PLANET XENON, JURAHL QUADRANT- On Friday representatives from Clonaid, a commercial scientific venture of the Raelian new age cult, announced that they have successfully cloned a human being and that the baby in question will make an appearance with cult leader Claude Vorilhon (aka Rael) later this week. [For the record the Raelians dislike the term "cult." Instead, they prefer to describe themselves as an "extraordinarily tight-knit, apocalyptic faith community."]

Some fear that the Raelians could use Clonaid to manufacture an army, thousands of identical bounty hunters with white plastic armor. Clonaid/Raelian representative Bridgette Boisselier admits that while such a nightmarish vision was, in fact, the group's original goal, a clone army now seems out of reach. The trouble is that the cloning process takes twice as long as having a natural child and is extremely expensive. All the while, adoption-happy China is just giving babies away, undercutting Clonaid's market before it has a chance to grow.

With her bulbous head and fashionable string-like hair, Raelian spokes-"woman" Brigitte Boisselier is best known for her recent portrayal of the lovable scamp Gollum in the blockbuster epic Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. "Ve believe zat cloning 'olds key to ze immortality, no?" says Boisselier.

On the whole, the scientific community has remained unimpressed with Clonaid's claim. In an effort to boost their credibility, the group agreed to discuss the issue with a representative from the National Science Institute on CNN Monday night. Most observers agreed that the Raelians held their own.

NSI: Can you prove your "clone" is what you say it is?

Boisselier: Of course. However, out of respect for ze family's privacy, ve can't divulge specifics.

NSI: So, you have no proof other than the word of your own so-called scientists and dubious DNA tests.

Boisselier: Ve've got tons of evidence and stuff. In fact, ve're running out of room for it all. Ve're just not going to share it with stupid 'eads like YOU.

NSI: Admit it. You've got nothing.

Boisselier: Ya-huh. Ve so do.

NSI: Nuh-huh.

Boisselier: Ya-huh!

NSI: Nuh-huh!

Boisselier: Ya-huh INFINITY! [plugging her bony fingers into her ear holes]

NSI: That is SO not fair. Larry, make her stop that!

Not only are experts suspicious, they are extremely concerned about the bioethics of cloning human beings. A campaign to ban the practice worldwide is currently underway, but Raelians say such an effort, while perfectly well intentioned, is misguided and ignorant.

"The only reason they don't understand it is because they think it is a crime against nature and should be banned," says Vorilhon.

At the core of their faith, Raelians believe that human life on earth originated from highly sophisticated beings "from the sky" who came to seed the planet with humanoid life about 25,000 years ago. The group also recognizes that discoveries as recent as October indicating that human beings have existed on this planet for 6 or 7 million years. When asked to reconcile these notions, members of the group are instructed to wave their arms about wildly and make "weeeAAAAooOOOwww!" noises.

Also these sky beings, according to Raelian legend [and what we can gather from press photos], looked exceedingly freaky.

In a 1997 interview, Vorilhon defended the validity of the Raelian philosophy. "You can't honestly say our beliefs are any nuttier than creationism," he insisted.

Since his purported contact with alien life forms in 1973, Vorilhon insists on wearing only space-age clothing, consuming only space-age foods like Tang and low-fat Hot Pockets, and using only space-age polymers to repair the vinyl seats in his 1989 Honda Accord.

Reporters grilled the group's representatives on how cloning would advance the group's other-worldly goals. Rolling her eyes at their thick-headedness, Boisselier pulled out a flow chart explaining in child-like simplicity how it all works:

• Phase One: Clone human beings
• ...
• Phase Three: Space-age Nirvana!

"People are lost in their primitive religions," says Vorilhon. "If they could only get caught up with our space-age religion, they would clearly see why cloning is so important. Let me put it in the simplest terms I can so you ape-people can understand me: We ... eat... food ... from ... tubes."

[Having fed all the relevant information on the Raelians into our Content-O-Matic extrapolatory server, we have reached an answer to the question burning in the mind of everyone following this story. The erie footage of brand new Nikes sticking out from Raelian bunk beds and discarded Raelian pudding cups should appear on the evening news inside of 2 years.]

Far from an overnight breakthrough, Clonaid has been hard at work on cloning since the late 90's. They began with insects, flies mostly. They then set about to clone spiders to catch the flies and later birds to catch the spiders. Unfortunately, researchers suffered a setback in 1999 when an elderly woman swallowed the entire lot. Scientists are still not sure why. Perhaps, they say, her injuries could prove fatal.

When the group began working on mammals in early 2001, they encountered a host of new complications as the abomination rate increased dramatically. Fortunately, Boisselier says human trial #411 was born with only minor disfigurements and was able to breathe on its own, saving the research team another embarrassing trip to the dumpster.

"Ve vere vorried zat zees one vould come out with ze flippers and crap like ze rest of zem," says Boisselier. "But happily for us, ze clone is perfectly normal other zan its thin covering of orange fur."

The group insists that it made the announcement during the news-dry holiday season out of an interest in advancing the field of mad science not just for publicity. A quick survey of their largely European and Euro-looking membership hints at its real goal: to ensure that in the future, everyone will look vaguely like Yanni.

Representatives for John Tesh have indicated that the new age music maker might be open to the idea of having himself cloned as well. So far, Clonaid has yet to express interest.