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September 14, 2017

Opening Heaven’s Gate: How Thirty-Nine Believers “Ascended to Heaven” In UFOs

“By the time you read this, we suspect that the human bodies we were wearing have been found and that a flurry of fragmented reports have begun to hit the wire services” 1


The revelation that followed a mysterious Fed-Ex package sent to Rio DiAngelo definitely left the world in shock. On March 26, 1997, Rio DiAngelo, an ex-member of the Heaven’s Gate cult, after receiving a package that contained a letter that read “by the time you read this, we will have exited our vehicles,”a few video tapes, and some floppy disks, led the police to discover thirty-nine deceased bodies in a mansion in Rancho Santa Fe, California.2 The twenty-one women and eighteen men were uniformly dressed in black, wearing Nike Decades, and covered with purple shrouds. The thirty-nine, with this opening of their Heaven’s Gate and what seemed to be their official graduation ceremony, introduced the world to the largest mass suicide to occur on American soil.3

The bodies were found neatly arranged and covered | Courtesy of findadeath.com

Found among the dead, was one of the leaders and founders of Heaven’s Gate, Marshall Herff Applewhite. Even though Applewhite, son of a Presbyterian minister, seemed like a happy man with a wife and two children, he was constantly haunted by confusion over his sexual identity and homosexual desires.4 While suffering from depression and feelings of being alienated, he met Bonnie Lu Nettles, an unhappy nurse, who would end up becoming his partner in creating and leading Heaven’s Gate. They quickly entered into a platonic relationship that psychiatrists call the “insanity of two,” which develops when two delusional people live together and reinforce each other’s ideas.5 As a student of metaphysics with interests in occultism, astrology, and reincarnation, Nettles convinced Applewhite that God had brought them together because they were aliens who had been sent to Earth to warn people of the end as foretold in the Bible. They believed that they were the “two witnesses” described in chapter 11 of the book of Revelations, who were resurrected and taken “up to heaven in a cloud,” or what they believed to be an unidentified flying object (UFO).6 They believed that following their resurrection, the UFO would collect them and anyone else that accepted them, and take them up to the “Next Level,” or a heavenly utopia where they would live as extraterrestrial beings. The pair, leaving their families and taking up names like “The Two,” “Bo and Peep,” and eventually “Do and Ti,” traveled the world to proclaim their message and recruit people to join them and their mission.7

By 1975, Applewhite and Nettles had a following of almost 200 people, but as years passed, only a few of the original converts continued on with them. “The Two” were extremely persuasive and influential on those who were also as lost, confused, and seeking as they were. The members ranged from people who had fascinations with UFOs to people who truly felt like they did not belong to this world. Heaven’s Gate offered answers to people who were continually questioning their spirituality and meaning of life. A member who took on the name Tddody credits his reason for joining the movement to the hellish world outside the cult. He had had a negative experience in the world, as he was “beat up, lied to, cheated, threatened, robbed, and abused in almost every way thinkable.”8 But Heaven’s Gate offered him an escape from this. Another member, who went under the name Yrsody, mentions that she had sought out and rejected many other religious practices before joining Heaven’s Gate; she had experimented with many New Age religious practices before finally accepting Heaven’s Gate and its mission.9

The Heaven’s Gate Logo | Courtesy of Wikipedia

Like Tddody and Yrsody, in order to become members, recruits would have to give up all human attachments, including names, families, and even their sexualities. Contact with the outside world was discouraged and the “students,” as they were called, were expected to follow strict schedules and routines to erase all humanness and begin their transformations into immortal, androgynous aliens.10 In the beginning, Ti (Nettles) and Do (Applewhite) taught the students that they would be going to the “Next Level” through a process similar to metamorphosis. Their human bodies would gradually turn into alien bodies, reaching completion at the “Next Level.” There was no indication that the members would have to give up their lives in order to reach this “Next Level,” but rather would require their physical bodies to gain access to the Kingdom of God.11 However, when Nettles died of cancer in 1985, Applewhite began teaching followers that since Ti had completed her mission, she had simply exited her “vehicle,” or body on Earth, and had ascended to the “Next Level,” where she would receive her new body.10 The students eventually passionately believed in this separation of body and soul. Their strong belief in this teaching is exemplified through their website, where the members stated that they exited the “bodies that [they] borrowed” after they spread “information about [the] Evolutionary Kingdom Level Above Human” and opened the doorway to this heaven.13  Applewhite and seven of his followers even went as far as surgically castrating themselves in order to fully extinguish all sexual, and therefore human and physical, desires.

