I AM Foundation

The I AM Foundation is an organization based in Mt. Shasta, California that is devoted to spreading the word about what adherents believe to be an alien race that lives in adjacent Mount Shasta volcano.

The I AM movement is probably the best publicized Mount Shasta-related religion. It holds that Shasta is home of the Lemurians, a race of very civilized refugees from an ancient kingdom called 'Mu' that was lost to a cataclysm when their continent Lemuria sank to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. Lemurians are described as being seven feet tall and having a walnut-sized sensory organ in the middle of their foreheads. They reportedly use this organ to communicate via extra-sensory perception. Believers also state that this race can appear and vanish at will and that they have built an elaborate tunnel system in Shasta.

The movement was founded as a result of the first reported sighting of Lemurians that is said to have occurred about 1930. Movement founder Guy Ballard says that he encountered a 'divine being' high on Shasta named St. Germain.