Heaven's Gate was an American UFO religion doomsday cult based in San Diego, California, founded in the early 1970s and led by Marshall Applewhite (1931--1997) and Bonnie Nettles (1927--1985). On March 26, 1997, police discovered the bodies of 39 members of the group who had committed mass suicide in order to reach what they believed was an alien space craft following the Comet Hale--Bopp, which was then at its brightest On March 19--20, 1997, Marshall Applewhite taped himself speaking of mass suicide and asserted "it was the only way to evacuate this Earth." After claiming that a space craft was trailing the comet Hale--Bopp, Applewhite convinced 38 followers to commit suicide so that their souls could board the supposed craft. Applewhite believed that after their deaths, a UFO would take their souls to another "level of existence above human", which he described as being both physical and spiritual. This and other UFO-related beliefs held by the group have led some observers to characterize the group as a type of UFO religion. In October 1996, the group purchased alien abduction insurance to cover up to 50 members at a cost of $10,000. The cult rented a 9,200-sq.-ft. mansion, located at 18241 Colina Norte (later changed to Paseo Victoria), in a gated community of upscale homes in the San Diego--area community of Rancho Santa Fe from Sam Koutchesfahani, paying $7,000 per month in cash. Thirty-eight Heaven's Gate members, plus group leader Applewhite, were found dead in the home on March 26, 1997. In the heat of the California spring, many of the bodies had begun to decompose by the time they were discovered. Autopsies were carried out on the corpses, and medical examiners found the people had taken cyanide and arsenic. The bodies were later cremated. Media coverage prior to suicide Known to the mainstream media (though largely ignored through the 1980s and 1990s), Heaven's Gate was better known in UFO circles as well as a series of academic studies by sociologist Robert Balch. They also received coverage in Jacques Vallée's Messengers of Deception, in which Vallée described an unusual public meeting organized by the group. Vallée frequently expressed concerns within the book about contactee groups' authoritarian political and religious outlooks, and Heaven's Gate did not escape criticism. In January 1994, the LA Weekly ran an article on the group, then known as The Total Overcomers. Through this article Rio DiAngelo, a surviving member of the group, discovered the group and eventually joined them. DiAngelo was the subject of LA Weekly's 2007 cover story on the group. Louis Theroux contacted the Heaven's Gate group while making a program for his BBC Two documentary series, Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends, in early March 1997. In response to his e-mail, Theroux was told that Heaven's Gate could not take part in the documentary as "at the present time a project like this would be an interference with what we must focus on." The 1982 film, The Mysterious Two, was loosely based on reports of the cult's activities during the 1970s, which had received extensive media coverage at the time. Applewhite and his co-founder would go on to occasionally use the name "The Mysterious Two" in their web site's materials. The 1980 film Heaven's Gate has no relationship whatsoever to the Heaven's Gate group.

• published: 12 Dec 2013
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