Written By: Lillian Warner
“Planet Earth is about to be recycled; your only chance to survive is to evacuate with us.” These are the words that Marshall “Do” Applewhite spoke in the initiation footage of the Heaven’s Gate cult.
What Was Heaven’s Gate?
The Heaven’s Gate Cult was an American religious group mainly known for a mass suicide in 1997. The cult was led by two people, Marshall Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles, also known as Do (Marshall) and Ti (Bonnie). They first met in 1972 at a Houston hospital where Bonnie worked. The pair grew close and took an adventure of spiritual discovery. They believed they were two witnesses of the Book of Revelation, which led them to recruit a following of around 200 people by the end of 1975. This cult is described in many different ways, including as a UFO cult.
Some scholars describe it as a mixture of Christian millenarianism, ufology, and New Age ideas, though many believe that it is a UFO religion. The main belief of this unusual group was that its members could transform themselves into immortal extraterrestrial beings and reject their human nature. They believed that they would ascend to the heavens, or what they called “The Next Level” or “The Evolutionary Level Above Human.” But in 1985, when Bonnie Nettles died of cancer, the group’s beliefs began to change. They originally believed that they would all go to heaven aboard a UFO while still being alive; however, they started to believe that the human body was merely a “vehicle” or “container” for the soul, and that their consciousness would transfer to a new body in “The Next Level” after death.
On March 26, 1997, the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department discovered the bodies of 39 active
members, including Applewhite, in a house in the suburb of Rancho Santa Fe in San Diego County. The members had died over several days. The event brought national attention to the group and its beliefs. Just before the deaths, the group’s website had been updated with a message stating that Comet Hale-Bopp brought closure to Heaven’s Gate and that their 22 years on Earth were coming to an end. They described this as their “graduation” from the Human Evolution Level.
The Heaven’s Gate Cult Grows
Marshall was the son of a Presbyterian minister who became interested in Biblical prophecy in the early 1970s. In March 1972, he met Bonnie at the Houston hospital where she worked. Marshall had recently been fired from his job as a music director at the University of St. Thomas in
Houston, Texas. His personal life was unraveling, including the end of his marriage.
These experiences contributed to a difficult period in his life. Nettles participated in weekly séances with her local group in Houston, and at the time she met Marshall, her own marriage was falling apart. Marshall later said that he felt he had already known Bonnie before actually meeting her.
Bonnie wrote an astrology column for a Houston newspaper, sharing insights from “Brother Francis,” a 19th-century Franciscan friar whom she believed she was communicating with.
Bonnie and Marshall explored different religious and philosophical ideas. They studied the life of St. Francis of Assisi and read works by Helena Blavatsky, R. D. Laing, and Richard Bach. They also studied passages from the New Testament, focusing on Christology, eschatology, and asceticism, and kept a King James Bible. Marshall also studied science fiction, including works written by Arthur C. Clarke and Robert A. Heinlein.
Over time, a radical belief began to take shape. They concluded that they were chosen to fulfill Biblical prophecies and that they had “higher-level” minds. They created a pamphlet describing a revised resurrection of Jesus, which they connected to Marshall. They had also concluded that they were the two witnesses described in the Book of Revelation and often went to churches to speak about their identities. They called themselves “The UFO Two.” They believed that they would be killed, then resurrected and transported via spaceship. They called this event “the Demonstration.”
In May 1974, they gained their first follower, Sharon Morgan. Bonnie and Marshall sought like-minded followers who wanted to make contact with extraterrestrials. They began advertising meetings to recruit people they would call “The Crew.”
At Heaven’s Gate meetings, the “UFO Two” introduced themselves as beings from a different planet called “The Next Level,” who were looking for new participants to take part in their experiments. They stated that the people who agreed to participate would be brought to a higher evolutionary level. In April 1975, a Heaven’s Gate meeting in Los Angeles attracted 80 people. The guests were told that the UFO Two were witnesses in the Bible’s story of the end times. At the end of that meeting, they convinced 25 of the attendees to join Heaven’s Gate.
The Group’s Final Days
In October 1996, in Rancho Santa Fe, California, the group found and rented a large house that they
called “The Monastery.” It was a large 9,200-square-foot mansion, and the rent was reportedly up to
$7,000 per month. They had previously bought land near Manzano, New Mexico, in 1995, where they began building a compound, but they left it in April 1996.
In March 1997, the group became convinced that Comet Hale-Bopp was the sign they had been looking for. They believed that they saw a UFO trailing behind the comet, and with that, they began preparing for their journey to “The Next Level.” Most of the members recorded their last messages, talking about their experiences in the group and their excitement for “The Next Level.”
The 39 members of Heaven’s Gate died over several days in late March 1997. Twenty-one women and eighteen men, ranging in age from 26 to 72, took their own lives. Their deaths brought widespread attention to the group and its unusual beliefs.
The Heaven’s Gate Website
The Heaven’s Gate group maintained a website containing information about its beliefs and teachings. The website’s graphics reflect those of the early-age internet and still exists today. The website serves as an example of the twisted faith of the Heaven’s Gate founders and how the Internet can be used to spread fear, anxiety, and blasphemy.
