By Bob McCarty | NowPublic.com | Dec. 27, 2008

“We’re ready to prove it!”

Serving as the headline of  a news release issued today, the four words above indicate Dr. Brigitte Boisselier and her colleagues at Clonaid are making a trip back to the publicity well after a long hiatus.  Their goal:  To legitimize the company’s cloning claims amidst much skepticism.

Count me among the skeptical, anti-cloning crowd, but I digress.

It was six years ago when Boisselier announced her company had produced the world’s first cloned baby and named her Eve.  That claim, however, was subsequently dismissed by scientists for lack of proof and by some in the media for offering a trail of unproven claims and no proof of the cloned baby’s existence.

Today, however, the head of the company founded by a religious sect whose members believe in space aliens, announced she is “ready to facilitate the cloning of one or more additional individuals at a reduced rate, provided (the clients) would agree — under contract — to go public after being cloned.”

Much to the displeasure of Clonaid officials, this latest search for free media coverage is likely to result only in a handful of skeptical articles about the company’s latest cloning claims, most of which will be relegated to the “strange news” sections of the few news outlets who provide the matter any coverage at all.

Why are members of the news media reluctant to report on activities of the hair-brained Raëlian sect that is behind Clonaid?  Perhaps a glimpse at the paragraph below, which appears on this page of the group’s web site, offers an answer:

On the 13th of December 1973, French journalist Rael was contacted by a visitor from another planet, and asked to establish an Embassy to welcome these people back to Earth.