A UFO Religion Built on a Claimed Extraterrestrial Creation

The Raelian Movement is a new religious movement founded in 1974 by the French former motoring journalist Claude Vorilhon, who took the name Rael and reported that he had been contacted by an extraterrestrial species called the Elohim, who told him that all life on Earth had been created scientifically, through advanced genetic engineering, by them, rather than by a supernatural God or by unguided evolution. On this foundation the movement teaches an atheistic and science-oriented worldview, reinterpreting the accounts of "gods" and "angels" in the world's scriptures as garbled memories of these extraterrestrial creators, and looks forward to their return, for which it has sought to build an "embassy."

Raelism is also known for its socially liberal and provocative public stances on sexuality and its enthusiasm for biotechnology; it drew wide media attention in 2002 when an affiliated company, Clonaid, claimed to have produced the first cloned human baby, a claim for which no evidence was ever provided and which is generally regarded as unsubstantiated. The movement is frequently studied as a leading example of a "UFO religion" and of a movement that explicitly frames itself as compatible with, or even founded upon, science rather than the supernatural. It continues to operate internationally.