Science Specialist Ed Yeates reporting

A religious group called the Raelians became extremely controversial in recent months after a laboratory it's affiliated with announced the first cloning of a human.

Though most researchers doubt it's really happened, Raelians believe it's the first successful step to help them move a little closer to their heaven.

It turns out there are thousands of people who quietly embrace the Raelian theology - a faith most people find very strange.

While Christians out here might be praying tonight in their homes - a Raelian would be meditating - perhaps communicating with a supreme alien race.

Bizarre? They don't think so!

Come with us as we visit the "Raelians Next Door."

Jordan Brunson is out playing football. A few hours earlier, he and his sister Meagan walked home from their school in this well-groomed middle class Nevada neighborhood.

A traditional neighborhood, but for one family, a husband, wife and two kids.

"What church do you go to or what is your religion? I didn't say anything. I was afraid that I would lose friends," says Kristina Brunson.

Kristina Brunson was a Lutheran, but converted with her husband Andre to the Raelian Movement. She's a financial consultant, and at first feared sharing her beliefs with fellow workers.

Andre is a professional musician performing at the Wayne Newton Theater in Las Vegas. For the Brunsons, cloning and the Raelian beliefs simply hit home. It's their ticket to heaven.

"How we continue is exactly how we started. I mean, that's, you've got to be kidding, some of these things are whoosh, it's right there," says Andre Brunson.

Right there with cloning. Right there with other members who also wear this Raelian medallion, most of whom believe not in traditional marriage, but universal free love.

While the Brunsons respect that choice under the Raelian umbrella - it's not their cup of tea.

"There are different ways of marriages and being with different people. Different, but I'm a very one-on-one person," Kristina says.

"If you decide to have more than one partner, that is your choice. But if you choose to be monogamous, that is also your choice. Nothing is right or wrong," Andre says.

In fact, the Brunsons' traditional family lifestyle with parent-teacher conferences and football practices may be a rarety among Raelians.

But belief - not in little green men - but an alien race which created all of us, and in cloning oneself over and over again by downloading all your thoughts from clone to clone as a path to get back into their presence again, is more common.

"If and when we reach that level, this will be heaven," Andre says.

"They had this level of technology times 10 25,000 years ago," Andre says.

Benevolence, charity, forfeiting wars, love for humankind - these, the Brunsons believe, are prerequisites before Raelians can even begin cloning themselves into eternal life.

"You have to deserve this to happen because on their planet, they actually compete for the right to be re-created," Andre says.

Every first Sunday, the Brunson's gather with about 20 other members in the region for informal discussions and meditation. And they occasionally meditate quietly on their own at home as well.

They don't bother the children with all this right now. Meagan and Jordan will decide how they want to believe later on.

"It's too complex of a concept to explain to a child which is a big problem of forcing religion on children, because they don't know," Andre says.

The Brunsons donate 3 percent of their income to Rael himself to further this movement in any way he sees fit.