The Raelians…it rhymes with aliens
By Patrick Bryson
web
posted January 6, 2002
Every time a Raelian spokesman talks about cloning and the progress of Baby Eve, I always look around for my channel changer because I'm sure this must be an episode of 3rd Rock From the Sun.
3rd Rock From the Sun was a sitcom about aliens who came to earth in a Nash Rambler and who took up living in an attic apartment. Their leader was called The Big Giant Head, played by William Shatner, and the group spent one-half hour every week trying to figure out human love, sex, cheeseburgers and how their new bodies worked.
They had a transporter in their coat closet and every time the news said the government was cracking down on "illegal aliens" they ran because they were sure it meant them. The Raelians must be a spin-off. The Raelian story is almost as strange as anything 3rd Rock From The Sun ever did.
 Vorilhon |
The sect began in the 1970 when a French sports writer named Claude Vorilhon went to an old volcano and was picked up by aliens, almost like he was waiting for a cosmic bus. While in the craft he wasn't probed, poked or impregnated like so many other alien guests. He missed that party. Instead he was offered hors d' oeuvres, sparkling mineral water, and introduced to Jesus Christ, Moses and probably Elvis. In other words, Vorilhon met The Big Giant Head.
The Big Giant Head told Vorilhon, now called Rael, that man was the product of cloning and that cloning was the key to eternal life. Rael was also told that the aliens "love us" and are "frightened at what we are doing." Based on that unearthly conversation Rael organized his group, started a research center to experiment with cloning, and plans to open a chain of cloning centers. It will be the McDonald's of cloning. It'll probably even have a drive up window.
"I'll have one boy and a set of twin girls to go, please."
Rael plans on opening an embassy for aliens. The center of such a structure might be called The Big Giant Head Room.
Is there a right thinking person anywhere who believes that the Raelians, no matter how much money they have and no matter how many scientists work for them, could actually initiate a cloning breakthrough?
Let's assume for a moment that the claims of the Raelians are true and that a baby has indeed been cloned. That moves us away from 3rd Rock From The Sun and pushes us toward the Twilight Zone.
As you look over pro-cloning literature it isn't surprising that those supporting the procedure are bereaved people mourning the loss of a loved one, usually a child. Instead of accepting the tragedy and leaning on a belief in a loving God and the hope of an afterlife, they have turned to a questionable scientific procedure to try and re-create the one lost. That's Twilight Zone material and it's reminiscent of an old horror story.
It's the tale of a family that loses a son when he becomes the victim of a terrible, violent accident. By a miracle the family finds itself possessing three wishes. They, of course, wish their son back to life.
Looking out the window, they see a figure moving down the road toward them in the darkness. It's their son, returning home. As he gets closer, however, they can see that he's alive but in pain, disfigured and ripped to pieces. He's alive, but still feeling the pains of his accident. Knowing their son is suffering, the parents use their next wish to place him back in the grave where he belonged.
The cloning of animals hasn't been successful. Cloned animals have been disfigured, sick and died quickly. If Baby Eve has been cloned, what would make anyone think her short life would be any better? Why would anybody want to wish a child back into that kind of life?
For now it's doubtful that such a baby has been cloned. Despite the moral implications, we're still talking about shocking scientific breakthrough that purportedly has been made by a group whose leader sipped mineral water with Moses in a spaceship.
The Raelians are a group of people who couldn't find their butts with their hands.
Cloning by the Raelians? I don't think so. Aliens coming to earth in
a Nash Rambler is a much more plausible story. 
Patrick Bryson is a Utah-based writer. This is his first contribution
to Enter Stage Right.
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