Of the world’s hundreds of religions, none captures the imagination more than the Canadian-based Raelian movement. Legitimacy is a different matter.
The Raelians, who believe aliens created the human race through genetic engineering, made headlines last year by announcing their own scientific miracle, the cloning of a girl named Baby Eve. No DNA evidence or other proof was forthcoming, however, and scientists turned their collective back on Raelian researchers, despite their claims of having cloned 12 more babies.
Now the group’s founder and spiritual leader, His Holiness Rael (former French journalist and race car driver Claude Vorilhon) is taking a different tack. Rael, 57, last week said he will clone a woolly mammoth from 18,000-year-old remains found recently in Siberia by French explorer Bernard Buigues.
The creature will be put on display at UFOland, the Raelians’ extraterrestrial information center in Valcourt, Quebec, according to the group’s Web site.