My first experience of something So Bad It Was Good involved UFO’s.
This does not mean that I or anyone else I knew in the early 1970’s had seen a UFO, had a close encounter of the googleplex kind, or otherwise was on a first-name basis with Klay-Ti-On, Defender of the Galaxy, or a similar being from somewhere around the orbit of Vulcan. My mother did have a sneaking fondness for Omicron, the little alien who sometimes showed up on Rege Cordic’s radio show, but otherwise family tastes ran much more to Star Trek, the occasional issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, or an anthology series called Science Fiction Theater.
No, this was something quite different, and it was all Gerry and Sylvia Anderson’s fault.
The Andersons were a British couple who were responsible for a series of remarkably successful, remarkably adult puppet shows in the 1960’s. Using what they called the “Supermarionation process,” their creations eschewed the deliberate unreality of, say, Kukla, Fran, and Ollie, Topo Gigio, or that all-time favorite Senor Wences in favor of puppets that looked, acted, dressed, and behaved like human beings. Even better, the puppets lived in a world that was very clearly modeled on ours, only with the addition of advanced technology and exciting super-scientific action.
Thunderbirds, the saga of the mysterious Tracy family, who lived on a private island with seemingly unlimited money and a collection of high-tech machines that they used to rescue astronauts, submariners, and airline passengers, as well as their friend and agent Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward…Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, about an elite military unit of highly trained soldiers named after colors as they opposed evil aliens…this sort of adventure was exactly what my young soul needed. They were also far superior to most American animated science fiction or quasi-science fiction shows of the time.
Remember, this was an era when Marvel brought their characters to life by photographing the original art and sliding it about while a narrator read a script, or when Space Angel’s idea of interplanetary thrills was moving human lips superimposed on Alex Toth’s art in a weird forerunner of the Mouth of Sauron. The only American exceptions I can remember was Jonny Quest, which lasted all of a season, or the deliberate kitsch of Batman and Stately Wayne Manor.
Compared to that, the Andersons’ oeuvre looked pretty darn good. They took great pains to make sure that the sets, scripts, and puppetry were as realistic as possible, and never tried to fool the audience into thinking that a Jack Kirby drawing of Captain America sailing over a fence while the camera moved was even remotely real. Even better, the Andersons’ universe was tantalizingly close to what we read in the headlines or saw on the news about the bright, promising world of tomorrow: supersonic planes, orbital satellites, and sleek, streamlined clothing, furniture, and cars.
It’s little wonder that my folks and I were willing to give the Andersons’ first live action series, UFO, a try.
On paper, UFO had everything that had made Captain Scarlet and Thunderbirds so much fun. There was an alien threat, strange little creatures in madly whirling spaceships, and a crew of gallant defenders known as SHADO, a clandestine organization tasked with protecting Earth from invasion. A sentient satellite, a lunar base staffed by glamorous women in high-tech costumes, gull wing cars, Nehru jackets on the men and silvery miniskirts on the women…it all was straight out of the exciting world of the Tracy family. Even the bowl cut sported by SHADO’s Colonel Straker and the iridescent purple wigs worn by the moon base crew hinted at the wonders to come in the far-off world of 1980.
Except that what worked so well with puppets didn’t work so well with humans.
I think it was my aunt Betty who first pointed out how ridiculous those purple wigs looked, especially paired with silver eye shadow and heavy false eyelashes. My mother cared more about the plots, which probably would have worked just fine as comic books but fell apart in live action. Even the sets and props that had looked so good in miniature were ridiculous when used and populated by living actors. Nehru jackets were already passé in the early 1970’s, so what were they doing on people in 1980? Why were the little whirling spaceships visibly hanging from fine, glittering wires?
Worst of all: why were the scripts so bad?
Not all of them, of course. There was one episode where several UFO’s attacked a disabled submarine that was genuinely exciting, and there were others that were at least entertaining. But so much of the show simply did not make sense (why were the lunar women in purple wigs and metallic silver? why didn’t anyone in the general public at least guess what was going on? who controlled SHADO, the UN?) that it was hard to take it seriously. Worse, the episodes were not shown in sequence, at least in our area, so if there was an overall story arc we simply couldn’t tell.
