Cover Story: Out of this world

On Dec. 27, 2002, at a Holiday Inn just north of Hollywood, Fla., the leader of the largest UFO sect in the world made a rather unique announcement to reporters. For years, Claude Vorilhon had been telling whoever would listen that, while hiking atop a dormant volcano in central France in 1973, he saw a spaceship touch down. Out of the ship walked a 4-foot, bearded being — not quite human, but almost. Within minutes, the extraterrestrial cleared up centuries of debate about the origin of man: Humans — indeed all life on Earth — were created neither through evolution nor a divine power, but by aliens. And through science, humans would one day develop the technology to become like their creators. At least, this is what Vorilhon — who would rename himself Rael — says he was told.

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Now, almost 30 years later, science has brought mankind closer to the legacy the extraterrestrials foretold. At the press conference, Rael announced that a company he founded had just presided over the birth of the first human clone. A 31-year-old woman had delivered by C-section a daughter who was the mother’s exact genetic match. The child’s name, fittingly, was Eve.

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In an instant, Rael and his thousands of followers made the leap from sociological curiosity to scientific monstrosity. The language of the media blitzkrieg was grandiose. “A dramatic — and, to many researchers, troubling — milestone in medical history,” one newspaper remarked. “A reckless application of cloning technology,” warned another. “A claim worthy of a P.T. Barnum sideshow” and “an occasion for ghoulish bemusement,” an editorial denounced. “‘Twilight Zone’-like.” “Sometimes surreal.” “Like an ‘X-Files’ story line.” “A brave new world or a spectacular hoax.”

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The company, Clonaid, at first agreed to settle the skepticism by submitting mother and child to DNA testing. But as weeks passed with no proof put forth, it appeared the claims of the first human clone were nothing but a bluff.

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Hoax or not, Rael’s announcement immeasurably elevated his fringe movement’s profile. And perhaps more significantly, news of each of man’s newly cloned beasts — be it a cat, a mouse or, just last month in Italy, a horse — has helped Rael’s claims seem less and less outlandish. Our own advancements in cloning in fact mirror the process by which Rael claims that extraterrestrials eventually came to clone humans. According to Rael, the aliens cloned everything from single-cell organisms to Neanderthals, culminating in a final specimen — us — that most closely resembles them.

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And now, as a result of our own recent experiments, Raelian logic says we have inched ever closer to cloning man — and, by extenstion, to playing “them,” or God.

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Of course, the convergence of religion and sci-fi is frowned upon by most scientists. What’s more, few scientific pursuits have generated more controversy than cloning. And most people still see human cloning as treachery akin to nuclear weapons. (Just because we know how to do something doesn’t mean we should do it.)

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Despite the opposition, the Raelians’ view of cloning as the next step on mankind’s path to eternal life is an idea — a gospel — they intend to spread.

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“For them, cloning is theologically significant,” says Susan Palmer, a sociologist at Montreal’s Dawson College whose book about Raelianism, Alien Apocalypse, will be published next year. “The Raelians don’t believe in the soul or the spirit or heaven or God. It fits with their creation message that extraterrestrials cloned human beings with their own DNA. And that’s why they’re promoting it.”

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With its conservative politics, ubiquitous Christianity and etched-in-stone reminder of the confederate South, Stone Mountain seems an unlikely home for a longtime Raelian. Which just goes to show, they’re in the unlikeliest places.

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The subdivision where Dereke Clements lives is mammoth: four mini-communities of townhomes and standalones, a pristinely manicured park and its own elementary school. A world unto itself — one in which you might think a Raelian would stand out. But Clements doesn’t. The only outward sign of his beliefs is the medallion he sometimes wears bearing the Raelian insignia of infinity.

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Born in Eatonton, a town smack in the middle of Georgia where dairy cows number nearly as many as people, Clements grew up the traditional way — in the Methodist church. It wasn’t until he moved to L.A. in the 1970s that his spiritual leanings took a turn toward the otherworldly.

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In 1977, Clements was working as a host of a radio talk show called “Santa Monica Speaks,” when a man named Rael was scheduled to appear as a guest.

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It was just four years after Rael’s alleged encounter. At the time, Rael was a virtual nobody.

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Before the interview, Clements picked up Rael’s book, The Message Given by Extraterrestrials. Split into two parts, “The Book Which Tells the Truth” and “Extra-terrestrials Took Me to Their Planet,” Rael’s book quotes at length the aliens, who ask to be called the Elohim.

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Of the spaceship, Rael writes: “It measured some seven meters in diameter, about 2.5 meters in height, was flat underneath and coneshaped. On its underside, a very bright red light flashed, while at the top an intermittent white light reminded me of a flash cube.”

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Rael’s “messages,” as they’re called, go on to describe his repeated encounters with the Elohim, as well as the instructions the Elohim passed to him, his visits to the Elohim’s planet and the manner by which the Elohim created all life on Earth.

