“Much as I love my silly hair knot, and much as it saddens me to remove it, remove it I must,” said Claude Vorilhon, a.k.a. ‘Rael,’ leader of the Raelians and founder of the cloning group Clonaid. “While undeniably attractive, my hair-knot unfortunately was getting in the way of my message,” Rael added.
Rael said that he had had no intention of removing his hair knot from his head until last night, when he viewed a taped appearance he had made earlier that day on CNN. “I saw myself on TV for the very first time last night,” Rael told reporters, “and I was like, ‘Oh my god-I look like a total idiot.’”
In addition to changing his hair style, Rael said he was considering other credibility-boosting moves as well, such as moving Clonaid’s headquarters from Las Vegas to Geneva and no longer wearing his pajamas on TV.
Meanwhile, in Atlanta, leaders of crackpot groups from around the world protested at CNN headquarters, accusing the network of showing favoritism to the Raelians and demanding equal time. “We want to get on the air to spread our message of peace,” said Karl Forgsdorrf, leader of a group called the Walnutians who believe that mankind was created by a race of super-intelligent walnuts.
