The sneaky aliens October 6th, 2007 by Roy Berman

In 1922, a government permanent secretary was quoted in The Times of London calling grays “sneaking, thieving, fascinating little alien villains.”

In fact, the above quote refers to gray squirrels, in this rather amusing NYT Magazine story. But what it made me think of was the following sign, which is located near the central Nagoya train station, and which I saw out the shinkansen window as I passed by. I did not take this photo, and I believe the sign I saw had fancier graphics (the below photo is from August, 2004 and I saw the sign in May of 2007) but the text is the same:

UFOには愛がある

In UFOs, there is love

As the URL, www.rael.org, confirms, this sign is the work of the Raelians, a bizarre cult based around UFO worship, founded by a French automobile journalist named Claude Vorilhon in 1975, and best known for their unconfirmed claim to have successfully clones a human being. They, like the more famous science fiction inspired religious group of Scientoloy, are classified as a cult in France (and other countries), and have been particularly singled out in South Korea, a country which is particularly sensitive to cloning related controversy following the Hwang Woo-suk fiasco.

While this massive billboard in central Nagoya indicates their presence in Japan and the Japanese Wikipedia article on them claims that of the 60,000 worldwide members they have scattered throughout 90 countries, Japan has the largest number, I have never heard anything else about their activities in Japan.

Based on this photo, they do seem to be active in South Korea though.

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 6th, 2007 at 4:37 pm and is filed under Cults, Curiosities, Japan, Space. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

7 Responses to 'The sneaky aliens'

1. Jade Oc Says: October 6th, 2007 at 7:49 pm

   Based on that photo, I wish they were a bit more active in Japan….

   Actually if I saw that ad without reading the URL, I’d be wondering if it was a giant instant yakisoba ad.

2. Bryce Says: October 7th, 2007 at 7:07 pm

   “Based on that photo, I wish they were a bit more active in Japan….”

   I concur. Beam me up Rael.

3. Roy Berman Says: October 7th, 2007 at 8:04 pm

   The Raelians ARE known for their free love philosophy. You might want to consider signing up.

4. Jade Oc Says: October 8th, 2007 at 5:34 pm

   Sounds like a Raelly good idea….

5. Seth Says: October 11th, 2007 at 3:46 am

   I’ve met 2 raelians here in Osaka and had them invite me to several seminars and social meetings. They all struck me as “very nice, but a little odd” in a way that makes you think cultist or possibly serial killer. I wonder if the free love philosophy was what got the guys I knew interested. The guys I knew were both a little old to be unmarried and not successful daters.

6. ROK Drop Weekly Linklets - 14OCT07 at ROK Drop Says: October 13th, 2007 at 5:17 pm

   [...] benefits of being Japanized.  -  Damn that’s a big hamburger. -  Who would have thought Japan and South Korea has Raelians?-  Skippy has an update on the debate in the Japanese diet to support US naval operations for [...]

7. Mutantfrog Travelogue » Blog Archive » Raelians in unexpected places Says: February 22nd, 2008 at 2:36 pm

   [...] may remember I posted a few months ago about the highly curious billboard by Nagoya’s central train station sponsored by the [...]

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