massive Dynamic specialists to control his powers.

Susan Pratt

Susan and Nancy Lewis

Nancy Lewis and her twin sister Susan (who later changed her surname to Pratt) were both subjects of the Jacksonville Cortexiphan trials.

The sisters both were approached by a man called Isaac Winters who unlocked their powers. Winters was a part of the cult ZFT (see my synopsis on this). He was also working with a mole in the FBI, Sanford Harris, who abducted Nancy Lewis after she was activated in an attempt to contain her powers and turn her into a soldier for their cause.

Nancy Lewis

Susan Pratt was the one who got the attention of Fringe division by spontaneously combusting in the middle of the street.

Later the Fringe Team found that Pratt’s twin sister was Lewis, and set out to locate her before ZFT could. Unfortunately Isaac Winters found her before they could. Peter used a device he created to read the dents left by Lewis’s pyrokinesis softening the glass of her window panes and the sounds of her and Winters’ voices leaving pockets in the softened glass.

After being rescued by Agent Dunham, Lewis was taken in by Massive Dynamic and put with another girl with pyrokinesis, Sally Clark, (supposedly from the Wooster trials as her name is not on Agent Dunham’s list of children in the Jacksonville trials.)

James Heath

Heath was subject to the Jacksonville trials. After being activated by ZFT, he accidentally killed his sister Julie, who was also part of the trials. Dr. Bishop posited that Heath’s ability is a sort of energy exchange. He suffers from cancer, and can transfer his illness to other Cortexiphan subjects because they were also receptive to his energy because their brain capacities were maintained at a higher functioning state because of the drugs.

Heath’s trail of cancer ridden bodies lead the Fringe team to discover how and why he was killing other people subjected to the trials. Rather than arresting Heath, Massive Dynamic took him and trained him to heal himself and others with his powers along with Nick Lane, Sally Clark and Nancy Lewis.

Pictures of Heath's Victims
Left to Right: Julie Heath, Alan DeRosa,
Timothy Ober, Lloyd Becker, and Miranda Green

Simon Phillips

As a young boy, Phillips was taken out of the Wooster Cortexiphan trials early since he had developed the ability to read peoples’ minds. Dr. Bishop apparently had a dark secret, and was afraid Phillips would find out, so he dropped Phillips from the program.

After, Phillip’s powers of telepathy only intensified and he eventually had to isolate himself deep in the woods because the amount of input he was getting from the minds of everyone else overloaded his mind to the point of extreme pain.

Dr. Bishop requested they enlist Phillip’s help when the Fringe Team needed to extract information from a terrorist in a coma. After assisting the team, he returned to his isolated cabin because he felt people shouldn’t be able to hear the thoughts of others otherwise people would only get hurt in the end in matters of the heart.

He eventually settled down with another Cortexiphan subject and now lives with his family on his property.

Cameron James

Alias: Mark Little

James prefers to be called by his new name, Mark Little, in an attempt to separate himself from both his father (whom he was named after) and his experiences at the Wooster trials as much as possible. Little has an extreme distaste for his father because he was the one who sent him to the Bell-Bishop daycare in the first place.

When Agent Dunham was being haunted by a specter that Dr. Bishop identified as an astral projection, he theorized that it was Little, who developed the ability to astral project as a child, was responsible for the hauntings and was possibly reaching out for help.

When Agent Dunham and Dr. Bishop went to investigate, they found Little could no longer astral project and was extremely bitter with Dr. Bishop for ruining his life. Little was left with an ability that allowed him to stimulate electricity or magnetism under situations of high stress or emotional turmoil. The magnetism factor proved extremely difficult for Little because everything metal in his vicinity would go flying since he had no real control over his powers.

Dr. Bishop worked with Little to help him into a mind set that would better help him activate and control his powers to get rid of Dunham’s specter.

Little continued to dabble in his powers of magnetism and electro-kinesis until he had enough control to live the way any Cortexiphan subject appeared to have wanted to: a normal life.

Olivia Dunham

I’m sure Agent Dunham was just as surprised as I was when she discovered she was a Cortexiphan subject. Originally, Agent Dunham only displayed what Dr. Bishop now calls “Total Recall” which is a much more intriguing way of saying she has a photographic memory.

