UFO Cults

views updated May 14 2018

UFO Cults

On November 20, 1952, George Adamski (1891–1965) walked into the night near Desert Center, California, and when he returned, he claimed to have communicated with the pilot of a Venusian spaceship through telepathic transfer. The entity was benign and seemed extremely concerned with the spiritual growth of humankind. He was what George Adamski called a "space brother." Just as the prophets of old had retreated into the desert wilderness to receive their inspiration from a higher source, so had Adamski, by some prearranged cosmic signal, gone to meet his space brother in the desert.

Adamski was the first of a long line of UFO contactees who would claim to have communicated with extraterrestrial intelligences. Many, like Adamski, became New Age UFO prophets, sharing the cosmic sermonettes that they said were given to them by wise beings from the stars. These men and women said they were not at all frightened by the extraterrestrial entities with whom they had come into contact. On the contrary, such a contact with the space brothers and sisters had enabled them to undergo a kind of cosmic consciousness experience. Throughout his career as a UFO prophet, Adamski's believers steadfastly declared him to be one of the most saintly of men, completely devoted to the teachings of universal laws.

After Adamski's contact experience in 1952, there were individuals like George Van Tassel (1910–1978), George Hunt Williamson, Truman Bethurum, Daniel Fry (1908–1992), Cedric Allingham, Orfeo Angelucci, Franklin Thomas, Buck Nelson, Gloria Lee (d. 1962), and Howard Menger, who claimed to have touched souls and, in some cases, bodies with space beings. Their accounts were circulated most often in privately printed books, which became scrolls of wisdom for thousands of questing seekers. The contactee literature ranges from reports of fanciful adventures in other worlds, in which the UFO contactee appears as some modern-day Gulliver being escorted through awesome alien cultures by a benevolent extraterrestrial guide, to works which concern themselves with more philosophical, religious, and moral information.

George Van Tassel (1910–1978) published his first booklet in 1952 and introduced the world to "Ashtar, commandant of station Schare." Those who visited Van Tassel's headquarters at Giant Rock, California, soon became aware that "Schare" was one of several flying saucer stations in Blaau, the fourth sector of Bela, into which our solar system is moving. "Shan" was the name that Van Tassel's space brother had given for Earth. Commandant Ashtar also decreed the universe to be ruled by the Council of Seven Lights, which had divided the cosmos into sector systems and sectors. Van Tassel found the Ministry of Universal Wisdom based on his revelations from the space brothers. This ministry teaches the universal law that operates in seven states: gender, male and female; the Creator as cause; polarity of negative and positive; vibration; rhythm; relativity; and mentality.

Daniel Fry (1908–1992) established Understanding Incorporated in 1955 as a means of better spreading the teachings of space brother A-Lan, whom Fry claimed to have met on his first trip in a UFO. In that same year, George King (1919–1997) claimed to have been named the "Primary Terrestrial Mental Channel" by Master Aetherius of Venus. King was later declared an agent for the Great White Brotherhood and a channel for both Aetherius and Master Jesus. Members of the Aetherius Society are earnestly engaged in the war being waged by the brotherhood against the black magicians, a group they feel seeks to enslave the human race.

By the 1960s, few people were claiming the direct kind of physical contact that Adamski had alleged he had experienced out in the California desert, and the psychic-channeling flying saucer groups were becoming increasingly popular among the faithful followers of the UFO prophets. Gloria Lee (d. 1962), a former flight attendant and the wife of aircraft designer William H. Byrd, sighted a UFO in the 1950s. In 1953, she began to receive telepathic communications from an entity on the planet Jupiter who revealed himself only as "JW." As she came to place more confidence in her space being, she became a well-known figure among UFO cultist groups as a lecturer and a channel.

JW revealed that on Jupiter vocal cords had gone out of use, so he began to channel a book through Gloria Lee. He also prompted her to found the Cosmon Research Foundation, dedicated to the spreading of his teachings and the bringing about of humankind's spiritual development in preparation for the New Age. Through JW's direction and the persistence of Gloria Lee on the lecture circuit, the foundation became a thriving organization.

Then, tragically, Lee starved herself to death after a 66-day fast instituted upon the instructions of her mentor from Jupiter. The fast was carried out in the name of peace, in a Gandhi-like effort to make the United States government officially investigate and study plans for a spacecraft that she had brought with her to Washington. On September 23, 1962, Lee secured herself in a hotel room. On December 2, with still no word from any government official—or from her extraterrestrial advisor—the 37-year-old UFO prophet died.

