On March 26, 1997, 39 bodies were discovered in a Rancho Santa Fe mansion after a mass suicide.
The jokes started right away, even though 39 people had died. Heaven’s Gate felt ripe for ridicule.
It happened 20 years ago this month. In a Rancho Santa Fe mansion, Marshall Applewhite, a preacher’s son and former seminarian who had fashioned a religion that merged evangelical Christianity with New Age science fiction, led his followers in a ritualistic “exit” of their human shells. They were convinced they would literally ascend to a better world via a spaceship riding behind the Hale-Bopp comet.
They donned matching black track suits with customized patches identifying themselves as the “Heaven’s Gate Away Team.” They slipped on brand new black Nike shoes. They packed duffel bags.
Then they ingested barbiturates swirled into applesauce or pudding, chased it down with vodka, tied plastic bags around their heads, climbed into bunk beds and died. They went in three waves over several days, so that those still earthbound could tidy up after those who had just left, draping purple shrouds atop the bodies.
Before their departures, group members filmed themselves making statements that explained why they believed what they believed and why they were happy about the opportunity to escape the impending Armageddon and move to what they called the “Level Above Human.”
They didn’t refer to it as suicide. They called it graduation. To them, those who stayed behind were the ones killing themselves.
Copies of the goodbye tapes were sent to former members, including one who drove down from Los Angeles, went into the 9,000-square-foot, two-story mansion and saw all the corpses. He called 911. And soon enough the whole world began hearing about Heaven’s Gate.
That’s when the jokes started. One website riffed on Nike’s slogan: “Just Did It.” Another spoofed the cult members who ran a software company: “We kill ourselves working for you!” Late-night TV host David Letterman delivered one of his Top Ten lists, “Signs you are in a bad cult.” (One of the signs: “Cult website is called www.nutcase.com.”) “Saturday Night Live” did a skit.
When all the laughter faded, people moved on to other stories, got on with their lives. The mansion was razed, the name of the street where it sat changed to discourage looky-loos, and Heaven’s Gate settled into its place as a bizarre footnote in San Diego County history.
For sociologists and religious studies scholars, though, Heaven’s Gate remains in orbit. They continue to evaluate and write about the group’s foundations, arguing whether it was fundamentally Christian or New Age, trying to put it in context with America’s long history of spiritual yearning. They debate whether members were brainwashed into joining and staying. They discuss the timing of the suicides.
And they ponder a provocative question: Are the forces that helped shape Heaven’s Gate still in play in American society?
Or, to put it another way, could it happen again?
Sheriff’s deputies and officials go under the police tape leading up the driveway to the Rancho Santa Fe mansion where 39 bodies of Heaven’s Gate members were found on March 26, 1997.
Investigators gather outside the Rancho Santa Fe mansion 39 bodies of Heaven’s Gate members were found on March 26, 1997. They died in a mass suicide.
Investigators gather outside the rented Rancho Santa Fe mansion where the bodies of 39 Heaven’s Gate members were found on March 26, 1997. The bodies were found throughout the house.
Sheriff’s investigators waited outside a Rancho Santa Fe mansion for hours until a search warrant was issued to enter the home where the bodies of 39 Heaven’s Gate members were found on March 26, 1997.
San Diego County Sheriff’s Cmdr. Alan Fulmer (center) briefs reporters about the discovery of 39 bodies of Heaven’s Gate members inside a Rancho Santa Fe mansion on March 26, 1997.
A San Diego County Sheriff’s investigator shines a light at a window outside the Rancho Santa Fe mansion where 39 bodies of Heaven’s Gate members were found on March 26, 1997.
Medical examiner’s personnel bring the bodies of some of the 39 Heaven’s Gate members down the steps of their rented Rancho Santa Fe mansion on March 27, 1997, the day after the mass suicide was discovered.
Scott Lindlaw of the AP news organization uses his cellphone while reporting from the location where 39 bodies of Heaven’s Gate members were found inside a Rancho Santa Fe mansion on March 26, 1997.
Television reporters did live shots from a hillside just west of the Rancho Santa Fe home where 39 bodies of Heaven’s Gate members were found on March 26, 1997.
County medical examiner personnel leave after removing some of the 39 bodies of Heaven’s Gate members found inside a Rancho Santa Fe mansion on March 26, 1997.
Fox Network photographer Scott King of Los Angeles, left, worked with reporter Fred Villanueva during a live spot near the Rancho Santa Fe mansion where the bodies of 39 Heaven’s Gate members were found on March 26, 1997.
Mark Malamatos, a San Diego County medical examiner’s investigator, pauses as he prepares to help unload bodies at the Medical Examiner’s Office in Kearny Mesa on March 27, 1997, the day after the Heaven’s Gate mass suicide in Rancho Santa Fe was discovered.
