Do UFOs really exist? Do French people know something we don’t? If either or both of these questions have ever plagued you, then you might find comfort—or at least a small congregation of like-minded people—at the main branch of the local library this weekend. That’s when Charlottesville resident Marc Letourneau, the East Coast rep for the Raelian Movement, will speak about the movement that puts a belief in extraterrestrials at its core. The free talk is scheduled for 3pm on Saturday in the McIntire Room of the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library. Letourneau promises that, as is usually the case, his lecture will be “very controversial.”
Raelians are not just a bunch of people who have seen E.T. a few too many times. That was fiction, for one thing, and Letourneau says he will screen footage of real-life UFOs caught on tape. This really isn’t National Enquirer stuff. For another thing, the movement began after a French guy named Rael was “contacted by a visitor from another planet,” according to Raelianism’s official history. And when was the last time you read anything about French people in the supermarket’s finest tabloids? In addition, Letourneau, who joined the Raelians in 1977 after becoming interested in UFOs, has given upwards of 100 lectures on Raelianism, making him a genuine expert. “I am there to inform people,” he says, “I’m not there to convert anybody.”
To learn more about the Raelian Movement, visit www.rael.org.—Sam Latter