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Fishy A USO (unidentified swimming object) spooks San Diego surfers, swimmers
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The Unarius Academy of Science’s 1970 “Space Cadillac” appears at parades across the country. Unarius cofounder Ruth Norman added the saucer in 1978 to promote the Academy’s film, “The Arrival.”
Earth’s version of the occurrence, observed by East County’s space alien-loving Unarians, supposedly denotes this planet’s induction into the Interplanetary Conclave, a sort of United Nations of the cosmos. The event, to be held October 15 and 16 at the Unarius Academy of Science (the Unarians’ cosmic compound) includes trumpeters (or “choraleers”) in Mad Men-esque space uniforms, a dove release, a “parade of planets” and the kind of celestially-attuned peeps your grandma’s hairdresser would have on speed-dial. Depending on your beliefs, the Unarius Academy in El Cajon could be the epicenter of human-E.T. contact, or just a storefront filled with DayGlo spaceship paintings, plastic Venus de Milo’s and Astroturf carpet. The group was most active in the 1970s and ’80s when one of its cofounders, Dr. Ruth Norman (think river-boat queen loses fight with crate of magic markers), made a splash on national TV, touting the benefits of past-life role-playing. Norman died—oops—“transitioned” in 1994, yet the Unarians trudge along, still waiting for the arrival of 33 spaceships in Jamul, east of El Cajon. Compared to previous Conclaves held in Balboa Park, “We won’t get as many tourists,” laments Unarius spokeswoman Tracey Kennedy.
Birds of a Feather MEET LA JOLLA WOMEN WHO ENJOY BEING alienated The Unarians are the region’s longestsurviving UFO-subscribing group, but they are not alone. La Jolla resident Nadine Gary is a priestess in the Raelian Movement, an atheistic religion that believes life on Earth was created scientifically, thanks to DNA synthesis and genetic engineering by an advanced extraterrestrial human civilization called the “Elohim,” a Hebrew word used in the Bible that some believe means those who came from the sky. “The Elohim would like us to understand that they are not gods, just human beings from space,” Gary says. “They would like us to comprehend that there is no god in the infinity of the universe.” These days, much of Gary’s time is spent working on an offshoot group, gotopless.org, which is trying to overturn laws that prevent women from going 26
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topless on the beach (because, if women’s bodies were created by Priestess Nadine Gary space geniuses, then covering them up would be an affront to their work). La Jolla-based artist Eve Featherstone says she’s been channeling E.T.s for the past two years, including a reptilian alien who also communicates with Lady Gaga. “I had to get rid of him,” she says. “Too intense.” In the process of chanelling aliens’ messages into her art, Featherstone says she’s learned plenty. “I learned that my breasts are a portal of universal unconditional love and should be available to whoever, whenever,” she says. rael.org
n August 25, near lifeguard tower 15 in Mission Beach, eyewitnesses described seeing a 15-inch dorsal fin protruding from the ocean about 100 yards offshore, suggesting there may have been a 10- to 15foot great white shark in the area. Lifeguards cleared the water and closed a two-mile stretch of ocean to swimmers while shark-patrolling helicopters circled overhead. The next day, what was believed to be the same shark was seen again, resulting in another closure. Less than a week later, a 12inch dorsal fin sighting in La Jolla closed waters for 24 hours and prompted the San Diego Police Department to scramble one of its helicopters for a recon mission. Then, on September 1, a man on the beach captured a photograph of
what appeared to be another giant shark, this one in the waves near surfers at Swami’s, in Encinitas. “It’s possible all these sightings were of the same shark,” says Nick Wegner, a shark expert at Scripps Institute of Oceanography. “Lifeguards are trained and if they say it looked like a great white shark, it probably was. However, the only picture I saw... looked like a dolphin.” According to Wegner, only two shark-related fatalities have been reported in San Diego County, one in La Jolla in 1959, the other in Solana Beach in 2008. “If you are attacked by a shark,” he says, “the best thing to do is gouge its eyeballs or gills or, better yet, get out of the water immediately.” Or just swim faster than the guy next to you. —David Moye