UFO aired early on Saturday evenings in Pittsburgh, just after we’d finished dinner, so there was no reason not to watch it while the dishwasher churned and we counted the minutes until All in the Family came on at 8:00 pm. Betty would make the occasional sarcastic comment, Mum would frown, and I’m pretty sure my uncle Oscar would fall asleep while Dad and my uncle Lou had their regular “Betty won’t let us smoke in the house so we’re going to talk about sports in the garage” cigarette break.
As for me...well, I watched because I was a kid and I liked anything to do with space. But the older I get, the more I wonder if my love of the weird, the mediocre, and the just plain stupid has its origins in Colonel Straker tootling around London in his DeLorean while listening to purple-wigged women on the Moon.
UFO also primed me to accept what that bubbling and churning in the sky was the one time I actually did see a UFO on a dark night in 1979 when I was traveling by bus from New York to Scranton, but that’s a story for another day.
Tonight I bring you a book that sets forth the religious cult that began as an encounter with a UFO, albeit not one created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson. Even better, what you’re about to read is proof that terrible books and weird cults are not exclusive to America, or even Britain:
The True Face of God and many, many other books by “Raël” (Claude Vorilhon) — last week I briefly discussed a book by David Rorvik, a once-respected science writer who basically tossed his credibility out the window to write about an alleged attempt at cloning a human being in the 1970’s. In His Image was fiction marketed as non-fiction, and though it made quite a bit of money, its flaws were numerous, and so obvious, that ultimately no one took it seriously. Cloning mammals wouldn't actually happen until the 1990’s, and though a variety of animals ranging from livestock to pets to various types of monkeys have been cloned with varying degrees of success, no one has yet succeeded at cloning a human.
Or so mainstream culture wants you to believe.
What would you say if I told you that there have been human clones since 2002? That this groundbreaking event took place thanks to a little-known religion that regards cloning as a step to eventual salvation, or at least the eternal life of individual minds? That this religion has attempted to reclaim tainted symbols such as the swastika? Or that it is based on a series of revelations of alien contact with a French journalist?
Such is the faith founded by the one born as Claude Vorilhon, aka “Raël.” Vorilhon, who was a test driver and journalist for Autopop Magazine, was blessed to encounter an Eloha, or advanced extraterrestial, landing its flying saucer on an extinct volcano in the Auvergne region of France. The Eloha (plural Elohim), who went by the name “Yahweh,” imparted much wondrous knowledge to Vorilhon, including the following:
- Human life was created by Yahweh, yes, but he wasn’t alone. He worked with plenty of other Elohim, which is why the Bible includes references to “male and female created they them.”
- Ancient tales of gods, angels, archangels, cherubs, seraphs, etc., are actually accounts of the Elohim teaching and mentoring humans, who were still too primitive to understand that they were basically science experiments.
- The Elohim now considered humans advanced enough to drop the facade of supernaturalism, and had chosen Claude Vorilhon to found MADECH, which stands either for ”mouvement pour l‘accueil des Elohim créateurs de l’humanité" (movement for welcoming the Elohim, creators of humanithy) or "Moise a devancé Elie et le Christ" (Moses preceded Elijah and the Christ).
- If you think this bears a startling resemblance to Billy Batson yelling “Shazam!” and suddenly acquiring the characteristics of Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles, and Mercury, well, that’s your problem since the Elohim would of course never stoop to cribbing from a comic book (especially an American comic since Asterix and Valérian and Laureline were so much better. Vive la France!).
- MADECH was now supposed to prepare humanity to take its place alongside the Elohim and other galactic species through the use of Geniocracy, Economic Humanitarianism , and World Government.
Vorilhon, who evidently was not under the influence alcohol, drugs, or anything more powerful than the occasional whiff of high-octane gasoline when he received this all-imporant wisdom, immediately rushed out to share what he’d learned. A series of meetings, conferences, and books soon followed, and despite a series of name changes, increasingly peculiar doctrinal pronouncements, and the occasional schism, the religion now formally titled the International Raëlian Movement, or Raëliism.