Shortly after her passing, the Mark-Age Metacenter in Miami, Florida, announced that they were receiving messages from the spirit of Gloria Lee. Her etheric form told the group that she was now able to discover how the method of interdimensional communication actually worked. As the Metacenter took notes for a booklet Gloria Lee's publisher would later issue to the faithful and the curious, Gloria's spirit spoke through the channel Nada Yolanda, explaining how her conscious intelligence had been transferred to another frequency and another body of higher vibrational rate.

The death of George Adamski on April 12, 1965, by no means stilled the heated controversy which had always swirled around the prolific and articulate founder of the Flying Saucer Movement, for his followers quickly resurrected him. In the book Scoriton Mystery (1967) by Eileen Buckle, a contactee named Ernest Bryant claims to have met three spacemen on April 24, 1965, one of whom was a youth named Yamski, whose extraterrestrial body already housed the spirit of George Adamski.

Often those men and women who join UFO cults are, by their own admission, individuals who have become disillusioned with existing religious institutions and dissatisfied by the manner in which the political establishment is dealing with social and economic injustices. As in the accounts of the prophets and seekers of old, the contemporary UFO cultists are looking for a more intimate relationship with a source of strength and inspiration outside of themselves. And they cannot seek much farther outside of themselves than outer space.

When such world-weary pilgrims encounter a charismatic man or woman who tells a marvelous story of having received direct spiritual enlightenment from beings from beyond the stars, the potential cultists feel that they have found a teacher who can now truly answer their questions. Their quest has come to an end. They, too, will now willingly become messengers for a new gospel from outer space, for the UFO prophet has not only made contact with a godlike being from another world, but he or she is offering a blend of science and religion that offers a theology that seems more applicable to the problems of modern humankind.

There is a New Age coming, the UFO prophets tell their followers. It will be an age wherein humankind will attain a new consciousness, a new awareness, and a higher state—or frequency—of physical vibration. The UFO beings themselves come from higher dimensions all around us which function on different vibratory levels, just as there are various radio frequencies operating simultaneously in our environment. The space brothers and sisters have come to Earth to reach and to teach those humans who will respond to the promise of a larger universe.

According to the UFO prophets, the space beings have advanced information which they wish to impart to their weaker cousins on Earth. They want humankind to join an inter-galactic spiritual federation. They are here to teach, to help awaken the human spirit, to help humankind rise to higher levels of vibration so that the people of Earth will be ready to enter new dimensions. Such a goal, according to the UFO prophets, was precisely what Jesus (c. 6 b.c.e.–c. 30 c.e.), the Buddha (c. 563–c. 483 b.c.e.), the prophets in the Bible, and the other leaders of the great religions sought to teach humanity. In fact, Jesus, known to Mark-Age and others in the Flying Saucer Movement as "Sananda," has been in orbit around the planet since 1885 and will take on material form as Earth's transition to a higher consciousness is made.

Humankind stands now in the transitional period before the dawn of a New Age, according to the UFO prophets. If earthlings do not raise their vibrational rate within a set period of time, severe earth changes and major cataclysms will take place. Such disasters will not end the world, but shall serve to eliminate the unreceptive members of the human species. However, those who die in such dreadful purgings of the planet will be allowed to reincarnate on higher levels of development so that their salvation will be more readily accomplished through higher teachings on a higher vibratory level.

For thousands of men and women throughout the world, the UFO has become a symbol of religious awakening and spiritual transformation. Some envision the UFO as their deliverer from a world fouled by its own inhabitants, and the presence of UFOs proves to them that humans are not alone in the universe. Because humans are not alone, then life does have meaning, for humans are therefore part of a larger community of intelligences. All humans have become evolving members in a hierarchy of cosmic citizenship.

Although certain UFO cults such as Heaven's Gate and Order of the Solar Temple acquired a dark side that eventually led to the mass suicide of many of its members, the great majority of these groups are benign; and as many scholars of contemporary religious movements have noted, may be the heralds of a New Age religion, a blending of technology and traditional religious concepts. Dr. Gordon Melton, director of the Institute for the Study of American Religion, has commented that such groups are best understood as "an emerging religious movement with an impetus and a life of their own."

