Freaks in action
“Jesus told us there would be days like these. Jesus told us there would be days like these. Jesus told us there would be days like these. Strange days, indeed. Most peculiar, mama” — paraphrase of “Nobody Told Me” by John Lennon
by JAY REEVES
Associated Press Writer
JANUARY 16, 2003, Huntsville, Ala. — Alabama A&M University professor Hortense Dodo has two keen interests: cloning peanuts and spreading the message that human life was created by space aliens.
Dodo, a microbiologist who researches peanut genetics at the north Alabama school, is a leading member of the Raelian Movement, the small religious group linked to a company that claims to have cloned a baby girl named Eve.
When not working to perfect allergen-free peanuts through cloning, Dodo is the Raelian guide reaching out to the “African diaspora” in the United States and worldwide.
“It’s something like a priest,” said Dodo, who was born in West Africa and has worked at the historically black school for 10 years.
While many have a hard time believing that the Raelians cloned a person or that ET created humanity, Dodo embraces both ideas.
“I am a scientist. I am a Raelian,” she said. Dodo said she keeps her religious views out of the classroom.
The Raelian movement is small, claiming only 55,000 members in 84 countries. By comparison, there are more than 1 million Southern Baptists in Alabama. Dodo and another Huntsville scientist, Damien Marsic, have been widely quoted as Raelian spokespeople since Clonaid announced the birth late last month of what would be the first person produced through cloning.
The company, founded and run by sect members, has provided no proof of its claim, and the scientific community generally has rejected the announcement as unsubstantiated. But it’s an exciting time for believers like Dodo, who describes herself as one of “four or five” Raelians (pronounced RYE (elians) — in Huntsville, a scientific hub since NASA’s rocket programs were born there more than 50 years ago.
The mix between mainstream science and the Raelians concerns some researchers, who fear the public will become more skeptical about therapeutic cloning because of the group’s unusual religious beliefs (which would very definitely appear to be a very good thing Ed.).
“There do seem to be some legitimately trained scientists out there who are believers,” said Guy Caldwell, an assistant professor of biological sciences at the University of Alabama.
Raised a Christian, Dodo said she had a hard time reconciling either the biblical story of creation or the scientific theory of evolution with her scientific background. Everything clicked, she said, when she read the messages that former French writer Claude Vorilhon claimed to have received from space aliens who visited Earth in 1973.
Vorilhon now goes by the name “Rael” (as in “not rael” or “get rael, will ya?!” Ed.).
In essence, Raelians teach that aliens created human life by genetic engineering and that cloning is a path to immortality. Biblical accounts that credit God with creation were misinterpreted, Raelians claim: They contend aliens really did it. (and so, who made the earth? If evolution didn’t create human life, then evolution didn’t create the earth, but someone must have, right? Ed.)
“Once I read the Raelian messages I understood,” said Dodo. “It just made sense. It brought together my scientific background and my Christian background.”
As the Raelian “guide to blacks,” Dodo speaks to groups about her beliefs. Huntsville-area Raelians helped bring Clonaid president Brigitte Boisselier, a Raelian bishop, to town last year for a cloning conference at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Dodo also works to promote education and Internet access in her native Africa.
“Rael said back in the ’70s the Internet would be the nervous system of humanity,” she said. “Aside from being a Raelian, as an educator I believe it is something that is critically needed.”
At A&M, Dodo has received government grants to conduct research on peanut genetics. Her goal is to develop an allergen-free peanut to solve the problem of peanut allergies, a condition that affects millions and can be fatal in its most serious form.
Dodo said her first stand of cloned peanut plants is growing but has yet to produce a crop. Success could be worth millions, but Dodo said helping humanity is the main goal.
“The most important thing is it could save lives,” she said.
LAGNIAPPE: UFO Freakout Timeline
1910
USA, Alabama: Large cigar-shaped UFO hovers over Huntsville, Alabama and Chattanooga, Tennessee (YEA, us! We’re nearly famous.), playing its bright spotlight over both cities.
USA, Arkansas, Fulton County: Myrtle B. Lee reported an experience she had with her brother when they were children in Fulton County Arkansas, “We saw a bright object hovering just above the trees about 50 yard from us. It was silver colored and shaped like a Zeppelin, but not quite as big. It had nothing hanging from the underside and there were no windows. When it took off we saw it start up, and it completely vanished before our eyes. We called it a balloon. When I saw a real balloon, I knew what Jack and I saw wasn’t a balloon. No one believed us when we told of seeing this thing.”
1911
USA, New York, New York: “Mystery airship” flies under the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City.
