dChan - Q Origins Project Archive

https://www.wired.com/1997/06/caribbean-clone-lab-offers-et-religion/

ALEX HUNEEUSCULTUREJUN 5, 1997 9:05 AM

Caribbean Clone Lab Offers ET Religion

Valiant Venture, an offshoot of a group that believes humans descended from clones created by extraterrestrials, wants you to make a US$200,000 investment in a new you.

HUMAN CLONING MAY still be a technique of the future, but for US$200,000 you can lay claim to your own clone today. Members of the ET-oriented Rael Movement say they have founded Valiant Venture Ltd., a Bahamas-based company devoted to replicating those who can afford it.

VV offers two services: Clonaid, for those who want to parent an exact twin of themselves; and Insuraclone, for parents who want to safeguard the DNA of their child by simply freezing blood or skin cells, and then spawn a clone should the child pass away. (Out of respect for bereft parents, this service is only $50,000.)

Although "a lot of people don't want to do cloning in human beings," says VV biologist Marc Rivard, according to surveys in the US and Canada, "10 percent do want to do it."

But despite various press conferences, two press releases, a Web page, and marketing-friendly brand names, VV hasn't gotten much respect from the media, investors, or the scientific community since its launch in March (just two weeks after the sheep Dolly, the first successful clone of an adult mammal, was unveiled to the world). One reason: Most scientists agree that safe human cloning technology is still years away.

Another reason is that Rael, head of both VV and the Rael Movement, preaches that humans descended from clones created by extraterrestrials, and that his mother, like the Virgin Mary, was inseminated by these same extraterrestrials. The movement claims 35,000 followers in 85 countries.

"It seems they're a little bit nuts," says Gregory Stock, a fellow at the UCLA Center for the Study of Evolution and the Origin of Life. "I've noticed a lot of reaction to cloning as a path to immortality - that seems to be their take."

Indeed, toward the bottom of the Clonaid Web site, Rael is quoted as saying, "Cloning will enable mankind to reach eternal life. The next step … will be to directly clone adult people without the growing process, and to transfer memory and personality."

"That's nonsense," Stock says.

Nonetheless, some of the ideas aren't totally otherworldly and may, in time, be pursued by mainstream groups. For example, two of the goals of VV's staff of five, which includes two PhDs, are simply to change the public's perception of human cloning as evil and to foster research.

"What we saw after the announcement of Dolly was that a lot of people wanted to banish cloning," says Rivard, pointing out that President Clinton even withdrew federal funds for such research. "It [Valiant Venture] is a way to fund research of human cloning" - which explains the steep price. Rivard says that money would go to existing laboratories doing such research, or toward the creation of Valiant Ventures' own lab.

"To me, it's interesting that it clicks in people's heads that this is possible," Stock says. "[Genetic manipulation] is coming faster than we think. It's important in our society that we deal with this, and it's naive to think we're not going to apply these technologies to ourselves … it's natural to get a fringe group that tries to get ahead of the curve."

Rivard would not say if anyone had bought one of Valiant Venture's services yet.