Heaven’s Gate was an American religious cult founded in 1974 by Marshall Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles. The group had hundreds of followers and combined Christianity with New Age beliefs and ufology to spread the believe that members could achieve immortality and become extraterrestrials by rejecting their humanity and ascending to heaven or “The Next Level”.
Heaven’s Gate is most known for its 39 active members committing a coordinated mass suicide to coincide with Comet Hale–Bopp’s closest approach. This took place in stages in March 1997, with police finding 39 bodies in a house in San Diego County.
It’s worth noting that two former members—Marc and Sarah King—are believed to be alive and continue maintaining the Heaven’s Gate website and another, Rio DiAngelo, did an ABC interview in 2022 about being a designated survivor. In fact, I’m writing this because I found this Reddit conversation via Bluesky:
Heavens Gate was a pseudo Christian ufo cult that committed mass suicide in 1996 during the passing of the Hale-Bopp comet in order to ascend with the comet. It was really bonkers.
I found out about 15 years later that their old html website was still up and running and had a contact button. So I messaged to see if anyone was still operating the site or if it was just a relic that had been paid in advance or something. Turns out there’s still someone from the cult running it that didn’t die with the others. We email back and forth every now and then. I don’t know if it’s only one person or several. All I know is that I check in on them about once or twice a year since to see if they’re still hanging in there and how they’re doing. Gotta be lonely seeing your cult family fly off into the next realm leaving you here to twiddle your thumbs till its next passing in a bit over 4000 years.
I personally preferred Poochie’s method of ascension but I guess all roads lead to Rome!