WHO IS RAËL?
AND WHAT DOES HE WANT FROM US?

by Chris J. Magyar

RAËL'S NEW MILLENNIUM RESOLUTIONS:
1) Build expensive alien embassy in Denver
2) Return human race to the mother species
3) Record Top 40 album
4) Win Daytona 500

John Travolta is no longer the officially weirdest alien we've ever covered. Do you want to know a secret? When journalists are extremely lazy, and editors are extremely lax, sometimes a magazine will reprint a press release word-for-word. Now, a paragon of journalistic integrity such as Go-Go would never stoop so low --at least until now. Not that I'm being lazy (even with all the Christmas shopping still left to do) or trying to get away with anything (how many words is this yet?), but every so often, a press release comes along that's so poignant, wellworded and concise that it would be a shame to paraphrase it. So here goes: a PR description of the man who wants to build a $20 million embassy right here in Denver.

Conceived on December 25, 1945 and born on September 30, 1946, RAËL is the last of the Prophets, the Messenger of Infinity, the Pope of the Raëlian Movement.
Son of Yahweh and Jesus' brother, his mission on Earth is to reveal to the whole of humanity the truth about our origins and to build an embassy to welcome our Fathers from space, the Elohim.
He is the founder of the Raëlian Movement, of the first human cloning company in the world (Clonaid), and of the first interpretation center of the UFO phenomena in the world (UFOLand).
Lover of motor racing, singersongwriter, author of bestsellers É those are the multiple facets of this extraordinary man.
They are yours to discover.

WHAT?

Right. Pope, author, guitarstrummer, race car driver ... it's hard to know where to start, but perhaps the most basic question is, "Why does the world need an embassy for an alien race?" Well, according to Raël, a Frenchman né Claude Vorilhon, there was a little nugget of Bible mistranslated. The phrase we Englishspeakers know as "first God created heaven and earth" from Genesis is actually "Bereshit bara Elohim" in the original Hebrew version. 'Elohim', it turns out, is a plural word (' gods') meaning literally "those who came from the sky." From there, it's just a hop, skip, and jump to the idea that men were created by aliens from another planet. So is Raël just a brilliant translator with an inclination for religious philosophy? How did he uncover this bit of wisdom?

He was visited, of course. On December 13, 1973, Raël was working as a sports journalist in France. He happened to be in the crater of an ancient volcano (why is not explained) when a small version of the typical flying saucer landed in front of him. A being just over three feet tall jumped out, and acted sufficiently passive to prompt Raël to ask, in French, "Where do you come from?"

"From very far away," responded the little man, presumably in French as well. The being then explained he was going to tell Raël everything and charge the sports writer with the task of revealing the truth to the human race. Then, depending on how the hairless apes reacted, the Elohim would decide whether or not to reveal themselves to the rest of us. It concluded the speech by saying, "I know you have recently read the Bible. Come into my machine, where it will be more comfortable to talk."

The little Eloha told Raël many things, but here's the basic gist. Back on the home planet, cloning technology was developed. The ethics committees of that planet were strictly against human cloning, and asked the scientists to travel to another planet to perform their horrid experiments. After searching awhile, the Elohim discovered Earth, terraformed it, and cloned themselves with glee. Those ethical tyrants on the home planet were very upset, and forced the scientist Elohim to return, leaving their creations in ignorance of their true origin.

From there, the rest is a matter of religious record. According to Raël, all the world's religions are a bastardized version of the truth: the prophets were messengers from the Elohim, and the apocalypse is the day the Elohim return to take us to the planet we came from. However, we cannot experience the true glory of space travel until we welcome the Elohim visibly. We cannot welcome the Elohim without an embassy, the instructions for which were given to Raël (a la Noah). This embassy, which would save mankind from our dying planet and reveal to us the truth of our origin, costs a mere $20 million.

WHY?

Why Raël? He argues two things: one, that the world's leaders are too corrupt to be entrusted with a message of this importance, and two, the Elohim happen to control the genetic code, and Raël was the living human who most closely matched their genetic plan for a messiah. In fact, he matched so closely that the Elohim dropped by again in 1975 and took him to their planet for a meet-and-greet.

The Raëlian religion believes in the pretty standard, touchy-feely dogma of most modern day new age philosophies: love everyone, share wealth, promote democracy, etc. What sets Raëlian apart as a religion is its casual attitude toward the creation and destruction of human life. In their view, since we were created as clones, it's our duty to create clones ourselves-- it's a sort of scientific reproductive urge. Also, abortion is perfectly fine (you can always clone later) and sex is, shall we say, highly encouraged.