Workers at the San Diego County Medical Examiner’s Office use a forklift to unload bodies removed from the Rancho Santa Fe mansion where 39 Heaven’s Gate members committed suicide on March 26, 1997.
On March 27, 1997, weary personnel from the San Diego County Medical Examiner’s Office in Kearny Mesa sit on the receiving dock after unloading 39 bodies of Heaven’s Gate members. The group’s mass suicide was discovered the day before.
News photographers stood on ladders to photograph San Diego County medical examiner personnel as they unloaded the bodies of Heaven’s Gate members from a semi-tractor trailer and took them inside for autopsies.
The brother of one of the victims of the Heaven’s Gate mass suicide waited outside the county Medical Examiner’s Office to be let in to identify the body. In all, 39 bodies were found inside a Rancho Santa Fe mansion on March 26, 1997.
Workers from the county Medical Examiner’s Office unloaded a body from a forklift to a refrigerated semi-trailer at the Kearny Mesa facility on March 27, 1997, the day after the Heaven’s Gate mass suicide was discovered at a Rancho Santa Fe mansion.
Personnel at the county Medical Examiner’s Office in Kearny Mesa prepared to remove two of the 39 bodies discovered after the Heaven’s Gate mass suicide in Rancho Santa Fe on March 26, 1997.
Medical examiner’s employees prepare to wheel inside the agency’s Kearny Mesa office a body removed the Rancho Santa Fe masnion where the Heaven’s Gate mass suicide was discovered on March 26, 1997.
Photographers did what they could to get their cameras over a chain link fence to shoot photos of bodies being unloaded at the Medical Examiner’s Office in Kearny Mesa on March 27, 1997. The day before the Heaven’s Gate mass suicide was discovered inside a Rancho Santa Fe mansion.
Law enforcement personnel gathered at the Rancho Santa Fe mansion where 39 bodies of Heaven’s Gate members were found on March 26, 1997.
Workers from the Medical Examiner’s Office unload a body from a forklift to a refrigerated semi-trailer at the agency’s Kearny Mesa office on March 27, 1997, the day after the Heaven’s Gate mass suicide was discovered in Rancho Santa Fe.
Leaning over and poking their arms through a fence, reporters interview Deputy Investigator George Dicka of the San Diego County Medical Examiner’s Office on March 27, 1997, the day after the Heaven’s Gate mass suicide was discovered in Rancho Santa Fe.
A news photographer in a helicopter captures personnel from the Medical Examiner’s Office removing some of the 39 bodies of Heaven’s Gate members found after a mass suicide was discovered on March 26, 1997, in a Rancho Santa Fe mansion.
County Medical Examiner Brian Blackbourne speals to the news media at the Del Mar Fairgrounds on the evening of March 26, 1997, after the bodies of 39 Heaven’s Gate members were found in a rented Rancho Santa Fe mansion.
Journalists at a news conference at the Del Mar Fairgrounds gather around one of two monitors to watch sheriff’s video of the inside of the Rancho Santa Fe mansion where the bodies of 39 Heaven’s Gates members were found on March 26, 1997.
San Diego County Medical Examiner Robert Blackbourne answers questions from the huge crowd of journalists the day after the Heavan’s Gate mass suicide was discovered on March 26, 1997, in Rancho Santa Fe.
Among the items recovered from the Rancho Santa Fe home where Heaven’s Gate members committed mass suicide was a T-shirt with an extraterrestrial theme. The cult’s property was stored at the county public administrator’s office before being auctioned off.
Chris Peterson, the county’s senior estate mover, opened a crate full of possessions of Heaven’s Gate members. The bodies of 39 members of the cult were discovered on March 26, 1997, in a Rancho Santa Fe mansion.
Color artwork found among the possessions of the Heaven’s Gate members who committed mass suicide in a Rancho Santa Fe mansion in March 1997.
Edwald Ernst, right, and other family members)talk to San Diego police officers outside the county Medical Examiner’s Office, where their daughter, Erika Ernst, was identified as one of the 39 Heaven’s Gate members who committed mass suicide in March 1997.
On March 31, 1997, county Medical Examiner Brian Blackbourne showed the updated list of names of the 39 Heaven’s Gate members who died in a mass suicide that month in Rancho Santa Fe.
San Diego County Medical Examiner’s Office personnel watch and take photographs from the doorway of their office during a news conference on the Heaven’s Gate mass suicide in March 1997.