Delving Deeper

clark, jerome. the ufo book. detroit: visible ink press, 1998.

godwin, john. occult america. new york: double day, 1972.

steiger, brad. the fellowship: spiritual contact between humans and outer space beings. new york: doubleday, 1988.

story, ron, ed. the encyclopedia of extraterrestrial encounters. new york: new american library, 2001.

sutherly, curt. strange encounters. st. paul, minn.: llewellyn publications, 1996.

Aetherius Society

In 1954 while he was in a deep meditative trance, George King (1919–1997) claimed that he received a message from an outer space being who told him to prepare himself to become the human voice of the Interplanetary Parliament. While such a command might have startled one unqualified to receive such communication, the 35-year-old Englishman had been immersed in spiritual studies since he was young. Beginning with an intense study of orthodox Christianity, King became interested in exploring psychic phenomena and spiritual healing. When he was to be the primary mental channel for the cosmic masters, King intensified his practice of yoga, which included the yogic sciences of raja, gnani, and kundalini. This permitted him to attain the state of samadhi—the union of spirit with the super-conscious, which allowed communication with the masters in other energy spheres. Soon, King was to discover that the voice that had contacted him belonged to the master Aetherius, a 3,500-year-old Venusian whose name, loosely translated, meant "one who comes from outer space."

By 1955, King had received a number of teachings from the cosmic masters that he felt compelled to share with others. With a number of men and women who had been drawn to his channeling of the messages from outer space, King formed the Aetherius Society in London, England, in 1956, relinquishing all of his other spiritual research and his materialistic enterprises to focus his life completely on the transmissions from the cosmic masters.

According to what King had learned from his contact, Aetherius and the other cosmic mentors came from a world or a dimension that was far more technologically advanced than Earth. While they arrive in crafts referred to as UFOs, their advanced technology allows them to remain invisible to Earth's radar and other scientific detection devices until they permit themselves to be seen just often enough to provoke controversial sightings and signs to the people of the planet. In spite of their superior scientific knowledge, the outer space beings choose to visit Earth because they are benevolent entities who wish to guide humankind in its spiritual evolution. Essentially, the masters are the planet's spirit guides, and they can appear to earthlings from time to time in physical bodies simply by lowering their vibratory rate.

As well as seeking to guide earthlings spiritually, the cosmic masters have also protected Earth on numerous occasions from both external and internal forces, King claimed. They have intervened and prevented ecological disasters from occurring. Their spacecraft have, from time to time, blocked the invasion of the planet from hostile interplanetary imperialists who wish to colonize Earth. The outer space masters have even gone so far as to erect an invisible barrier around the planet to protect it from invasion by the "black magicians," evil aliens who wish to enslave the people of Earth.

As with a number of UFO contactees, King linked the masters from extraterrestrial worlds with the ancient metaphysical legend of the Great White Brotherhood, the light beings who are said to belong to a multidimensional, intergalactic organization that dedicates itself to serving the divine cosmic plan in the universe. Among the ascended masters who have been historical figures on Earth, the contactees include Jesus (c. 6 b.c.e.–c. 30 c.e.), St. Germain, Krishna, and Lord Buddha (c. 563–c. 483 b.c.e.). By benefit of his crucial role in the relaying of transmissions from Aetherius, George King, in the view of the members of the Aetherius Society, had been elected by the brotherhood to become the next great spiritual prophet.

To further assist his fellow brothers and sisters of Earth to welcome the wisdom and knowledge of the outer space beings, King began to publish The Cosmic Voice, a transcript of the communications that he had received from the cosmic masters. He also began giving public demonstrations of his channeling of the extraterrestrial teachers and presenting lectures to audiences of the curious and the true believers in the spiritual teachings from wise mentors from outer space. On May 21, 1959, King went into samadhic trance while being interviewed on the BBC, and thousands of radio listeners in the United Kingdom were able to hear for themselves the warnings and the counsel of the cosmic masters. In recognition of his devotion to his extraterrestrial assignment as the principal terrestrial contact for the masters, King's followers bestowed upon him the titles of Sir George King, O.S.P., Ph.D., Th.D., D.D., Metropolitan Archbishop of the Aetherius Churches, Prince Grand Master of the Mystical Order of St. Peter, and HRH Prince De George King De Santori.

