Heaven’s Gate cult members found dead
Following an anonymous tip police enter a mansion in Rancho Santa Fe an exclusive suburb of San Diego California and discover 39 victims of a mass suicide.The deceased21 women and 18 men of varying ageswere all found lying peaceably in matching dark clothes and Nike sneakers and had no noticeable signs of blood or trauma.It was later revealed that the men and women were members of the Heavens Gate religious cult whose leaders preached that suicide would allow them to leave their bodily containers and enter an alien spacecraft hidden behind the Hale-Bopp comet.The cult was led by Marshall Applewhite a music professor who after surviving a near-death experience in 1972 was recruited into the cult by one of his nurses Bonnie Lu Nettles.
In 1975 Applewhite and Nettles persuaded a group of 20 people from Oregon to abandon their families and possessions and move to eastern Colorado where they promised that an extraterrestrial spacecraft would take them to the kingdom of heaven.Nettles who called herself Ti and Applewhite who took the name of Do explained that human bodies were merely containers that could be abandoned in favor of a higher physical existence.As the spacecraft never arrived membership in Heavens Gate diminished and in 1985 Bonnie Lu Nettles Applewhites sexless partner died.During the early 1990s the cult resurfaced as Applewhite began recruiting new members.
Soon after the 1995 discovery of the comet Hale-Bopp the Heavens Gate members became convinced that an alien spacecraft was on its way to earth hidden from human detection behind the comet.In October 1996 Applewhite rented a large home in Rancho Santa Fe explaining to the owner that his group was made up of Christian-based angels.Applewhite advocated sexual abstinence and several male cult members followed his example by undergoing castration operations.In 1997 as part of its 4000-year orbit of the sun the comet Hale-Bopp passed near Earth in one of the most impressive astronomical events of the 20th century.
In late March 1997 as Hale-Bopp reached its closest distance to Earth Applewhite and 38 of his followers drank a lethal mixture of phenobarbital and vodka and then lay down to die hoping to leave their bodily containers enter the alien spacecraft and pass through Heavens Gate into a higher existence.
