The Alien Prophet review: Human clones, sex slaves and extraterrestrial encounters uncovered in Netflix documentary about French cult

The Alien Prophet review: Human clones, sex slaves and extraterrestrial encounters uncovered in Netflix documentary about French cult

 

Like a Nazi war criminal high-tailing it to South America after 1945, the infamous cult leader known as Raël sought refuge in Japan after the jig was up for him in the West. This is where he currently resides, having accumulated a vast new swathe of followers who view him as their prophet. The you-have-to-see-it-to-believe-it story of his rise as a self-attested messiah is retold in the new Netflix documentary Raël: The Alien Prophet.

 

Across four briskly-paced episodes, the show traces the history of the Raëllian movement, which began as a bit of a joke, but across multiple decades, transformed into a multi-tentacled organisation that gained notoriety for being populated with sex slaves and for dabbling in human cloning. But it all began when an ordinary-looking man named Claude Vorilhon went on French television and claimed to have had a close encounter with an alien.

 

While the fundamental mission-statement of the Raëllian movement was to — get this — create a physical ‘embassy’ for alien creatures to land their flying saucers at, Raël and his closest associates admitted that they probably wouldn’t be around to see this happen. But they found a way around mortality as well. Sometime in the early ‘90s, Raël launched a bogus company in the Bahamas, and appeared to fully devote himself to the creation of human clones. This, oddly enough, is the chapter in Raël’s life that the series chooses to focus on. It’s arguably the least harmful thing that he did, considering the casual mentions of child abuse and human slavery that the show occasionally drops.

 

Raël would target the most vulnerable people, and feed them nonsense about alien lands and liberation, all in an effort to increase personal wealth and influence. One former follower admits that she was a ‘battered woman’ before she met Raël. Another devotee tears up at the very thought of his blue eyes. Many of the talking heads featured in the show are still deeply connected to his ‘teachings’, having either ignored or actively blocked out the inappropriate activities they likely witnessed at his communes.