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What is perhaps most compelling about Rael’s writings is that, as they tackled heavy existential questions, they didn’t do it at the expense of established religions. The Bible, for instance, is described as a mystified guidebook to the Elohim’s work. Rael took the Book of Genesis phrase by phrase and explained how it and other parts of the Bible crudely attempt to describe the doings of the Elohim. The Bible, according to Rael, was “somewhat distorted by successive transcribers who could not conceive of such high technology and could therefore only explain what was described as being a mystical and supernatural force.”

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Clements, in spite of himself, found his interest piqued. But he wasn’t sold. “I wanted to really dispel this information,” he recalls, “to say, ‘No, I’m not going to fall for this crap.’”

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Clements’ skepticism held fast when the interview began.

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“Here I am — a young black man in the No. 1 radio station in Los Angeles. Here comes this young, white Frenchman telling me he had this extraterrestrial encounter. His English was very broken. His interpreter was having to interpret a lot of stuff for him. And I looked him straight in the eye to try and intercept the smallest bit of a lie. And the guy was very warm, and he was very genuine. And to me it seemed as though he was really trying to relate this story to me.”

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Raelianism didn’t demand that Clements abandon his Christian beliefs. “The only thing it did,” he says in the living room of his split-level contemporary ranch, “was have me question who God was.”

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Even the word “Elohim” had biblical connotations. The word, which is plural, can mean both God and those who come from the sky, according to most dictionaries. And it is “Elohim” — not the singular “Eloha” — which appears in early versions of the Bible.

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Clements says he started reading through the Bible subbing “Elohim” for “God”: “‘And Elohim made up the firmaments, and Elohim said let the waters under the heavens be gathered.’

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“And then it also read, ‘Let us make man in our image.’

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To Clements, that biblical use of the first-person plural was a significant turning point.

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“It’s like, hey, the pieces of the puzzle are coming together,” he says, repeating the line: “‘Let us make man in our image.’”

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So intoxicating is this union of dogma and science (or at least science fiction) that over the past 30 years, Raelianism has grown from a single member to a self-reported 60,000 in more than 80 countries.

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“They’re attracted to this kind of scientific veneer and the idea that everything can be explained rationally,” says Palmer, the Dawson College sociologist. “And you get rid of God. You get rid of hocus-pocus. So people with scientific world views but with a religious need find it appealing.”

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Palmer’s own fascination with the Raelians began with a visit to a 1987 psychic fair. She stopped, intrigued, at a Raelian booth and bought a raffle ticket whose prize was a visit by a Raelian priest, or “guide.”

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“And of course it was a recruiting strategy and I was too stupid to realize it,” she says.

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In the years since, Raelian guides have paid frequent visits to the sociology classes Palmer teaches, and Palmer has regularly attended the Raelians’ monthly meetings and annual seminars. Raelians tend to be young, educated and attractive; gays are accepted, as is virtually any type of sexual expression.

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Palmer says many of the Raelians she’s met joined the movement because “there were a lot of pretty girls and they knew that the Raelians were very free sexually.” But just as many Raelians joined because they believed in extraterrestrials and Rael’s description of the Elohim.

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“A lot of them are attracted by Rael, because he’s very entertaining,” Palmer says. “He’s funny. He seems kind of like an 18th-century philosopher. He’s very rational. He talks about love.”

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Although Palmer was never persuaded to join, she views Rael as plausible from a sociological standpoint. “I’m totally convinced he’s sincere in that he experienced something and he believes in it. Who knows what’s going on deep inside his brain?”

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Robert Ellwood, emeritus professor of religion at the University of Southern California, says he personally doesn’t find the Raelians’ claims credible. But, having studied UFO religions since the 1960s, he too understands why some would. Raelians know spin.

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“This is a group that has a knowledge of public relations, how to present their material, how to make people feel welcome, and how to present a group of young, attractive, outgoing and vibrant sort of people.”

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At the Raelians museum “UFOland” at their Montreal headquarters, “you can actually walk into a UFO and see what it’s like to be inside of one,” says Ellwood, who visited in 1998. The museum includes exhibits explaining Raelian theories on the origin of the human race and extraterrestrial intervention. “It’s done in a pretty slick, professional kind of way,” he says.

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In the years since Clements joined, the Raelian Movement clearly has evolved from a group of fringe followers to a network of marketing mavens. But longtime followers such as Clements remain.

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Clements’ longevity as a Raelian also hints at how, for many, Raelianism is neither a fad nor a cult in the traditional, commune-like, killer Kool-Aid drinking sense.

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Living in the South, Clements’ contact with other Raelians has been minimal. He’s been a one-man church since his return to Georgia seven years ago. He knows only one other Raelian in the state, who lives an hour away in Athens. Neither his wife nor two sons are Raelian.

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But it’s not as lonely as it sounds. To be Raelian doesn’t mean you have to be near Rael or even other Raelians. There’s not much to practicing Raelianism. Raelians strive simply to live independent, happy and sensual existences, which isn’t so different from the way most non-Raelians live. The point is to enjoy life on Earth, because until living on other planets is an option, Earth is all we’ve got.

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“If you die tomorrow, what will it mean?” Clements says. “In terms of a spiritual plane or a spirit coming out of your body, they say no, there’s no type of spirit that actually comes out of the body.”

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But ideally, when Raelians die in the near future, they’ll have the choice not to perish.

