GREG GARRISON
News staff writer

The Raelians, who claimed to have cloned a human and believe aliens created all life on earth by cloning, will land their spaceship philosophy in Birmingham with a public lecture Sunday.

"The first time I heard of this, it was very strange," said the featured speaker, French-born Damien Marsic, who is working on his doctorate in biotechnology at the University of Alabama at Huntsville. "I thought, 'How can people believe in these things?'"

Marsic will speak Sunday at 4 p.m. at the Birmingham Public Library auditorium downtown, explaining the beliefs of Raelians, a non-profit organization whose goal is to build an embassy to welcome back the extraterrestrials they say created earth.

"It's an informational lecture," Marsic said. "Our goal is not to convert people. We're just presenting information and inviting people to analyze this information."

The Raelians garnered international publicity on Dec. 27 with their so-far unsubstantiated claim of the first cloned human, a seven-pound girl named Eve.

Marsic said the cloning was claimed by a company called Clonaid, formed by Raelians, and he doesn't know if it's true. "I think it's quite possible," Marsic said. "I don't have any specific information."

The Raelian movement began in 1973, when French journalist Claude Vorilhon claimed a four-foot-tall alien visited him atop a volcano in France and told him the secrets of the universe. The alien arrived in a flattened-bell-shaped spacecraft, had long dark hair, almond-shaped eyes, olive skin and "exuded harmony and humor," according to Raelian Web site, www.rael.org. [...]