The Raelian religion is the mutant spawn of one Claude Vorilhon, second-rate journalist, wannabe Formula One star and Frenchman. Originally MADECH (an acronym of limited significance to non-French speakers), its present name is an extension of the moniker Vorilhon was instructed to assume following the first of several visits from extra-terrestrial life-forms.

Monsieur Vorilhon, now known as Rael, continues to enjoy an unusual degree of familiarity with the chaps from outer space: as the (un-credited) co-authors of The True Face of God. This incomprehensible volume requires several days of careful reading; due not to its complexity or brilliance but to the necessary hours of recovery time which the reader, for his own sake, is advised to seek upon completing each disastrous chapter.

I was in Docklands to meet Glenn Carter, 'national guide' for Raelianism in the United Kingdom. Glenn is an actor, and very minor media figure. Tall and good-looking, with a relaxed, almost Antipodean air, Glenn is the embodiment of the Raelian ideal. Confident, fit, clean-living, with an easy presence which works, I expect, rather better on women than on me. The Raelian symbol of infinity hangs impressively around his neck. He speaks softly, with a slight Liverpudlian accent, and an intensity I imagine could be quite mesmerising under different circumstances. But something has rattled his cage.

"I don't get paid for doing this, so what's in it for me? I'll tell you exactly what's in it for me: when these things come public is people pointing at me and saying that guy's a weirdo, that's all that's in it for me."

This is towards the end of our hour together, and Glenn is distinctly ratty. Raelianism is a non-profit operation, no-one is paid for their work towards it; including the boss. But when I ask how Rael supports himself Glenn gets all defensive.

"Rael wrote a book for a commercial publisher, so what he does is he makes a writer's royalty, that's the money he gets, he makes a writer's royalty. Just like any writer who wrote a book, he's entitled to that like anybody. He wrote a book and put it together and published it, and that's what supports him. So, you know, if the book does well he does well, if the book doesn't do well he doesn’t do well."

The book in question, of course, is The True Face of God, also known as The Final Message, formerly The Book Which Tells The Truth. Amongst the messages it imparts is the revelation that life on earth is no more than 22,000 years old, and arose as a result of the experiments of extra-terrestrial scientists. These truths, says Rael, are recorded in the Bible, but incorrectly, and have been almost lost in modern translations. The basis for this belief, and all that follows, lies in the observation that the Hebrew word Elohim--used in the old testament as a name for God--refers not to a single being but is plural in form, and should be translated correctly as "those who came from the sky."

The problem with this assertion is that Rael appears to have made it up. Whilst 'Elohim' does have the grammatical meaning of a plural, his proffered translation--"those who came from the sky"--is completely unfounded, being far too specific. And plural or not, it is a long leap of logic required to deduce from a single word the revisionist history which Rael proceeds to offer. There is something approaching a consistent line of argument, but Rael's near-fundamentalist devotion to the Bible means that he is forced into making repeated modifications of an inherently simple (and conceivable) premise.

Moreoever, 'Elohim' is not the only word for God contained in the Bible. The most common usage is YHWH, which is unpronounceable in Hebrew. Known as the 'Tetragrammaton', this is the name found on the original scrolls whenever the word LORD appears in capital letters in present day translations. It may be correct that 'Elohim' contains traces of an earlier, polytheistic tradition; and that the plural meaning is justified. But the Tetragrammaton, from whence the name Yahweh is derived (borrowing its vowels from adonai, Hebrew for Lord) is never used except in the context of strict monotheism.

Rael seems to suggest that it is the 'Elohim' tradition in which traces of the historical truth of creation have lodged; and that the Yahweh tradition is a later gloss, the result of man's need to explain existence by reference to a single deity. But it is never clearly expressed. Shortly after introducing the reader to the concept of 'the Elohim', which Rael uses as a generic term for his scientists, he offers an interpretation for the following verse:

"Yahweh Elohim said to the serpent: be damned . . . on your belly you shall crawl and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. Genesis 3:14"

But this sudden reference to Yahweh goes by completely unremarked upon; there is no suggestion that the name carries a sense in anyway different from that of 'Elohim.'

Rael is not the only member of the movement who appears somewhat confused. Glenn Carter offers his own, very individual take:

"What's so fascinating is the etymology of the word Elohim. I had always believed in God; but when I first started to look into this I found out that the word God had come from the original Hebrew scrolls, which say elohim; and a law was passed that said no-one is allowed to write Elohim--they have to put this symbol which means refer to the original text: like Gee-dash-Dee. (G-D) So from writing elohim in the original Hebrew scrolls they decided none of the transcriptions (sic) were allowed to write this word, so they replace it with the symbol G-D; which subsequently when translated again, somehow gets a letter O in the middle of that. So all of a sudden we have this singular sounding word, god, which actually is plural. Those who come from the skies."

This displays a typically Raelian reliance on a single good idea, a lot of bluster, and detail which is either vague, non-existent or false. None of which would matter except for the fact that Raelians like to market themselves as strong-minded freethinkers, whose convictions are based on nothing other than the cold facts of scientific discovery. Or, as Rael puts it, with characteristic unbashfulness, "intelligence and science." Glenn soon launches into his testimony:

"I've always been a very inquisitive person . . . I seriously looked into the science behind this. I went to libraries, the book was written twenty-eight years ago, so I went and I looked into libraries and checked on the front pages of what was in the papers, what was in the press at that time, to see if the ideas could have come from somewhere else. There was nothing like biological robots, human cloning, nothing like it. So I started to look at that, history, science--and it begins to make more and more sense."

But what exactly is Glenn referring to? Apart from the creation of life by the Elohim, Rael seems extraordinarily vague about anything else. And as for his appeal to science, no scientist in the world could take seriously a man who straight-facedly 'explains' the Israelites' crossing of the Red Sea (which Rael regards as a fact straight out of the pages of history) as having been achieved through the efficacious use of "water repulsion rays."