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On this Day: 39 Dead U.S. Cultists Found in Mass Suicide
March 26, 2008 12:15 AM
by
findingDulcinea Staff
On March 26, 1997, the bodies of the Heaven's Gate members were found in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif. They believed the Hale-Bopp comet was a sign they should leave Earth.
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Heaven’s Gate members believed that behind the Hale-Bopp comet, which was then visible in the night sky, was a spacecraft waiting to take them to a “higher plane of existence.” All they needed to do was shed their earthly bodies to begin their astral journey.
So, under the leadership of a man called Marshall Applewhite, they ate pudding or applesauce laced with toxic phenobarbital.
Several days later, their bodies were discovered.
All 39 were dressed identically in long-sleeved black shirts and black sweat pants with new black-and-white Nike tennis shoes when they were found in a seven-bedroom house in the upscale community north of San Diego. Most of the bodies were covered in a purple shroud.
For a world baffled by their behavior, the cult members left no shortage of documentation about their beliefs. Investigators found exit videos explaining the cult’s mission and a Web site created to publicize its message and draw new members.
Still, the cultists bizarre deaths left many asking why.
“Well, the first thing to say is they're not dead. They achieved eternal life. That's the way they saw it. They were achieving a higher state. They were transcending the human condition,” said psychiatrist Dr. Jay Lifton in a Newshour interview with Jim Lehrer on March 27, 1997.
Applewhite himself addressed the cult’s mission in an exit video filmed shortly before the mass suicide.
“We came from distant space and even what some might call somewhat of another dimension and we’re about to return from whence we came,” he said.
So, under the leadership of a man called Marshall Applewhite, they ate pudding or applesauce laced with toxic phenobarbital.
Several days later, their bodies were discovered.
All 39 were dressed identically in long-sleeved black shirts and black sweat pants with new black-and-white Nike tennis shoes when they were found in a seven-bedroom house in the upscale community north of San Diego. Most of the bodies were covered in a purple shroud.
For a world baffled by their behavior, the cult members left no shortage of documentation about their beliefs. Investigators found exit videos explaining the cult’s mission and a Web site created to publicize its message and draw new members.
Still, the cultists bizarre deaths left many asking why.
“Well, the first thing to say is they're not dead. They achieved eternal life. That's the way they saw it. They were achieving a higher state. They were transcending the human condition,” said psychiatrist Dr. Jay Lifton in a Newshour interview with Jim Lehrer on March 27, 1997.
Applewhite himself addressed the cult’s mission in an exit video filmed shortly before the mass suicide.
“We came from distant space and even what some might call somewhat of another dimension and we’re about to return from whence we came,” he said.
Headline Links: 39 Heaven’s Gate cult members die in mass suicide
AS professional Web page designers, the Heaven’s Gate members “used the Internet to attempt to win converts and spread their message,” reported CNN in March 1998, one year after the suicides. “That ease of access to information led to (public) fears that the new medium offered new opportunities for cults to recruit, and that the sci-fi pastiche of Heaven's Gate was a perfect fit."
Source: CNN
TruTV’s Web site explores the story of the Heaven’s Gate cult, including the group’s beginnings in 1975 when Applewhite held his first public meeting in Waldport, Ore. Prior to the meeting, he posted fliers on telephone poles urging people to attend “to discover the truth about reality.”
Source: truTV
Reaction: Experts discuss Heaven’s Gate, cults and mass suicide
Cult experts analyzed the Heaven’s Gate suicides on PBS's NewsHour with Jim Lehrer the day after the bodies were discovered. “Well, I think there are any number of reasons why people join groups such as this. One certainly is the need for community, a sense of connectedness, people who feel detached from society, or are in some way loners, if you will, find that being part of a community is worth giving up a lot of things, sometimes even one’s life,” said Fred Clothy of the University of Pittsburgh.
Source: PBS's NewsHour with Jim Lehrer
Related Topics: Heaven’s Gate recalled, 10 years later
San Diego NBC affiliate KNSD reported on the Heaven’s Gate suicides in 2007. “For homicide investigators it was a tragically easy case to solve; there was no crime, members of Heaven’s Gate willingly spoke of what they were going to do,” according to the news report. One Heaven’s Gate member said in a video clip: “I can hardly wait! And I’m ready to go!”
Source: San Diego NBC affiliate KNSD
“They were all in their running suits with their 'Heaven's Gate Away Team' patch on the sleeve. There was a computer flashing 'Red Alert,' sort of like 'Star Trek.' There was still a load of laundry in the machine. It was surreal,” said Robert Brunk, one of the sheriff's deputies to report to the scene of the suicides.
Source: San Diego Union-Tribune
Other famous cults and the fate of the Heaven’s Gate house
On Feb. 28, 1993, federal agents tried to arrest David Koresh at his Waco, Texas, compound. A gunfight ensued, killing 10 and beginning a 51-day standoff. Koresh headed the Branch Davidians, an apocalyptic sect of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. The standoff ended April 19 when vehicles with spray booms pumped teargas into the building, and agents fired pyrotechnic teargas rounds at a nearby tornado shelter. Gunshots broke out and a fire started, engulfing the building. Seventy-five people, including Koresh and 21 children, died.
Source: findingDulcinea
ABC News provides an online photo album with information on “Killer Cults,” including The Family, led by convicted killer Charles Manson, who convinced followers that he was Jesus Christ.
Source: ABC
Selling real estate where serious, well-known crimes have been committed or people have died is extremely difficult for real estate agents, USA Today reported in 2006. The seven-bedroom house rented by the Heaven’s Gate members, where they committed suicide, was eventually demolished. The street name was changed as well, from Colina Norte to Paseo Victoria.
Source: USA Today
Reference: Heaven’s Gate Exit Videos, the Web site, and the Hale-Bopp comet
Photius Coutsoukis has reassembled the original Heaven’s Gate Web site, although he states on an entrance page to the site that he does not condone the actions of “these lunatics.” The original site included information about the cult’s purpose, an overview of their “present mission,” and a picture of what a member of the “Kingdom of Heaven” might look like. “If you study the material on this Web site you will hopefully understand our joy and what our purpose here on Earth has been. You may even find your ‘boarding pass’ to leave with us during this brief ‘window,’” reads the site’s main page.
Source: Heaven’s Gate (recreated Web page)
LA Weekly provides the exit videos created by Applewhite and some of the other cult members shortly before their suicides. “I think everyone in this class wanted something more than the human world had to offer. They were seeking some type of goodness, some type of rightness that they did not feel in this world ... To us, we weren’t throwing away anything of any value of us,” said one follower, anticipating that people might ask why the cult members did what they did. “The idea that you can become something in this world and really make a difference is an illusion,” she continued.
Source: LA Weekly
NASA has a Web site dedicated to Comet Hale-Bopp, “The Great Comet of 1997.” The site includes over 5,100 images of the comet and news stories about the comet’s trajectory.
Source: NASA
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