Sitting down with Raelians, awaiting aliens.(South Florida Sun-Sentinel)

Air sighs in, whooshes out, like a pod of whales surfacing. The sound is emanating from the bodies lying on sheets on the floor, and others sitting, palms up, on the big overstuffed couches.

The tall, elegant leader's voice intones: "Feel the exchange of air, of molecules like a wave of the ocean, very deep, very strong, very powerful feel your toes your thighs your solar plexus, the center of the body "

The only other sound is a softly playing tape with breathy flute and chime arpeggios.

Looks like a standard meditation, mid-1980s vintage. But the session suddenly veers out of the ordinary:

"You see the sky an image of a large spaceship and the Elohim inside you tell them how much you love them, for creating us in their image and likeness"

This townhouse, in a quiet tree-lined section of north Miami-Dade County, may be an unlikely outpost for contact with extraterrestrials. But that is exactly what the Raelians intend: guiding the nation into paradise, dealt from …