And what a faith it is! Vorilhon, or Raël, has expanded upon his initial revelations to include the following beliefs shared by either 90,000 or 18,000 enlightened individuals worldwide, depending on whether one accepts the official membership figures or the ones leaked by a disgruntled former member. Either way, the IRM believes and/or supports the following:
- The way to achieved immortality, at least of the consciousness, is to clone one’s self and learn the advanced meditative and psychic techniques necessary to transfer one’s consciousness into the new, fresh, healthy body. That the new, fresh, healthy body might itself have a consciousness that doesn’t necessary want to share is of little import. To this end, the IRM founded Clonaid (formerly Valient Venture Ltd. Corporation) in 1997, which is what led to the birth of the first cloned human, Eve, in 2002.
- Genetically modified food is a good thing, and its use must be expanded to feed a suffering world.
- Sexual pleasure, whether it leads to non-cloned humans or not, is also good. This includes masturbation, “sensual meditation,” nudism, sex with whatever partner is desired, the widespread use of contraception, and opposition to genital mutilation.
- Acceptance of just about anyone as long as they formally renounce whatever religion they espouse, since human gods, angels, bodhisattvas, avatars, etc., are actually Elohim.
- A love of publicity, especially by the bishops and other high-ranking members, that led one former associate to accuse Clonaid’s head of being “a press hog.”
- ”Intelligent design“ of pretty much everything on Earth through the use of nanotechnology, terraforming, and of course cloning and genetic engineering.
- A startling new interpretation of conventional religion, including the following:
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- The Garden of Eden was a botanical laboratory on an artificially constructed continent.
- Noah’s Ark was a spaceship that preserved DNA samples to “resurrect” animals and people through — you guessed it! — cloning.
- The Tower of Babel was a rocketship.
- Noah’s Flood was an unfortunate side effect of a nuclear explosion.
- Biblical prophets, Muhammed, Jesus, the Buddha, and Joseph Smith were actually working for the Elohim, and if you think this sounds like a bad episode of South Park, well, you’ll have to ask Matt Stone and Trey Parker.
- The end of war, which is something I think we can all agree is a good idea, whether we’re cloned or not.
- Elohim are recording the memories and DNA of humanity, for an eventual cloning/resurrection and judgment based on what they did in life. Raël would like to include Adolf Hitler in this so he’ll final get the war crimes trial he deserves, ditto suicide bombers.
- Ordinary non-Raëlian proles who weren’t evil but didn’t accomplish all that much are unfortunately not so lucky. They (which means just about everyone reading this) will simply disappear into the ether, presumaby because even giant super-computers operated by incredibly advanced aliens run out of RAM.
- The construction of an embassy near Jerusalem to welcome the Elohim back to Earth. This has not happened because the Israelis are not particularly enthused about the incorporation of the swastika into the Raëlian symbol for some unfathomable reason. They won’t budget on this, either, even though the Raëlians designed a new, swastika-free symbol.
- An all-female order of elite Raëlian women called the “Order of the Angels,” dedicated to sex-positivity, femininity, and refinement for all human females. Vive l’difference!
- The end of the Catholic Church, which has unfortunately led to un-Raëlian street violence when Catholics objected to handing out condoms to minors, publishing anti-Catholic pamphlets, burning crosses as a protest against church corruption, and otherwise trying to get Catholics to renounce their faith and become Raëlians.
If you think this bears more than one striking similarity to the works of Zecharia Sitchin and Erich von Däniken, you’re probably not wrong, not that Claude Vorilhon/Raël would ever admit to cribbing from mere scholars and hoteliers when he had a close personal relationship with actual extraterrestials.
Raëlians have continued in their perhaps quixotic attempts to introduce good sex, GMO crops, and cloning to the world. They’ve encountered quite a bit of opposition along the way; in addition to Israel refusing to the Raëlians build their Elohim landing base near Jerusalem, journalists have characterized Raëlian festivals as orgies in New Age beads and baubles, South Korea and Switzerlandhave barred Claude Vorilhon/Raël as a threat to public morals thanks to Raëlian teachings about sex, and scientists have stubbornly refused to accept Clonaid’s claims to have cloned a human child.
What the future holds for this most interesting UFO religion remains to be seen, but if nothing else it should be entertaining. I mean, Yahweh, free love, and clones — what more do you need?
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Have you ever heard of the Raëlians? Cloned something? Watched a Gerry and Sylvia Anderson TV show? Are you yourself a clone? An Eloha? Now is the time to admit it if you are, so spill….
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