By 1960, King and his Aetherius Society had spread their Cosmic Gospel throughout the British Isles, as well as to the United States, and an American headquarters was established in Hollywood, California. Soon there would be branches in Detroit, Michigan; Australia; and West Africa.

The Aetherius Society warned that matters were serious in the view of the cosmic masters. Two previous terrestrial civilizations, Atlantis and Lemuria, had destroyed themselves in a nuclear war in prehistory, and the Intergalactic Council was concerned that such a catastrophe could take place once again. The members of humankind were regarded as the problem children of the solar system, and various masters and adepts were forced to give Earth special attention. To this end, a grand master plan would see the arrival of a cosmic master in a spacecraft in a time in the near future. When this event occurs, the people of Earth will be given the choice of following the laws of the Most High God and entering a new era of peace and enlightenment, or rejecting the divine laws and pass through the gateway of death to be placed on a planet where they will have the opportunity to relearn the lessons of the universe.

Delving Deeper

aetherius website. [online] http://www.aetherius.org. 28 january 2002.

godwin, john. occult america. new york: double day, 1972.

King, George, and Richard Lawrence. Contacts with the Gods from Space: Pathway to the New Millenni um. Hollywood, Calif.: Aetherius Society, 1996.

Steiger, Brad. The Fellowship: Spiritual Contact Between Humans and Outer Space Beings. New York: Doubleday, 1988.

Story, Ron, ed. The Encyclopedia of Extraterrestrial Encounters. New York: New American Library, 2001.

Heaven's Gate

When the bodies of the 39 men and women were found in rooms throughout the spacious Rancho Santa Fe mansion outside of San Diego, California, on March 26, 1997, their deaths by suicide enabled the media to transform them from members in a UFO cult previously known as Human Individual Metamorphosis to the Heaven's Gate suicide cult. According to what could be learned about the deceased in letters and videotapes that they had left behind, they had interpreted the arrival of the Hale-Bopp comet as the sign for which they had been waiting. When the comet passed overhead, they would hasten their "graduation from the human evolutionary level" through self-administered poison and hitch a ride to their "Father's Kingdom" on the extraterrestrial spacecraft that they believed followed in the wake of the comet's tail.

The cosmology of what has come to be known as the Heaven's Gate cult was born in the minds of Marshall Herff Applewhite (1931–1997) and Bonnie Lu Trousdale Nettles (1927–1985) sometime around 1972 when they formed the Christian Arts Center in Houston for the declared purpose of helping to make humans more aware of their spiritual potential by sponsoring lectures in comparative religion, mysticism, meditation, and astrology. Apple-white, the son of a Presbyterian minister, had served with the Army Signal Corps in Salzburg, Austria; studied sacred music at Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, Virginia; directed musicals for the Houston Music Theatre; and from 1966 to 1971 taught music at the University of St. Thomas in Houston. Nettles, an astrology enthusiast, was a graduate of the Hermann Hospital School of Professional Nursing in 1948 and worked as a nurse in the Houston area. Although they had each been previously married to others, in 1974, when Applewhite and Nettles were creating their philosophical blend of apocalyptic Christianity and UFOlogy, they said that they were not married, but were living together "by spiritual guidance." Espousing the highest principles, the couple stated that they had renounced sex in preparation for their journey to the Father's Kingdom.

Applewhite and Nettles began to call themselves "Bo" and "Peep," and they proclaimed that they had awakened to their true extraterrestrial origins and earthly mission. They had come to the planet to acquaint humankind with the basic methods by which a human might leave his or her humanity and make the graduation to an entirely different consciousness. As benevolent aliens, they had come to Earth to demonstrate, if need be, by their own deaths and resurrection in three and a half days, how the human body could undergo a dramatic metamorphosis, just as the chrysalis changed from caterpillar to butterfly.

Bo and Peep claimed to have originated from the same level as Jesus (c. 6 b.c.e.–c. 30 c.e.), asserting that they were the two witnesses referred to in the Book of Revelation who would be the harbingers of a great harvest time for humanity: [Revelation: 11:3–13] "And I will give power to two witnesses, and they shall prophesy.…And when they have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall…overcome them and kill them. And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city…three days and a half.…And after three days and a half the spirit of life from God entered them and they stood upon their feet…And they heard a great voice from heaven saying to them, Come up hither. And they ascended to heaven in a cloud…and the remnant were affrighted and gave glory to the God in heaven."

