In the second half of the 1900s, a number of cults were on the rise with the Emergence of the Manson Family, Branch Davidians, and the Children of God. But one shocking cult that really stuck with me is the ‘Heaven’s Gate’ cult. Twenty-one women and eighteen men, who are members of the Heaven’s Gate cult, killed themselves at a Santa Fe residence on March 26, 1997. All this with the belief that they would be taken by UFOs to a higher kingdom. But let’s backtrack for a second, let me tell you how all of this started.

Beginning

The cult was founded in the early 1970s by a university professor named Marshall Applewhite whose beliefs were that the human body was only a temporary vessel and that it would have to be discarded in order to reach the ‘Next Level’, something that to him was considered heaven or paradise. Applewhite often referred to the ‘Next Level’ as the kingdom level above human. His basic belief was that higher beings lived in this kingdom and those higher beings were sent down to Earth in human bodies to guide everyone down the supposed right path.

Ideology

Applewhite believed that he was one of these higher beings and that he had been sent down to Earth to continue recruiting people to take up to the Next Level. There were three ways that people could get up to this Next LLevel Number one, get picked up by a TELAH spacecraft, short for ‘The Evolutionary Level Above Human’ spacecraft and get transported to the Next Level. The second option was to experience an Accidental or natural death. The last way to enter the higher kingdom was to discard their human bodies or in layman’s terms commit suicide at a specific time. He also believed that there were evil space aliens named Luciferians and that they were on earth to corrupt humans therefore all existing religions on Earth had been corrupted by these Evil aliens.

Manipulation and Formation

The leader of the group, Marshall Applewhite had met a nurse in 1972, Bonnie Nettles and had converted her to join the group claiming that they had met in a past life. Over the course of 25 years, Applewhite and Nettles convinced nearly 100 people to abandon their families and follow them across America. Despite this number of people, the group was still in its infancy going under multiple names such as ‘Human Individual Metamorphosis’ before sticking with ‘Heaven’s Gate’.

Searching For Name

Applewhite and Nettles also nicknamed themselves a variety of names such as “The two’, ‘Bo and Peep’ and then permanently switching to ‘Do and Ti’. In October 1996, the cult bought a mansion in Santa Fe, California. They nicknamed the house ‘The Monastery’ and it was where most of the members would reside being taught the principles of the belief. All members were over 18 and most of them adopted new names when they entered the cult to rid themselves of their past.

Auspicious Time for Sacrifice

They were supposed to give up all their worldly possessions and live a highly ascetic life, devoid of any indulgence and any desire many members including Applewhite himself were even castrated. The members were supposed to take their lives at a specific time that only Applewhite knew. To Applewhite, this predestined time was marked by the discovery of the Hale Bopp Comet. He had believed that a UFO was trailing the Comet Hale-Bopp and was ready to take the members of the cult to a higher kingdom.

Preparation

So in preparation for ascension, the group created a lethal mixture of Phenobarbital with applesauce, pudding, and vodka. The group bought 38 Pairs of Nike sneakers which was later determined to just been because they were on sale. Each member filled interview style Farewells and explanations to the world and planned on sending them out after they had all passed on. Each member wore the same clothes, a sort of uniform and they also designed two patches to wear together. Lastly, and probably most laughably, they purchased alien abduction insurance protecting themselves from abduction, impregnation, and death by aliens that would pay out to around one million dollars per person.

Planning and Execution

During the course of four days, March 22nd to 26th, 1997 groups of around 15 people would commit suicide each day. They would drink the lethal mixture that they had created beforehand and then go to sleep, never to wake up. On the first and second day, 15 people died, and on the third day, 9 people died. The people that remained after every day would place purple cloths in plastic bags on the bodies of the people that had passed during the day. The founder of the cult, Marshall Applewhite was the third last person to die the last few people that were left sent packages with the aforementioned recordings to Heaven’s Gate affiliated individuals. One of the people that received this package was Rio D’iAngelo, a former member of the cult. When he received the package, he went to the house and found all 39 bodies of the members. He called police not long after calling in an anonymous tip but revealing his identity later.

Aftermath

After the discovery, the bodies were cremated. The aftermath of this incident was almost as bad as the incident itself. The mass suicide sparked a chain of copycat suicides from random individuals with no affiliation to Heaven’s Gate cult or Heaven’s Gate members. When the media caught wind of this cult, nearly every news station was covering it, news reporters were even allowed inside certain parts of the house. Once it ended, the whole ordeal became fuel for satire, sparking a number of playful skits and comedy content. From here it made its way into popular media, the same keyhole design that was used on the cult logo was also used as an album cover for Lil Uzi Vert’s album ‘Eternal Atake’ but was later changed to another design.

Conclusion

The whole situation was used as a prime example of mass suicide. It is a grim reminder of the power that one person can hold over others and how far people are willing to go to receive salvation, no matter how insane the result.

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