What if one of these “fringe” belief systems is correct—and the Supreme Being is a creature from another world? Well, we at the BRI support our alien overlords!
Religion: Raëlism
History: In 1973 French auto-racing journalist Claude Vorilhon changed his name to “Raël,” which he says means “messenger,” after he was visited by a 25,000-year-old alien named Yahweh. The alien told Raël, he says, that he had been chosen to tell the people of Earth the truth about…well, everything. Today Raël has an estimated 50,000 followers worldwide, mostly in Canada, France, South Korea, and Japan.
Beliefs: Raëlians believe that all life on Earth was created via genetic engineering by a super-advanced race of alien beings called the Elohim. They’ve sent several prophets to Earth, including Buddha, Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, and the alien Yahweh, to help humans evolve into a more advanced state. Reaching that state will also require genetic engineering and cloning, and when we’re ready, the Elohim will come to reveal their message of peace, reverence for science—and sexual freedom—to all.
Extra: Raël claims that in 1975, Yahweh took him to an orbiting spa just outside our solar system, where he got a massage and aromatherapy treatment. Then he had dinner with Jesus, Buddha, Moses, and other prophets. After dinner, Raël went to his apartment, where he made love to several attractive female robots.
Religion: Universal Industrial Church of the New World Comforter
History: The UICNWC was officially founded in 1973 by Allen Noonan, who was born in 1916 in Britt, Iowa. Noonan says, however, that his story really begins in 1947: While working as a sign painter in Long Beach, California, he claims, he was taken out of his body and beamed up into a “Galactic lightship,” where he was given his assignment as the clairvoyant channel of the Archangel Michael. (Which is why he changed his name to Allen Michael.) He had another alien encounter in 1954, moved to San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district during the 1960s, started a commune, and in 1973 had yet another alien encounter, after which he founded the UICNWC. Nobody knows for sure how many followers he has today; the sect is centered around a Santa Rosa, California, commune with less than a dozen members, though there are more believers living elsewhere.
In a waiver of military law, U.S. troops in Iraq got to drink beer during the 2009 Super Bowl.
Beliefs: Michael is recognized by his followers as “an incarnate spiritual master from Galactica, a God conscious soul dedicated to serving humanity.” His religion he founded is a mishmash of hippie counterculture, New Age spirituality, the Bible, Eastern philosophy, Marxism, and, of course, UFOs. Michael and his ordained ministers are still hard at work channeling ancient galactic beings and spreading their wisdom via books, recordings, and an extensive Internet presence. (They even have their own YouTube channel.)
Religion: The Order of the Solar Temple, or Ordre du Temple Solaire
History: The OTS was founded in the 1980s by a Belgian man named Luc Jouret. He’d been interested in occultism for decades, and convinced a number of people that he and fellow occultist Joseph Di Mambro were reincarnations of members of the medieval Order of the Knights Templar. At its height in the 1990s, OTS had several thousand members and active lodges in Switzerland, Canada, and Australia.
Beliefs: OTS beliefs center around far-right-wing ideology—members of an earlier, non-UFO version of the sect were believed to be former Nazis. It also combines mystical Christianity, homeopathic medicine, Freemasonry, and the belief that a messiah—Di Mambro’s daughter, Emmanuelle—would save the human race by taking true believers to a planet that orbits the star Sirius. They’re also a doomsday cult; they believe that the rest of humanity will be destroyed after the faithful are removed to that other planet. Their story took a dark turn in 1994 when nearly 100 members in Canada and Switzerland died. Many of them, including Jouret, Di Mambro, and “messiah” Emmanuelle, committed suicide, while others were murdered. The cult lives on, though, and has between 150 and 500 members worldwide today. However, due to their violent past, they are regarded as a criminal organization in several countries.
64% of Americans believe aliens have contacted humans. 37% believe they’ve contacted the U.S. govt.
Religion: ZetaTalk
History: ZetaTalk got its start on the Internet chat site of the Institute for the Study of Contact with Non-Human Intelligence (ISCNI) in January 1993. That’s when one chatroom member, Nancy Lieder of Wisconsin, revealed that she was in contact with alien beings called Zetans from the Zeta Reticuli star system, approximately 39 billion light years from Earth. She’d been a “contactee,” she said, since childhood. Over the next couple of years, Lieder drew a following that grew into the thousands.
Beliefs: Lieder’s writings quickly became popular—and more and more alarming. In 1995 Lieder wrote that the comet Hale-Bopp, which was discovered that year (and would go on to become one of the brightest comets of the 20th century) didn’t exist. The Zetans, she said, had informed her that the comet was a myth cooked up by the “Majestic 12,” or “MJ12,” a secret group of scientists and world leaders, to hide the real truth: In May 2003, a massive object called “Planet X” would pass very close to the Earth, reversing our magnetic poles and wiping out all life on the planet. Lieder became an Internet and late-night radio-show sensation, and her followers grew in number (as did her detractors, mostly astronomers). When May 2003 came and went with no life-ending catastrophe, Lieder and her supporters claimed that she knew it all along—it was a lie the Zetans told her to fool Earth’s world leaders (the mysterious MJ12 again) and prevent them from enslaving the human race. Lieder now says Planet X will destroy life on Earth sometime before 2012.
Extra: If that’s not nutty enough, Lieder says she’s given birth to more than a dozen children—hybrid children—fathered by aliens.
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“Babies have big heads, big eyes, and tiny little bodies with tiny little arms and legs. So did the aliens at Roswell. I rest my case.”
—William Shatner
Of the top 10 largest celebrity diamond engagement rings ever given, three were given to Liz Taylor.