There are two ways to join the church: National (passive) membership, which costs three percent of one's annual income (after taxes), and International (active) membership, which costs ten percent. Those who aren't bringing in a lot of money can opt for the $150 or $200 flat fee, respectively.

These funds are ostensibly funneled directly into Raël's numerous projects, only one of which is the embassy (they claim to have raised $7 million for that already). Dollars also go to Clonaid, an organization that is dedicated to cloning human beings. Once the technology is perfected, Clonaid will charge $200,000 for a standard human clone, or $50,000 for

their Insuraclone service, which samples DNA from a living human to be used in a complimentary cloning later if the human should die by disease or accident. Also available: Clonapet.

UFOLand is also on the Raëlian payroll. UFOLand is an alien theme park housed in a structure in Canada between Montréal and Quebec City. For $10, you get a 90 minute guided tour of the facility complete with a video. The building itself is the largest structure in the world built entirely out of bales of hay.

But the embassy is the organization's largest and most pressing project. Ideally, Raël would like the building to be in Jerusalem, but various forces have prevented that. The organization even keeps a running journal of their frustrations in building the embassy on their must-see website, www.rael.org. For example, here's the entry dated December 13, 1993: "Peace for Israel was scheduled to begin on this, the day of the twentieth anniversary of YAHWEH's encounter with his Prophet Raël. Regrettably, peace is postponed."

HERE?

Yeah, sort of. In August, the Raëlians held a press conference at the Woodbury Branch Library on Federal and 33rd Ave. There, attendees could gaze at photos of the embassy and hear the entire sales pitch. The wording was very circumspect, though: "The Elohim would like their embassy to be built near Jerusalem, but if that is not possible-- could Denver be chosen as the official site to welcome our creators?"

Could it? According to Felix Clairvoyant (his real name), a representative of the church for this region, Denver is only one of many possible sites for the embassy. "Since our request to have a piece of land has been rejected several times by the Israeli government three years ago, it was decided that any country that would look into our request and grant us the land with extraterritorial immunity would be good," Clairvoyant said.

The church reasons that the United States set a precedent for such diplomatic immunity on native soil by welcoming the United Nations headquarters in New York City and setting aside nominally autonomous reservations for Native Americans. The event in Denver, however, might simply be a gimmick to beef up attendance at the press conference. Clairvoyant admits there are no members of the Raëlian Church in Colorado, and a scant 300 in the entire country. Raëlian is, essentially, a European craze.

Further prodding only revealed a secretive stance. When asked what other cities have been presented with photos and named as possible sites, Clairvoyant responded, "This information cannot be divulged at this point."

"A specific team has been assigned to look into different countries and discuss the terms of this request with government officials of these countries," he added. "This is all that I can say for now."

Since the project is shrouded in such mystery, and I wasn't willing to fork over three percent of my income to discover more, I was left to ponder the possibilities. Stapleton and Lowry, the most spaceshipfriendly sites in Denver, have already been spoken for by developers. One assumes the Air Force Academy would not be willing to splinter off a piece of its considerable campus north of Colorado Springs. Castle Rock, the geological feature itself, might work, but there's that crazy star on top of it, taking up valuable space. The only place where I could envision an isolated compound full of people from outer space was Larkspur-- sure, the Renaissance Festival would be forced to relocate, but you can't go wrong with a big fauxcastle when you're welcoming aliens.

With a location fixed in my mind, I pondered next what sort of activities the embassy would house. On this subject, Clairvoyant was a bit more open.

"[ The embassy] will be the Elohim's 'home' on Earth, which means that only they will have access to it. After it is built, we are hoping to have enough money left to build a research center and invite scientists-- who are tired of having their research and discoveries misappropriated by political and military powers-- to come and work there without any worries," he said. The implication between the lines is that the embassy would house cloning research labs.

But can the embassy be used for cloning as soon as it's built? How long will it take for the Elohim to show up once the ribbon is cut?

"There is no specific information as to how much time will elapse between the time the embassy is built and the arrival of the Elohim, but no activity will be held inside the building until they officially land. The Elohim will then invite the political leaders from every country to come and speak with them. Before the Elohim arrive, the most important [thing] is not what will happen inside the embassy but rather outside and around it," Clairvoyant said. "We want to make sure that there will be total security as guaranteed by the extraterritorial status, and hope that as many people as possible will be there with us to welcome our parents from space."

--Chris J. Magyar