Heavens Gate

The Heaven's Gate cult hit the headlines in March 1997 following the discovery of the mass suicide of its members at Rancho Santa Fe in San Diego. They were from a range of backgrounds and ages and included Thomas Nichols, whose sister Nichelle has long been associated with spaceships from her role in the original Star Trek series and her work with NASA. Also numbered amongst the dead was Marshall Applewhite who founded the cult in 1970 (his co-founder, Bonnie Nettles, had already died in 1985 from cancer). Both Applewhite and Nettles believed themselves to be from the 'Evolutionary Level Above Human'; two entities who had each taken over a human body using it as a physical container during their time on Earth. Their description of genderless bodies, used as transient 'homes' by other beings in the past, has been taken to explain some of the discoveries of 'alien' remains over the years. After around a quarter of a century of being considered no more than a group of eccentrics, the drastic end of the Heaven's Gate cult came about as a result of the discovery of the comet Hale-Bopp in July 1995. The comet sparked the interest of amateur astronomers and one of them, Chuck Shramek, took a photograph which seemed to show a second object travelling with Hale-Bopp. Shramek believed it was a spaceship and this idea, together with the photo, radiated round the world via the Internet and through the media. Heaven's Gate considered this ship to be the means by which they would leave Earth (and their human bodies) to reach some higher level. The group made their final preparations including producing two videos which were sent to a former member, Rio DiAngelo. One contained Applewhite's explanation of their actions and the second was the farewells of other group members. The bodies of the 21 women and 18 men were removed by the authorities on 27 March 1997, having died some days earlier from a combination of the drug Phenobarbital (in apple sauce) and suffocation with plastic bags. All were dressed in black and each had some belongings and a few coins with them. There is nothing to suggest they were forced to take part in the suicide nor that any spacecraft was travelling with Hale-Bopp.