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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 expected arrival date for the alien invasion is July 5th, 2007.
Meanwhile, the town of Roswell, New Mexico is holding its Amazing UFO Festival to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the "Roswell UFO Incident" that took place in 1947. The date of this festival: July 5th, 2007.
The SubGenius cult is inviting all of its members worldwide to gather together for the final hours in Sherman, New York from Wednesday, July 4 to Sunday, July 8, 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 2007 is X-Day 10, or X-Day X.
Roswell's festival is being heavily promoted, and it is expected to draw a crowd of nearly 50,000 visitors. The festival promotes itself as being family-friendly, and noted UFO researchers and conspiracy theorists are expected to attend. Parades, costumes, and carnival rides are planned, along with costumes and commercial events.
The SubGenius X-Day event, in contrast, is definitely an adults-only gathering, with nudity and profanity in abundance. The event will feature underground bands, indie rockers, performance artists, and performers and producers from the adult entertainment industry, because sexual freedom has been an important part of Church doctrine from the start. X-Day will be a celebration of free expression, performance art, rock and roll, pornography, and adult entertainment. 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.
Rev. Modemac, one of the X-Day festival's organizers, stated, "Of course, you can't copyright or trademark the date of July 5th, so those folks in Roswell are free to hold their celebration on any day they choose. However, the original Roswell incident took place on July 8th, not July 5th. So obviously they chose the date of July 5th in order to imitate us."
He further went on to state, "They're celebrating the 60th anniversary of a crashed weather balloon. We're preparing for the real thing."
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.
The Church received additional media attention in 2006 when one of its high-ranking members, known in SubGenius circles as Reverend Mary Magdalen, became involved in a legal battle for custody of her son due to her membership in the Church. This case has been covered in such popular online sites as Boing Boing, Fark, and Wikinews (Wikipedia's news reporting service). Reverend Magdalen is being represented by the law firm of Lipsitz Green Fahringer Roll Salisbury & Cambria, LLP.
Photographers, entertainers, production companies, radio broadcasters, and all media producers are encouraged to contact Rev. Ivan Stang at the Church's Cleveland, Ohio headquarters at 1-216-320-9528.
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