DeVere Baker, Mormon Raftmaker

He had the goal of sailing ocean currents in order to prove the voyages spoken of in the Book of Mormon were possible.... His failures were many, and often embarrassing, so embarrassing that the press and Mormons in general began to look the other way, rather than report on his adventures.... Nor were Baker’s dreams confined to the ocean. In a unique combination of science-fiction and Mormon theology, he authored several stories focused on a beautiful alien girl named ‘Quetara.’ A human scientist is kidnapped by her crew and falls in love with her, learning in the process how God came to be, billions of years previously, and how evolution allowed the endless variation of species to develop on each world in a grand, perpetual Cosmic experiment overseen and controlled by Deity. A subtext of this was ostensibly good latter-day doctrine – that countless other worlds, including, of course, the wise and alluring Quetara’s own planet, were inhabited by people just like us.