Raelism

Raelism is a religious movement in France, founded by Claude Vorilhon (born. 1946), who calls himself Raël. The group says it has about 55.000 members.

According to Vorilhon a message of the human origin was dictated to him in December 1973 in personal meetings with a 25.000 year old extraterrestrial who came in a UFO. The story goes that after the terraforming of Earth, humans were created by aliens (the `Elohim') by DNA manipulation. In time, humans themselves will become like the Elohim, creating new races, and having physical immortality by cloning. To this end, they have a number of followers actively researching cloning techniques.

References

• [Rael web site]
• [Featured by "Human Rights Without Frontiers"]