It has long been one of the major tenets of Christianity that if one aspires to a higher level beyond death, one will achieve such a state in spirit form, not in the physical body. However, Bo and Peep insisted that spiritual seekers must begin their butterfly-like apprenticeship by leaving the ways of their human caterpillar family and friends behind and attain the higher level in an actual physical body. The kingdom of heaven and all those who occupy it, according to the two, were literally physical in form. No spirits were permitted in their father's kingdom. If one stays at the human level, Bo and Peep warned, whether incarnate or discarnate, one still has all ties with this garden Earth.

Bo and Peep achieved national media attention after a UFO lecture in Waldport, Oregon, on September 14, 1975, when they were said to have mysteriously whisked away 20 members of the audience aboard a flying saucer. Concerned family members of the vanishing Oregonians were not convinced that extraterrestrials had kidnapped their relatives. They feared that it was more likely that their missing kin had been murdered. Law enforcement officials tried their best to squelch rumors that satanic sacrifice was involved in the mysterious disappearances. However, it would soon be revealed that a good number of the UFO enthusiasts who had attended the lecture had chosen of their own free will to join Bo and Peep on their spiritual pilgrimage.

The two did not promise an easy path to higher awareness. They instructed their followers that they must walk out the door of their human lives and take with them only what would be necessary while they were still on the planet. Newcomers were advised that the process worked best if they had a partner and that they would be paired with another for a time. However, the only bond that was to exist between them would be a mutual desire to raise their vibrational levels so they might ascend to the next realm. Bo and Peep admitted they didn't know where their father would lead them or when their assassinations and subsequent demonstration overcoming death might occur. But those who felt they must accompany them, they were to bring with them a car, a tent, a warm sleeping bag, utensils, and whatever money they could carry with them. Those who joined the Human Individual Metamorphosis (HIM) group would be camping out a lot in order to take the word to others who might be seeking it.

In spite of painting such a bleak picture of a nomadic existence, traveling from city to city as Bo and Peep spread the word, within a few months a remarkable number of highly educated professionals left high-salaried jobs, expensive homes, and loving spouses and children to follow the two on a journey of faith that would have them living hand-to-mouth and sleeping under the stars. Bo and Peep stated firmly that they found no need to defend themselves against any charges of kidnapping or of brainwashing their followers into any kind of organized cult activity. The only kind of conversion experience that the two were interested in was that of the physical—the biological and chemical changeover from human-level creatures to creatures on the next evolutionary level. Just as a caterpillar has to cease all of its caterpillar activities in order to achieve its chrysalis, they instructed their followers, so must the same thing happen to a human who wished to make the transition. All human desires and activities must be left behind so one could emerge as an individual capable of entering a realm that is altogether different from the human.

Applewhite and Nettles warned their followers and the members of their lecture audiences that Earth was fast approaching "that season" when humans could enter the process that would enable them to graduate to a higher level. They insisted that they were not speaking of anything "etheric." They were talking about actually leaving the Earth's atmosphere. Those who took the trip would no longer be associated with the human kingdom, but with the next level of existence. They will have graduated from Earth.

Many members of the HIM inferred from various pronouncements by Bo and Peep that it was quite likely that they would be assassinated sometime around June 1976. They told a number of their followers that they would lie in state for three-and-a-half days, then rise to the next level in full view of the media, thereby proving that they were the two spoken of in the Book of Revelation.

When such a convincing demonstration of their true identity was delayed because of the two's dissatisfaction with certain media representations of their mission, a large number of disillusioned followers dropped out of the group, leaving Bo and Peep and their most faithful members to resume their nomadic lifestyle and to go underground with their ministry. In 1985 Bonnie Nettles, who at that time called herself "Ti," died of cancer, and, in the words of an ardent follower, "returned to the next level." Applewhite, now "Do," carried on their mission of informing humans that salvation hovered overhead in a spaceship. Sometime in 1993, there were signs that the group was active under the new name of the Total Overcomers, and still under the leadership of Applewhite, who now warned earthlings that their planet was at the mercy of alien star gods, the "Luciferians," who had fallen away from the Father's Kingdom many thousands of years ago.

In 1995, renaming the group Heaven's Gate, Applewhite and his most devoted disciples moved to San Diego and established a computer business, Higher Source, which specialized in designing computer websites. In October 1996, the group, which had seemingly chosen to live quietly and avoid extensive media exposure, moved into the mansion at Rancho Santa Fe.

