Brigitte Boisselier

Brigitte Boisselier (born 1956), also known as Brigitte Roehr, is a French chemist and Raëlian religious leader best known for her claim to have overseen the creation of the first human clone.

A native of Champagne-Ardenne, she studied chemistry in France and the United States, earning two PhDs.

Brigitte Boisselier was born to a Catholic family in France in 1956.

She was raised on a farm in Champagne-Ardenne and became interested in science while young.

She attended the University of Dijon, earning a master's degree in biochemistry and a PhD in chemistry.

She married and had three children between the late 1970s and early 1990s.

In the 1980s, she moved to Texas, where she received another PhD in chemistry from the University of Houston.

From 1984 to 1997, she lived near Paris and worked as a research chemist and a sales manager for Air Liquide.

Boisselier returned to France in 1984 to work for Air Liquide, an industrial gas company, where she remained for 13 years.

At that time, she lived in Les Loges-en-Josas and worked as a research chemist and a sales manager in Lyon.

In the 1990s, Raëlism was seen as dangerous and viewed with disdain in France, resulting in loss of employment for prominent members.

The hostility was fueled in part by public concerns about new religious movements after deaths caused by the Order of the Solar Temple in Europe during the mid-1990s.

She embraced Raëlism in 1992; the group was unpopular in France and her conversion led to tensions with those around her.

Five years later, she joined Clonaid, a Raëlian organization that sought to clone a human.

After her service as their scientific director was publicized, she lost her position with Air Liquide and focused on cloning full-time.

In 1992, Boisselier converted to Raëlism, a UFO religion founded by the French journalist Claude Vorilhon, usually known as Raël, in 1973.

After attending a meeting at which Raël spoke, she felt strongly that he was completely honest and joined his movement.

She had left her husband, alleging violent behavior, shortly before her conversion; afterwards, owing to her involvement with Raëlism, he gained sole custody of their youngest child.

Boisselier believed that religious intolerance motivated a court to transfer the child's custody.

Although her faith led to tension with her parents, her eldest child converted.

Boisselier became the scientific director of Clonaid, an organization founded by Raël that sought to clone humans, in 1997.

That year, Boisselier was interviewed by Le Monde about her role in Clonaid, and she lost her position with Air Liquide after the company learned of this.

Air Liquide stated that her termination was due to her holding dual employment, and that she was strained by her Clonaid service.

She filed a lawsuit against Air Liquide, arguing that she was the victim of religious discrimination.

Her suit was successful: in 1999, she won a judgment of about US$30,000.

After losing her job, Boisselier moved with her middle child, a son, to Quebec, where her eldest daughter was a student.

Boisselier began to travel to discuss Clonaid, eventually becoming a high-profile speaker.

Around that time, she reached the rank of Bishop within Raëlism.

She was one of the 25 members closest to Raël and joined the group's Order of Angels, which promoted free love and femininity.

In late 2000, Clonaid announced that they had received a large donation to fund the cloning of a child, and that Boisselier supervised a team of scientists at a secret laboratory in the United States who would soon produce a human clone.

For the next year, the project received media coverage—and regulatory suspicion—as Boisselier promised the imminent birth of a human clone.

She moved to the United States and began teaching at State University of New York at Plattsburgh for a short time before moving to Hamilton College in 2000 to teach chemistry.

In late 2001, she announced that one had been born and that public evidence would soon be offered.

This declaration received significant press coverage in the United States, and Boisselier appeared on many television programs.

After a court in Florida launched a child welfare investigation, she stated that the cloned child's parents had withdrawn their offer to provide evidence of the cloning and would have no further public comment.

No evidence of the cloning, or subsequent procedures reported by Clonaid, was ever offered, and the announcements were widely perceived to have been a hoax.

Her association with Clonaid was publicized in the U.S. in February 2001, and she resigned her academic position that May, although she had a three-year contract.

She claimed she was initially popular at Hamilton College, but felt that she was disrespected after her association with Clonaid was publicized.

In 2003, impressed with her management of Clonaid and public relations skill, Raël, the founder of Raëlism, announced that Boisselier would succeed him as the group's leader upon his death.

In subsequent years, she has devoted herself to lecturing about the group's doctrines and serving as their spokesperson.