Over the course of her work with Fringe Division, Agent Dunham was often hunted down by a man called David Robert Jones, who attempted to activate her for ZFT’s purposes. He originally threatened Boston with a chemical that closed up all of the body’s orifices, killing the victim through asphyxiation.

Jones then created a bomb in a building that would spread the chemical over a large radius of the city. The only way to turn it off was to shut off all the lights on a light box connected to the bomb’s timer. Agent Dunham managed to somehow turn off the lights with her mind, according to Mr. Bishop’s account of the incident, but Agent Dunham was convinced Jones had the whole thing timed perfectly so the timer would stop when she got there and attempted to turn off the bomb.

Only when Nick Lane’s mental link reached out to Agent Dunham did Olivia’s involvement with the Jacksonville trials come to light.

Since then, it has been discovered that she has many other powers, such as pyrokinesis like the Lewis twins, telekinesis, electro-kinesis, sensory enhancement and what I can only guess is either some form of clairvoyance or something to do with this “Other Side” I find traces of in the files.

These powers have proved useful on certain Fringe events, allowing Agent Dunham to see which building would be attacked and vaporized by terrorists lead by a man named Newton. I can only theorize that she used foresight to see which building it was, or that it might have been taken to the “Other Side.”

Kelvin Genetics

Kelvin Genetics

Recently I was just subjected to horrific sights in the basement lab of Kelvin Genetics. Kelvin Genetics is notorious in the Fringe files for creating horrors through transgenics. Transgenics is the practice of transplanting the genes of one organism to those of another to create a hybrid, or an organism made of more than one organism’s genes.

The first mention of Kelvin Genetics in the Fringe case files is in 2009 when they created a bat based hybrid made up of multiple different creatures. This creature killed seven people and infected Agent Charlie Francis with its offspring before Dr. Bishop killed it.

Since then, other scientists from Kelvin Genetics have been creating hybrids and experimenting with transgenics. Now, I usually would condone experimentation in transgenics, however, the way that Kelvin Genetics carry out their experiments is just sick.

During my “visit” with Agent LaForge, we discovered that Kelvin Genetics had finally moved on to human trials of their experiments. These victims of experimentation had lost most of their humanity and chased us through the facility. We were separated and

Since their discovery in 2009, Kelvin Genetics has made frequent use of their successful bat base for their hybrid organisms. Most of these new human hybrids were created from the bat base and then modified with more animals to give them different enhancements without the disadvantages of each species.

Now, if you reference my Critical Essay, you can see there are many possible benefits to experimentation with hybridization and transgenics on animals. However, in the conditions that Kelvin Genetics keeps their subjects in are dismal at best. Also, the purpose of their research is to create a kind of super soldier.

Our apprehended criminal Dr. Carlisle told us Kelvin Genetics hasn’t been shut down because they’re in a contract with people of power who are paying them to continue their transgenics research. Their contractors are requesting soldiers with certain specifications, and the only way to attain these specifications is through transgenics to an extreme degree.

As far as I’m concerned, this goes against regulations from multiple different organizations and international biological policy. Mutilation and “any medical procedure which is not indicated by the state of health of the person concerned and which is not consistent with generally accepted medical standards” according to the International Committee of the Red Cross, whose policy references already established medical codes and international court decisions.

Dr. William Bell

William Bell

Born: March 26^th 1948

Alias: Belly, given to him by Walter Bishop

Died: May 11^th 2012

Occupation: Owner of Massive Dynamic

Former scientist/inventor and associate of Dr. Bishop.

Dr. Saito’s Observations: He bears a striking resemblance to Leonard Nimoy. Strange. Not exactly the strangest thing in these files, but still.

Dr. William Bell worked out of the basement lab at Harvard with Dr. Walter Bishop on government experiments on fringe science. After Dr. Bishop’s lab accident in 1991, Dr. Bell preformed a brain surgery on Dr. Bishop who was later deemed too mentally unstable to stand trial. His company, Massive Dynamic is actually responsible for many fringe events whether it's by the employees going rogue or them “unknowingly” supplying organizations and companies to experiment in the fringe sciences as well. Given Dr. Bell and Dr. Bishop’s relationship with that area of science, I’m a little unsure about how involved Massive Dynamic is in these events. 

Disclaimer: This is my Multimodial Project for Otis College's Writing in the Digital Age Class. There is no Dr. Saito, and I do not have a professional opinion on the science behind Fringe.