Five months later, on March 26, 1997, news media around the world carried the startling announcement of the mass suicide. Apparently Applewhite had become convinced that he had at last found the narrow window of opportunity for graduation to the higher level provided by a spacecraft bound for heaven, the father's kingdom. Tragically, he took 38 loyal followers with him.

Delving Deeper

Jackson, Forest, and Rodney Perkins. Cosmic Suicide: The Tragedy and Transcendence of Heaven's Gate. Dallas, TX: Pentaradial Press, 1997.

Heaven's Gate website. [Online] http://www.webcoast.com/heavensgate.com. 28 January 2002.

Steiger, Brad, and Hayden Hewes. Inside Heaven's Gate: The UFO Cult Leaders Tell Their Story in Their Own Words. New York: Signet, 1997.

Story, Ron ed. The Encyclopedia of Extraterrestrial Encounters. New York: New American Library, 2001.

Wessinger, Catherine Lowman. How the Millennium Comes Violently: From Jonestown to Heaven's Gate. New York: Chatham House, 2000.

The Raelians

On December 13, 1973, Claude Vorilhon (1946– ), a French sports journalist and former race car driver, claimed to have been contacted by an extraterrestrial being while climbing the Puy de Lassolas volcanic crater near Clermond-Ferrand, France. Vorilhon was astonished when he spotted a metallic-looking object in the shape of a flattened bell about 30 feet in diameter descend from the sky. A door opened in the side of the craft, and what appeared to be a humanlike being about four feet in height approached in a peaceful manner. Vorilhon soon believed that the being was a member of the Elohim—the "gods" who made humans in their own image. The primitive ancestors of modern humankind had interpreted the extraterrestrial visitors from the stars as gods, because to them any beings arriving from the heavens could only be divine. It was the extraterrestrials, the Elohim, who created Homo sapiens in their image in their laboratories, utilizing deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), just as contemporary Earth scientists are at the point of creating "synthetic" humans in the same manner.

Then, Vorilhon said, the extraterrestrial being explained that in a manner similar to the Greek legend of Pygmalion who created a statue so beautiful that he fell in love with it, so did certain of the Elohim find the products of their laboratory artistry compellingly irresistible. The results, Vorilhon said, were recorded in Genesis 6:4: "…When the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men…they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown."

The extraterrestrial told Vorilhon that the Elohim had sent great prophets, such as Moses (c. 14th–13th century b.c.e.), Ezekial (sixth century b.c.e.), the Buddha (c. 563–c. 483 b.c.e.), and Muhammad (c. 570–632 c.e) to guide humankind. Jesus (c. 6 b.c.e.–c. 30 c.e.), the fruit of a union between the Elohim and Mary, a daughter of man, was given the mission of making the Elohim's messages of guidance known throughout the world in anticipation of the Age of Apocalypse—which in the original Greek meant the "age of revelation," not the "end of the world." It is in this epoch, which the people of Earth entered in 1945, that humankind will at last be able to understand scientifically that which the Elohim accomplished aeons ago in the Genesis story.

Claude Vorilhon said that the Elohim renamed him "Rael," which means "the man who brings light." Shortly after his encounter with the extraterrestrial, he created the Raelian Movement, which soon acquired more than a thousand members in France. In 2001, according to figures produced by the Raelians, their membership included 55,000 individuals in 85 different countries.

Rael claimed that on October 7, 1975, the Elohim physically contacted him again, and this time he was invited aboard a spacecraft and taken to their home planet. During this extraterrestrial contact experience, Rael learned that after the nuclear explosions in 1945, the Elohim believed that humans had entered the Age of Apocalypse. However, they cannot return in large numbers until the inhabitants of Earth begin to display a greater ability to live together in peace, love, and brother/sisterhood. And the Elohim are awaiting some evidence that the planet can be governed with intelligence and spirit before they fully reveal themselves to Earth at large.

Because the Elohim feel that many members of humankind are now able to understand their extraterrestrial creators without mystifying or worshipping them, they asked Rael to establish an embassy wherein they will be able to meet with Earth's leaders. Although the Elohim feel strongly that a mass landing would bring about disastrous political, religious, social, and economic consequences throughout the world, the neutrality provided by such an embassy would enable them to demonstrate the love and respect that they hold for humankind.

