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Heaven’s Gate: The UFO Cult and the Mass Suicide of 39 Members


The mass suicide of 39 members of the Heaven’s Gate cult in March 1997 remains one of the most chilling and enigmatic episodes in modern religious history. Combining elements of evangelical Christianity, New Age practices, and science fiction, the group’s beliefs—and its apocalyptic leader Marshall Applewhite—captured the public’s imagination. The group’s tragic end at their compound in Rancho Santa Fe, California, shocked the world and spurred questions about the nature of cults, charismatic leadership, and the complex intersection of faith, conspiracy, and science fiction.

Marshall Applewhite
Marshall Applewhite

The Origins of Heaven’s Gate

Heaven’s Gate began in 1972 when Bonnie Lu Nettles, a nurse, met Marshall Herff Applewhite, who had left the seminary. Religious scholar Benjamin Zeller notes that both were experiencing spiritual turmoil at the time. Nettles was going through a divorce, while Applewhite, an evangelical Christian, believed God was leading him to a new path. They developed a profound spiritual connection, becoming "soulmates" in their search for meaning and answers in a world that felt more and more alienating.

Bonnie Lu Nettles
Bonnie Lu Nettles

Nettles was notably influenced by astrology, spirit guides, and New Age practices like yoga, while Applewhite turned to the Bible, particularly the Book of Revelation, which predicts events signaling the world's end. The duo eventually experienced what they called their own "revelation": the Bible’s mentions of God, Jesus, and angels were actually descriptions of extraterrestrials, a superior alien race that had appeared to humanity as deities. According to their belief system, in the final days, these aliens would arrive in their spacecraft, destroy or “recycle” the Earth, and rescue the faithful who were prepared to "graduate" to the Next Level.


“What Nettles and Applewhite were offering was an E.T. version of what other Christians would call the Rapture,” explains Zeller, pointing to the similarity between their message and the popular Christian belief in an end-times ascension of believers to heaven. This blending of extraterrestrial and religious themes was not unprecedented; the 1968 bestseller Chariots of the Gods by Erich von Däniken had already popularised the idea that ancient human encounters with gods were, in fact, interactions with aliens. For Nettles and Applewhite, the Bible was a misinterpreted text, and they believed that they were the "Two Witnesses" prophesied in Revelation 11, sent to testify and teach on Earth before the final judgement.



“Not by magic or by a miracle, but by extraterrestrial technology,” Zeller explains. The group believed that when the Bible referred to Jesus ascending to heaven in a cloud, the cloud was actually a UFO. The UFOs were their salvation, and they believed they had been chosen to prepare humanity for its next phase of existence.

'The Class' and Its Followers

By 1975, Nettles and Applewhite, known to their followers as Ti and Do, were fixtures in the alternative spirituality scene in California and Oregon. They opened a New Age store and began offering classes where they shared their message: this earthly life was a temporary realm where people learned to transcend human weaknesses, particularly through resisting material attachments and battling what they called "bad aliens." The group’s belief system encouraged followers to leave behind their human bodies and transform into perfected beings.


“They never called themselves Heaven’s Gate,” Zeller points out. “The group’s name for themselves was 'The Class.' Nettles and Applewhite were seen as ‘teachers’ and their followers were ‘students.’ To this day, ex-members call each other ‘Classmates.’”



Nettles and Applewhite began to view themselves as extraterrestrial entities sent to Earth to ready their followers for ascension. The group became more isolated and adopted a monastic lifestyle, with members urged to practice celibacy, give up material possessions, and wear clothing influenced by Star Trek uniforms. Despite their seemingly unusual beliefs and practices, Zeller highlights that they functioned similarly to other religious groups.


“They acted like a religion,” Zeller explains. “They had beliefs and practices, rituals and prayers. They talked about the meaning of life, the end of the world, and what happened after death. They looked like a religion, but like some other religions, they had teachings which I would not promote or accept.”


After Nettles' Death: A New Vision of the End

In 1985, Bonnie Nettles (Ti) died of cancer, an event that profoundly shook the group’s belief system. Members had previously believed that they would ascend physically, being transformed into perfect alien beings without dying. After Nettles' death, Applewhite (Do) revised their theology: the transformation would now involve shedding their imperfect human bodies, allowing their consciousness to be transferred to alien bodies at the "Next Level."

Applewhite persisted in teaching that the group's members were aliens temporarily residing in human bodies. Heaven's Gate increasingly formulated conspiracy theories to justify why their message wasn't accepted by the broader public. They thought that government authorities, collaborating with "bad aliens" known as Luciferians, were concealing the truth from humanity. This paranoia intensified, even as Applewhite started using the emerging internet as a means to disseminate the group's message.