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“You can be recreated scientifically,” says Clements. “And we know humanity is at that brink right now where we’re going to able to clone individuals. We already have.”

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Or have they? If Rael’s movement attracted skeptics before, last December’s unsubstantiated announcement that a Raelian woman had given birth to a clone of herself brought the detractors out in force.

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One of them is Dr. Tom Murray, president of the medical ethics research institute The Hastings Center and a former bioethics adviser to President Clinton. “The Raelians are riding the public’s fear and fascination about human reproductive cloning to get millions of dollars of free publicity for their organization — and money from gullible, desperate or narcissistic people who think that Rael’s troupe can deliver on their boasts.”

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Murray doesn’t mask his disdain for the Raelians’ clone claims, either. Clonaid, he says, “has about as much chance of making a healthy cloned baby as I have of winning the Powerball lottery. Did I mention that I never buy a ticket?”

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True, neither Rael nor Dr. Brigitte Boisselier, director of Clonaid and Rael’s self-named successor, offered any verification of Eve, even after agreeing to hire an impartial handler (a former ABC reporter) to take DNA samples from mother and clone and report the lab findings to the media. At the last minute, Boisselier said there would be no tests.

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“There are four possibilities,” Palmer surmises. One is that there is an actual clone, but the mother — who allegedly allowed her DNA to be imported into an embryo that was then implanted in her womb — feared the intense scrutiny and decided to spare herself and her child. Another possibility is that the newborn was sick, deformed or damaged and was too disturbing to reveal to the public. A third possibility is that the clone was never for real — was in fact a well-planned PR project.

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“Their impression is that there was a lot of good publicity and that the whole thing was a great military coup,” Palmer says about her conversations with Raelians in the months since the publicity floodgate burst. “They did get a lot of members out of it. They did get a lot of fame.” Rael, who’s boasted a 5,000-strong surge in membership, has reported that his mission to inform the world of the Elohim is now “50 percent complete” thanks to the media coverage of Eve.

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Lastly, the Raelians may have been duped by a conniving scientist.

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“Which would be easy to do,” Palmer says. “They’re a utopian, new religious movement. For human beings to clone, it means we’re coming of age and we’re becoming equal to extraterrestrials. To the Raelians, that’s very significant. They want physical immortality. That’s their mission. That’s salvation.”

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In the Raelian scheme of things, the next step toward immortality, after cloning our body, is to download into our clone our memory, consciousness, personality and whatever else makes us who and what we are. The cloning part is a lot easier than the downloading, whose kinks are farther from being worked out. But the Raelians, and some bona fide scientists, are confident that recording and preserving thought and memory is possible. And then, who’s to stop someone from living forever?

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To Raelians, human cloning is a mere technicality on the way to immortality. Others, of course, see it as a flat-out evil that needs to be eradicated. It’s unlikely that these two schools will ever merge — even in the name of everlasting life, which arguably is the ultimate objective of both science and religion.

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The Raelian brand of everlasting life is not based on ideas of spirituality and divine love, but rather on the nuts and bolts of science. Perhaps that is why this type of immortality promised by Raelianism captivates at the same time that it disgusts. On the one hand, it’s easy to want to live forever. It’s easy to be convinced that science can deliver to us what religion can’t. But on the other, it’s not so easy to say what makes us deserve to live forever, what makes our generation worthy of eventually displacing all future generations — what makes individuals who might have been born in the future matter less than individuals alive now.

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In the book The Gods Have Landed, theologian and scholar John Saliba points out that for all the compatibility to Christianity that some UFO sects claim, many Christians will always oppose such notions. “Convinced of the reality of UFOs, many Christians have reread the Bible, found hidden references to UFOs, and bestowed a religious meaning upon UFOs’ existence,” Saliba writes. But he goes on to say: “Those who opt for a literal interpretation of the Bible will find it practically impossible to harmonize their worldview both with the idea of extraterrestrial life and with the interference of space intelligences in the history of the human race.”

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It’s therefore ironic that believing Rael actually makes a Raelian much more like a Christian than not. Rael’s believers aren’t so different from other believers, those who believe in higher beings of a less scientific kind. Deep down, Raelianism is just as acceptable or just as outlandish as Christianity because both Raelian and Christian must possess similar faith: Blest is he who does not see and still believes.

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Theologically, the argument to believe or not to believe Rael boils down to whether you can accept that God is divine only in the traditional sense or that extraterrestrials do exist and, by very definition, must be divine — and supersede “God’s” divinity.

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Science fiction amuses us because the most astute of it shows the history of our distant future. Raelianism intrigues 60,000 of us (or so Rael claims) because in a best-case scenario it will become the history of future religion. That would be a future where opposition to cloning is viewed in the same archaic light as we now view opposition to a spherical Earth. And in that future, Rael will be not a fanatic but a prophet.

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For Clements, that future is all but certain. He has little doubt that others like him, when presented with the messages, will have no trouble believing.

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“It was a beautiful transition for me,” he says. “It was no conversion at all. It sent me on a deep-rooted search for the connections in reality.”

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mara.shalhoup@creativeloafing.com