Rael maintains that he has established the Raelian Movement according to the instructions given to him by the Elohim. Its aims are to inform humankind of the reality of the Elohim "without convincing," to establish the embassy where the Elohim would be welcome, and to help prepare a human society adapted to the future. In the years since his first contact experience, he has written a number of books that may be obtained directly from the Raelians. The titles include The Message Given by Extraterrestrials, (detailing his first messages from the Elohim, said to have sold one million copies and to be printed in 22 languages), and Let's Welcome Our Fathers from Space.

In July 2001, the Raelian Movement made headlines around the world when one of its members, Brigitte Boisselier, a 44-year-old scientist with doctorates from universities in Dijon and Houston, announced that Clonaid, her team of four doctors and a technician, would soon produce the first human clone. Defying opposition from President George W. Bush, the U.S. Congress, Secretary of Health Tommy Thompson, and the Food and Drug Administration, Boisselier refused to disclose the location of Clonaid's two laboratories, other than to state that one was in the United States and the other abroad. Clonaid, established by Rael in 1997, is funded in part by $500,000 from an anonymous couple who want a child cloned from the DNA of their deceased 10-month-old son.

In Rael's opinion, such cloning will demonstrate the methods employed by the Elohim in their creation of the human species. As it was told to him, many centuries ago on a distant planet, scientific teams set out to create life on more primitive worlds. On one such planet, Earth, their laboratories created the life forms that became human beings.

Delving Deeper

Ellison, Michael. "Cult Determined to Clone Humans," The Guardian. July 19, 2001. [Online] http://www.guardian.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4224163,00.html. 28 January 2002.

Raelian Revolution website. [Online] http://www.rael.org. 28 January 2002.

Story, Ron, ed. The Encyclopedia of Extraterrestrial Encounters. New York: New American Library, 2001.

Gale Encyclopedia of the Unusual and Unexplained

Adamski, George (1891-1965)

views updated May 18 2018

Adamski, George (1891-1965)

First of the 1950s flying saucer contactees who claimed direct contact with beings who had traveled to Earth in space-ships from planets in outer space. Adamski was born in Poland on April 17, 1891. He was two years old when his family emigrated to Dunkirk, New York. In 1913 Adamski served with the 13th Cavalry on the Mexican border, received an honorable discharge from the army in 1919, then settled in Laguna Beach, California. He studied occult metaphysics and in 1936 founded the Royal Order of Tibet, through which he offered a course in self-mastery. Although he had no scientific training, he was often referred to as "Professor" by his Royal Order of Tibet mystical philosophy students. In 1940 he moved to the Valley Center with his followers, where they established a farming project. Four years later he moved to the southern slope of Mount Palomar in Southern California. He had no formal connection with the observatory there and worked as a handyman at a hamburger stand.

Soon after the modern flying saucer era began, Adamski emerged in 1947 as a popular lecturer. He claimed to have sighted a UFO in 1946 and in 1949 wrote a novel, Pioneers in Space, to promote discussion of the subject by the general public. He also began to show pictures of what he claimed were saucers he had seen near his home near Mount Palomar.

Adamski also coauthored, with Desmond Leslie, Flying Saucers Have Landed (1953), the book that launched the contactee phenomenon. Adamski claimed that he had been contacted by the Venusian occupant of a flying saucer that landed in the California desert November 20, 1952. Subsequently Adamski claimed to have had contact with spacemen from Mars and Saturn and to have traveled 50,000 miles into space in their craft. After Adamski's revelations, the convention of spaceman contacts, messages from outer space, and warnings about the welfare of the cosmos became firmly established. Adamski expanded upon his revelations in two subsequent volumes: Inside the Space Ships (1955) and Flying Saucers Farewell (1961).

By the late 1950s Adamski was an international celebrity who lectured to large audiences in North America and Europe. He also had his critics. In 1957 editor James Mosley devoted an issue of Saucer News to an exposé of Adamski. In 1963 Adamski's close associate C. A. Honey denounced him after discovering that Adamski had rewritten the original messages from the saucer beings in the Royal Order of Tibet materials. As his following had grown, Adamski had formed his followers into study groups and offered lessons in cosmic philosophy. In spite of the critics and defections, he retained a large following at the time of his death on April 23, 1965, from a heart attack, in Washington, D.C. His close associates founded the UFO Education Center in Valley Center, California, and the George Adamski Foundation, in Vista, California, to carry on his legacy.