In 1997, 39 members of the Heaven’s Gate cult took their own lives in an attempt to reach what they believed was an extraterrestrial spacecraft following Comet Hale–Bopp.
The cult leader Marshall Applewhite persuaded 38 followers to prepare for a ritual suicide, believing it would enable their souls to board the supposed extraterrestrial craft.
Applewhite believed that after their deaths, an unidentified flying object (UFO) would transport their souls to another “level of existence above human,” which he described as being both physical and spiritual.
All cult followers were dressed in black tracksuits, with customized patches identifying themselves as the “Heaven’s Gate Away Team,” and wore Nike Decade sneakers.
The followers committed suicide by ingesting barbiturates mixed into applesauce or pudding and chased it down with vodka. After tying plastic bags around their heads, the 39 followers climbed into bunk beds to wait for their “graduation.”
The cult didn’t refer to the act as suicide. They called it graduation. To them, those who stayed behind were the ones killing themselves.
The 39 cult members committed suicide in shifts over three days, so that those still earthbound could tidy up after those who had just left, draping purple shrouds atop the bodies.
Inside their pockets, each cult member had a five-dollar bill and three quarters for the “interplanetary toll.”
In addition to abandoning their families and giving up their possessions, the Heaven’s Gate cult members were asked to cleanse their bodies of things like fast food and “impure” sexual thoughts.
The process involved the Master Cleanse, a liquid-only diet consisting of laxative teas and lemonade made with maple syrup and cayenne pepper.
The diet was invented by Stanley Burroughs in 1941, who initially marketed it as a way to treat ulcers.
In one of his interviews, former cult member Richard Ford said that the group took the diet to the extreme by drinking nothing but the homemade lemonade for three months.
Eight of the male members of the group, including cult leader Marshall Applewhite, voluntarily underwent castration as an extreme means of maintaining the ascetic lifestyle.
Before their mass suicide, group members filmed themselves explaining why they believed what they believed and why they were happy about the opportunity to escape the impending Armageddon and move to what they called the “Level Above Human.”
Copies of the goodbye tapes were sent to former members, including one who discovered the corpses.
As of today, the cult’s website is still active and maintained by two former members who live in Phoenix.
The site has the flashing “RED ALERT” at the top, the same wording sheriff’s deputies saw on computers when they were called to the mansion on March 26, 1997, and discovered the 39 bodies. There are links on the site to videotapes, “Earth Exit Statements” and other religious material.
When asked why they kept the website active, the surviving members said:
“They asked us to do it and we were honored to perform the task.”
The information, they said, “is still timeless and we are here to provide it to those who ask.”
