It was an hoax. I'm not surprised

Raelians had chortle over cloning
Sect infiltrated. Clonaid boss gloats over 'free publicity'

BRENDA BRANSWELL
The Gazette


Thursday, October 09, 2003

CREDIT: ALLEN MCINNIS, GAZETTE

Hoaxsters or geniuses? Brigitte Boisselier, president of Clonaid, and Rael, spiritual leader of the Raelians, were all smiles after speaking in Montreal. Even if Boisselier's claim of human cloning was false, Rael wrote recently, it helped draw attention to the movement.

When Clonaid, a fringe scientific group, claimed it produced the world's first cloned baby, international news media jumped all over the story.

But was it all a giant hoax? Scientists expressed skepticism from the start. And Clonaid's ties to the Raelian movement didn't exactly enhance the credibility of its claims. The Raelians, after all, believe space aliens created human beings in a laboratory 25,000 years ago.

A report published yesterday cast further doubt on the alleged human cloning.

Two Journal de Montréal reporters who infiltrated the Raelian movement described members mocking the media that covered the cloning announcement.

According to the Journal, Clonaid president Brigitte Boisselier laughed about the incident while addressing Raelian supporters in the Eastern Townships in July.

"Come, my good journalist friends, ask me if we did all that to have free publicity. Yes!" Boisselier is quoted as saying. Boisselier kept laughing, according to the report, when she recalled the news conference last year. "When I amused myself playing with the journalists ... you had to see what a zoo it was that day."

During the time she spent mingling with Raelians, Journal de Montréal reporter Brigitte McCann said the alleged cloned baby was basically a taboo topic.

"They didn't want to talk about it," McCann said in an interview yesterday. "They were very, very careful.

"And Boisselier, herself, told me she didn't set foot in the laboratory because she was afraid of being followed there."

Boisselier, who is also a "bishop" in the Raelian sect, provided no proof of the initial cloning. And Clonaid has not backed up subsequent claims it created several other cloned babies. The group has said it has 100 female members ready to carry cloned embryos. Neither Clonaid nor the Raelians responded to interview requests by The Gazette.

François Pothier, a professor in the animal sciences department at Université Laval, says it is possible Clonaid attempted some cloning experiments.

"To technically achieve (human) cloning from a scientific point of view is not complicated, compared with many other techniques," Pothier said. The results, however, are not promising, he said. Pothier has experimented with cloning pigs.

Coy remarks by the charismatic founder of the Raelian movement also raise doubts.

"Even if you want to think we only did that for publicity, it's marvellous," Rael told the Journal de Montréal. "If that's it, we are publicity geniuses. And if it is true, we are scientific geniuses, too."

In a two-page weekly Raelian bulletin obtained by The Gazette, Rael said he believed Boisselier's claim. If false, it had at least drawn attention to the movement, he suggested.

"Even if Brigitte's announcement turns out to be a joke (and I don't think so), I'm sure all the new Raelians will warmly thank Brigitte for this 'white lie' that enabled them to join us."

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