Applewhite knew that the time to shed their human containers was near when he heard about the “comet of the century,” the Hale-Bopp Comet. This brilliant comet was large and drew massive attention, but what attracted Heaven’s Gate to this comet was the mysterious “companion” following it. The media was bombarded with rumors that the tail following this comet was actually an alien spacecraft, and Heaven’s Gate certainly took the story to be true. The entire spectacle and nature of Hale-Bopp interested Applewhite, and the UFO following it only reassured his beliefs that it was time to make their exit. Applewhite convinced the members that their co-founder Ti was coming back for them in the spacecraft trailing Hale-Bopp; their shepherd was finally here to lead her flock to the Kingdom of Heaven. As the members were completely devoted to their leader and were currently in a bond with him that was inexplicable, they believed him, and started getting ready for their exits.14 Preparing for their deaths, a week before their exits, they recorded Exit Videos depicting why they were going to such lengths and what Heaven’s Gate meant to them. They were ecstatic in these videos as they were finally going to their promised utopia. Through these videos they stressed the fact that they made these decisions out of their own free will and even begged people to understand their actions. Through various internet articles and messages, they emphasized the fact that they were not committing suicide, as their bodies were never truly theirs in the first place. Applewhite also frequently posted messages and videos that urged people to quickly join his mission and prepare for the end. They packaged these videos along with a note and sent them out to former members of the cult so that they could be distributed and seen.15

On March 23, 1997, a day after the Hale-Bopp comet had its closest approach to Earth, Heaven’s Gate was officially opened, and the first wave of suicides took place. About fifteen people ingested applesauce or pudding laced with phenobarbital and downed it with Vodka. They covered their heads with plastic bags and eventually suffocated to death. The remaining members cleaned up the scene and neatly arranged and covered the bodies with purple shrouds. On March 24, 1997, fifteen more killed themselves in a similar fashion and were covered with purple shrouds. The remaining members went on to take their lives on March 25, 1997, with the final two in charge of disposing the plastic bags and covering the dead members with shrouds before also taking their own lives.

On Tuesday, March 25, 1997, the packaged videos and notes finally made their way to Rio DiAngelo, a former member of the cult that went under the name “Neody.” He immediately knew what had transpired, and the next day led his boss Nick Matzorkis and the police to the mansion in Rancho Santa Fe where the bodies lay completely still and without a trace of compulsion. Members like Thomas Nichols, brother of “Star Trek” actress Nichelle Nichols, and Yvonne McCurdy-Hill, who left behind her husband and two twin girls to pursue the “Next Level,” were found with their belongings, clothes, lip balm, money, and other essentials, neatly packed beside them and ready for their trip.16

Members Thomas Nichols and Yvonne McCurdy-Hill | Courtesy of Flickr and ABC News

As expected, the media and American people were struck with complete surprise and shock and thrown into a chaotic frenzy after this event. Suicide itself is a topic of great regret and sadness, so to encounter a group of willing and able people who would take their own lives was flabbergasting. Through greater analysis and exploration we can also see the influences that outside forces played on their final decision. Applewhite and Nettles, through their social skills and persuasive techniques, gave their flock answers about their confusing lives and eventually made them so sure of this extraterrestrial afterlife that they were fully cognizant of and willing to make this physical sacrifice. Even DiAngelo, after leaving the cult, asserts that followers did not want to live in a world without Applewhite and that what they had done could not be classified as suicide as their souls still reside in the “Next Level.”17 Applewhite, Nettles, and Heaven’s Gate gave these confused followers purpose and meaning. This event gives us insight about much more than simply another mass suicide that occurred in the world. This specific event shows us that there are many subtle, or even prominent, messages around the world, which can be articulated through media that can lead people to very self-destructive thoughts and actions. We are left with this realization: the thirty-nine have officially departed from the world, forever closing Heaven’s Gate after them.

  1. Heaven’s Gate, “Heaven’s Gate “Away Team” Returns to Level Above Human in Distant Space,” heavensgate, March 22, 1997, http://www.heavensgate.com/misc/pressrel.htm.
  2. Mark Miller, “Secrets of the cult,” Newsweek, April 1997, 28.
  3. Benjamin Zeller, Heaven’s Gate: America’s UFO Religion (New York: NYU Press, 2014), 1.
  4. Evan Thomas, “‘The next level’: how Herff Applewhite, a sexually confused, would-be apostle, led a flock of lost New Age dreamers to their deaths,” Newsweek, April 1997, 28.
  5. Martin Gardner, “Heaven’s Gate: The UFO cult of Bo and Peep,” Skeptical Inquirer 21, no. 4 (July 1997): 15.
  6. Robert Balch, The Gods Have Landed: New Religions from Other Worlds (New York: State University of New York Press, 1995), 142.
  7. Macmillan Encyclopedia of Death and Dying, November 2003, s.v. “Heaven’s Gate,” by Dennis D. Stewart and Cheryl B. Stewart.
  8. Benjamin Zeller, Heaven’s Gate: America’s UFO Religion (New York: NYU Press, 2014), 50-54.
  9. Benjamin Zeller, Heaven’s Gate: America’s UFO Religion (New York: NYU Press, 2014), 50-54.
  10. Encyclopedia of Religion, December 2004, s.v. “Heaven’s Gate,” by Robert W. Balch.
  11. Benjamin Zeller, Heaven’s Gate: America’s UFO Religion (New York: NYU Press, 2014), 18.
  12. Encyclopedia of Religion, December 2004, s.v. “Heaven’s Gate,” by Robert W. Balch.
  13. Heaven’s Gate, “Heaven’s Gate “Away Team” Returns to Level Above Human in Distant Space,” heavensgate, March 22, 1997, http://www.heavensgate.com/misc/pressrel.htm.
  14. Richard Ocejo, “Review: Bounded Choice: True Believers and Charismatic Cults by Janja Lalich,” Contemporary Sociology 34, no. 4 (July 2005): 384-385.
  15. Benjamin Zeller, Heaven’s Gate: America’s UFO Religion (New York: NYU Press, 2014), 208-217.
  16. Jerry Adler, “Far From Home,” Newsweek, April 1997, 36.
  17. Mark Miller, “Secrets of the cult,” Newsweek, April 1997, 28.