1912
England, Chisbury, Wiltshire: Charles Tilden Smith reported the following case to the respected British science journal, Nature. For over half and hour Smith observed two fan shaped or triangular ‘heavy shadows’ cast onto clouds overhead. The clouds were moving rapidly, but the shadows remained stationary in the sky. From time to time the unidentified apparitions varied in size. Smith concluded that two large unseen objects in the west were intercepting the Sun’s rays.
England: Mysterious airships hover over cities and towns in Kent.
USA, Illinois, Lockport: Witnesses watched, as an object appeared to traverse the moon’s face for about three minutes. It was rectangular with absolutely flat ends, about two-thirds the diameter of the full moon in length.
1913
Canada, Toronto: Several office workers in watched what they concluded to be a fleet of airships passing west to east in groups. They then returned later in a scattered formation. No airships or airplanes were ever identified with this report.
England: Two years before Germany officially launched its Zeppelin raids on Britain and phantom airships were once again crisscrossing the night skies. A few reports gave details of multi-colored, multiple lights being seen but as in earlier years the craft usually came equipped with one powerful light.
USA, Michigan, Lansing: From the Lansing State Journal, June 30, “So swiftly did the strange craft travel that it was not more than three minutes until it had passed from sight in the northwest. The aerial mystery carried no lights of any description and was too elongated for an ordinary balloon. The craft was at a great height and when it passed to the northwest of the city had reached a still higher altitude.” A sizeable crowd at a racetrack in Lansing Michigan witnessed the event.
USA, Wisconsin: Large cigar-shaped UFO flies slowly over Milwaukee and Sheboygan, Wisconsin, flashing its bright spotlight over streets and buildings, and then retreats back out into Lake Michigan.
(EDITOR’S NOTE: This article was taken, without permission, from one of many sites on the Internet devoted to the strange goings-on in Huntsville, Alabama, which is a stone’s throw from Chattanooga, Tennessee [as the little UFO freakout timeline somewhat reveals]. Therefore, we are guilty of running material which was unethically obtained, and from an AP story which ran in 2003, and to the extent we should be chastised or self chastised for this, we have done it, hitting ourselves on the backsides several good whacks. For this violation, if it is one, we also apologize to the Associate Press and Mr. Reeves, having made no successful attempts to contact the author or the webmaster or the AP for the right to use what is public-domain material so far as we can tell. The validity of this story, therefore, cannot be verified by us; but it does have the APish ring of truth, despite the fact that there is questionably actually a woman [or something] named “Hortense Dodo,” which is officially the name of the new rock ‘n’ roll band being formed among friends of TANATA, as I speak … er, write. We really hate, sort of, being a party to all the madness out there by running a piece such as this. [The madness stops being the madness as we expose it.] In all honesty, a day these days doesn’t go by that we — you and I and everyone who contributes to TANATA — aren’t being exposed to material that may very well be “disinformation,” propaganda which has been deceptively disguised as true information for the sake of our disinformation. The important thing to remember when reading such material as this is that it may all be a load of bunk … but who smart enough to be part of “the resistance,” which this AP writer Jay Reeves would have to be viewed to be, and smart and lucid enough to write something like this would not, not in our book, appear to be someone to have the desire or means to fabricate any or all of this, or he would be fired. The deceivers are those who don’t want any of us to know this stuff, which is apparently substantive enough and broadly based enough (“stuff” denoting that which is repeatedly presented as paranormal, um, stuff) so that all of this stuff is like a massive “iceberg,” which runs all the way to the core of the earth, as we on earth sit atop our little island in oblivion. Being freaked out, at first, by this sort of stuff, only to turn around and say it isn’t true or someone is trying to fake you out, is to fail to understand motives, human nature and what bright people will do and will not do honestly as investments of their time, in this case, at the AP. Remember what Jesus said: He said we would know the enemy by their fruit. The fruit of Jay Reeves and the AP is that he wrote this story. The fruit of those about whom this story has been written is trying to keep you and me from knowing any of this fruity stuff in a bad light. I don’t know Jay Reeves, or even where I got this; but because he appears to be one of us, if he ever wants to collect the free dinner we’re offering him, he’s entitled to it … and all he has to do to collect it is to get in touch. tanataeditor at mac dot com. In the meantime, keep the faith baby. And know that the people who do all of this weird stuff … are too stupid to know that they are weird. And, while we’re on the subject of cloning, cloned critters, unlike their originals, wear out fast, die early, faster and earlier than the original versions — ergo, these freaks ain’t God. If you’re not God and you’re dumb enough to believe that you are God … just how much of a threat are they, really? We always thought it was weird for there to be a space center in Huntsville … with no launching pads. Thanks Jay Reeves and the Associated Press … for the heads up.)
Janet Devlin
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