In the early 1990s, Applewhite and Heaven’s Gate launched a website, but the response from the public was overwhelmingly negative. Frustrated, Applewhite and his followers began to give up on converting others, shifting their focus inward and looking for signs that their journey to the Next Level was near.



The Hale-Bopp Comet and the Final "Graduation"

The discovery of the Hale-Bopp comet in 1995 served as the final catalyst for Heaven’s Gate. Applewhite viewed the comet, which astronomers forecasted to come closest to Earth in March 1997, as a sign. He believed that a spacecraft was trailing behind the comet and that this was the awaited opportunity: their chance to leave Earth before its imminent destruction. The group held the belief that their souls, upon departing their human bodies, would ascend to the spaceship and proceed to the Next Level.

On March 22 and 23, 1997, 39 members of Heaven’s Gate, including Applewhite, committed mass suicide in the belief that their consciousness would be transferred to the waiting spacecraft. The group ingested a lethal combination of phenobarbital and vodka and used plastic bags to ensure asphyxiation. Each member was dressed identically in black shirts and sweatpants, wearing Nike trainers, and had a small amount of money in their pockets—symbolic of their final journey.


In the days leading up to their deaths, members of the group recorded farewell videos explaining their decision. In these videos, they appeared calm and peaceful, expressing excitement and certainty about the journey ahead. Applewhite himself recorded a final message, reaffirming that their deaths were not to be viewed as tragic but as the necessary step to achieving the ascension they had long awaited.

Messages to Loved Ones and the Aftermath

The farewell videos also included personal messages to loved ones, in which the members explained their decisions and expressed hope that their families would understand. Despite having severed ties with their families years earlier, many members conveyed love and care in their final words, attempting to bring closure to the emotional rift that had long existed between them.



In their farewell messages, the group members also reaffirmed their position that they were not committing suicide in the traditional sense. The group’s website included a page titled "Our Position Against Suicide," in which they stated that, “The true meaning of ‘suicide’ is to turn against the Next Level when it is being offered.” For the members of Heaven’s Gate, the only way to avoid true suicide was to leave their human bodies behind and ascend to the Next Level.


The world was left stunned by the discovery of the 39 bodies in Rancho Santa Fe. The surreal details of the mass suicide—uniform clothing, Star Trek references, and the group’s devotion to UFOs—became fodder for late-night television shows and media commentary.

“They were in uniform, they were apparently into Star Trek, they were all wearing Nikes—it all seemed too bizarre to believe,” Zeller notes.

The scene inside the San Diego mansion where 39 members of the Heaven's Gate cult were found, their belongings packed and dressed in matching outfits, marking one of the most infamous mass suicides in history.
The scene inside the San Diego mansion where 39 members of the Heaven's Gate cult were found, their belongings packed and dressed in matching outfits, marking one of the most infamous mass suicides in history.

However, Zeller argues in his book, Heaven’s Gate: America’s UFO Religion, that the group was not the bizarre aberration it appeared to be. He views Heaven’s Gate as a group of "spiritual seekers" who had latched onto popular trends in American culture—conspiracy theories, apocalyptic beliefs, and the fusion of science and religion—that ultimately led to their tragic end.


“Members said they joined of their own free will,” Zeller says. “They recorded exit statements. They wrote autobiographies that explained why they joined this movement. If we're going to call that brainwashing, then I don’t know what we’re going to call free will.”

Though ultimately a deadly cult, Heaven’s Gate was not a particularly intimidating one. Members were mostly free to defect at their will. Many decided to stay, and a few others who opted out of the cult’s main operations or moved elsewhere were still infected by its message and the magnetic pull of its leader. For the most part, it survived by persuasive power, rather than fear.


As proof of this, not all members of the cult killed themselves that week. It should be no surprise that there were defectors, the kind who left and looked back on their tenure in Heaven’s Gate with shock and confusion. Yet there were others who, though they drifted from the cult, were still infected by its message. Two months later, such a member killed himself in a San Diego motel. He was also wearing the group’s favored black Nike trainers.



Another man, named Charles Humphrey, expressed regret at not having been part of the grand suicide in the mansion. In a documentary interview, he said, “I was so happy to hear that they were finally off this planet. I just wish that I was with them at that moment.” Humphrey would wind up killing himself a few months after, by suffocating himself in a plastic bag attached to a car’s exhaust pipe, bringing the ultimate Heaven’s Gate death toll to 41 people.


The story of Heaven’s Gate is a tragic reminder of humanity’s search for meaning and the susceptibility of isolated groups to extreme ideologies. It highlights the importance of critical thinking, the dangers of unquestioned loyalty, and the enduring human desire to connect with something greater than ourselves. While the lives lost in Rancho Santa Fe cannot be undone, their story continues to prompt reflection on the complexities of belief and the ways in which faith can both inspire and devastate.

 






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