(Press release and shameless plug)
UFO CULT GATHERS IN NEW YORK FOR APOCALYPSE
CLEVELAND, Ohio, April 3, 2006: The Church of the SubGenius has announced that the end of the world will take place on Tuesday, July 5, 2005. In preparation for the fulfillment of this doomsday prophecy, the Church is requesting that all of its members participate in a bizarre religious ceremony taking place in upstate New York, during the final weekend before the arrival of the apocalypse.
Since its inception in 1953, Church founder J.R. "Bob" Dobbs has predicted that a fleet of flying saucers will arrive at the beginning of July to destroy the worldwide Conspiracy against the Church of the SubGenius, while all ordained SubGenius ministers will be rescued by escape vessels piloted by the Alien Sex Goddesses, also known as the Xists.
The Church is inviting all of its members worldwide to gather together for the final hours in Sherman, New York from July 1 to July 5, at a clothing-optional outdoor campground called Brushwood Folklore Center. The first gathering at this compound took place in 1996, and the event has increased in size and participants each following year. 1998 was designated the first true "X-Day," and each successive year has added one to the total. This year's celebration in 2005 is X-Day 8, or X-Day VIII.
The Church has been engaged in a massive recruitment campaign to increase the numbers of its membership before the arrival of the Xists. According to Church records, the organization currently has approximately 100,000 members worldwide. SubGenius recruitment has been especially dedicated among the ranks of people who refuse to conform to the norms of society, including disbelievers, blasphemers, pranksters, rebels, hackers, pornographers, geeks, and outcasts.
The Church is seeking performers and producers from the adult entertainment industry in particular, because sexual freedom has been an important part of Church doctrine from the start. X-Day will be a celebration of pornography and adult entertainment, and certain parts of the event will be restricted to adults only. Only ordained ministers of the Church of the SubGenius are allowed at the event, but the Church is accepting memberships at its standard rate of $30 up until the final hours of July 4.
The Church of the SubGenius has been no stranger to controversy since its foundation, and the upcoming X-Day celebration promises to be no different. In the late 1980s, members of the Church were accused of spreading a virus in Macintosh computers known as the "Peace Virus." Numerous articles have been written on the Church in such noteworthy publications as the New York Times, Washington Post, Wired Online, Boston Globe, U.S. News and World Report; and broadcast reports have been produced by CNN and NPR. In April 1999, officials of the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts shut down an official SubGenius Devival gathering in the belief that the Church was affiliated with the Trenchcoat Mafia (the organization blamed for the Columbine high school shootings), though authorities later realized the association was mistaken. In its January 1, 2000 issue, a Time magazine poll declared J.R. "Bob" Dobbs the biggest fraud of the 20th century.
In addition, a new controversy took place in the early months of 2006 when one of the Church's highest level initiates, Reverend Magdalen, came into conflict with the United States legal system. She found her religious affiliations questioned in court, and her case has become a cause celebre for free speech advocates nationwide. This case has been covered in Boing Boing, Fark, The Wild Hunt, and Wikinews (Wikipedia's news reporting service).
Detailed information about X-Day can be found on the World Wide Web at the X-Day Web site.
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