Recent Comments

81 comments

  • Harashang Gajjar

    So I considered my own beliefs. I believe in a man who came back from the dead. He then ascended to heaven, although without aid of a UFO. He claimed to be the Son of God. He invites us to leave everything families, if necessary to follow him and to join a community of believers. He invites us to take up our crosses, tells us not to be surprised when people make fun of us, calls us to die so that we might live. And then he tells us he is coming back for us so we can join him in paradise

  • Dylan Coons

    A very interesting article. It’s weird to think that so many people killed themselves to transport onto a spaceship. I have no idea how someone could go about convincing people that something like that would work. I’m glad I took the time to read this. It was interesting and engaging. Things on crazy cults and their leaders are always an interesting read.

  • Kristy Feather

    As someone who was born and raised only thirty minutes away form this house, this story is a well known case that everyone in Southern California knows about. Not only that, but to get to the beach from some places, you have to almost drive directly past the house where almost 40 people committed suicide because they believed they were transforming into their correct alien bodies. Although a lot of teenagers laugh at the situation, I remember my mom telling me the story when we drove past the house for the first time when I was thirteen – it was both confusing a sad to hear about so many people giving up their lives and now people just look at it like a joke. I’m glad this article was written, it feels like finally someone is taking the story seriously.

  • Alexandra Lujan

    Crazy how this was the largest mass suicide to occur on American soil, also crazy how people were so brainwashed to the point were they took their own lives. Applewhite was indeed a great manipulator, he and seven other followers even surgically castrated themselves to reach the “next level”. This was such a well informed article and I’m glad I now know about Heavens Gate mass suicide.

  • Daniela Cardona

    I had heard about Heaven’s Gate one time before in a high school presentation my friend gave. I think the event and the group as a whole is not only a testament to the wavering mental state of man, but to the incredible strengths our beliefs take on us. Although the ideas of mass suicide and UFOs seem insane to us, for these people it was something to hold on to and get them through the hard times. They found a group of people they could connect with on a deeper level and it was enough to turn their lives around, even enough to take them away.

  • Robert Rodriguez

    That was such a crazy story! I’ve never heard of this cult or their mass suicide but I’ve also found it crazy how people could influence others into believing something and doing something crazy like what Heavens Gate did. I like the mention of the physiological idea of “the insanity of two”, I could see how that could be relevant with the two leaders. the article was well written and very descriptive, it left me baffled on how things like this happen in our world.

  • Thanks for writing this article and sharing with us. I never knew about this mass suicide pact. It is terrible to know that acts like these may be carried out and difficult to understand what place a human being must be in in life in order to willingly go through with something of this nature. The sheer insanity of the topic and your great writing kept my attention throughout the article. Good job on the article!

  • Didier Cadena

    I had minimal knowledge on the Heaven’s Gate suicides, so this article did a great job of telling me the story of the event. It really goes to show how someone can twist a person’s mind to do something as foolish as this. This a perfect example of a cult, to manipulate their members so much that they go on to kill themselves is extremely evil. The article does a great job of putting the information together and still make it interesting enough to read.

  • Anna Guaderrama

    I remember hearing about The Heaven’s Gate cult a while ago and it was interesting to say the least. It’s crazy to think that there are people that actually were firm believers. Whenever, I think of cults, I’ve kind of just always assumed those people were on drugs or something because like how do you not have strong enough willpower or common sense to know what a cult is.

  • Cristina Cabello

    Wow this is a really interesting article. I heard about the Heavens Gate mass suicide but I honestly thought that it was not real. I find this concept crazy. It is strange how two people can make a huge impact. But in this case an impact was taking the lives away from other people. People can be really intelligent. But when it comes to delusional things like this, it is just going too far.

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