The Rev. William J. Young was the president of University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas, in 1966 when he hired Marshall “Herff” Applewhite as director of the school’s glee club. Applewhite worked for the school from 1966-1970. Applewhite was the leader of the Heaven’s Gate cult and died in a mass suicide by the group in March 1997.
San Diego Sheriff Deputy Robert Brunk stood near the entrance to the property in Rancho Santa Fe where 39 Heaven’s Gate members committed mass suicide inside a mansion. Brunk, shown 10 years ago, was the first responder to the call that there was a problem at the house and found room after room of bodies on March 26, 1997. The mansion was razed but a new building was constructed at the site.
A county Medical Examiner’s Office worker, left, sitting in the back of a storage truck, handed a Heaven’s Gate suicide victim’s personal property and paperwork to a local funeral home employee in the parking lot of the Medical Examiner’s Office.
Worshipers gather at the El Camino Memorial Park and Mortuary for Easter Sunrise Services on the Sunday morning following the discovery of the Heaven’s Gate mass suicide in Rancho Santa Fe on March 26, 1997.
Tom Pieper plays the opening music for the Easter Sunrise Services at the El Camino Memorial Park and Mortuary on the Sunday after the Heaven’s Gate mass suicide was discovered in Rancho Santa Fe on March 26, 1997.
Worshipers gather at the El Camino Memorial Park and Mortuary for Easter Sunrise Services on the Sunday after the Heaven’s Gate mass suicide in Rancho Santa Fe on March 26, 1997.
Gallows humor has long been a way for people to deal with tragedies, to give themselves some distance and relief from the horror. But with Heaven’s Gate, there may have been something else at work, according to Benjamin Zeller, an associate professor of religion at Lake Forest College near Chicago and the author of a 2014 book about the cult.
“In some ways, I think it was too close for comfort,” he said.
Too close because many of the beliefs that group members held are similar to those found in more mainstream religions. Belief in a heavenly father. Belief in the importance of the soul over the body. Belief that they were engaged in the eternal fight of good vs. evil. Belief in salvation, in an afterlife somewhere up there. Belief in end times.
“It’s too easy to just dismiss them as nuts,” Zeller said.
Of course, they differed in significant ways from established theology — primarily the belief that heaven is a literal place, and that you get there on a spaceship — but that fits, too, into the broader American counterculture movement that emerged from the 1960s and spawned all kinds of new religious thinking.
“We saw the mainstreaming of angels, crystals, shamans, ascended beings — all that otherworldly stuff,” said Janja Lalich, a Chico State University sociologist who also has written a book about Heaven’s Gate. “You saw it with TV shows like ‘Touched by an Angel.’ Cults that built themselves around this kind of a belief system had an easier time because it didn’t seem so strange.”
Applewhite started the group in the 1970s in Texas with a Baptist-raised registered nurse and astrologer named Bonnie Lu Nettles. They called themselves Guinea and Pig, Bo and Peep, and finally Ti and Do, “The Two,” messengers from God sent here to shepherd the flock to the next level. People who wanted in to their nomadic monastery had to cut themselves off from their families and their previous lives. There were rules that controlled what people wore and ate, not to mention what they believed.
And those beliefs shifted over the years, especially after Nettles died in 1985, a development that created a crisis of faith. They had believed they were going to ascend with their bodies, not just their souls.
It’s too easy to just dismiss them as nuts.
— Benjamin Zeller, an associate professor of religion
Several hundred people joined the group over the years, although the vast majority left for a variety of reasons. Some who left came back. Those who remained to the end were largely longtime devotees. Twenty-one were women, 18 men. They ranged in age from 26 to 72 with more than half in their 40s.
Almost all of them were veteran seekers of spiritual truths, people who had tried other religions, tried tarot cards, tried hallucinogenic drugs.
“Members joined not because of some sort of magical psychological or spiritual truth that the leaders conjured,” Zeller writes in his book, “but because they were looking for something and believed that they found it in Heaven’s Gate.”
Once they were in, though, Lalich — herself a former member of a political cult — thinks free will pretty much disappeared. “Nobody held a gun to their heads, but by that point they were in a place where they could not imagine existence outside the cult,” she said.
As the number of Americans who consider themselves religiously unaffiliated rises — 23 percent now, according to the Pew Research Center — a significant part of the population traffics in the supernatural.
Polling by Gallup shows 24 percent believe extraterrestrials have visited Earth in the past; 25 percent believe that astrology (the position of stars and planets) can affect our lives; 37 percent believe that houses can be haunted; and 21 percent believe that people can hear from or communicate mentally with someone who has died.
“The same demographic forces (that helped spawn Heaven’s Gate) are still at work,” Zeller said. “People are looking for truth, meaning, community and not finding it in existing religions. So they look for new ones or form their own.”
He’s no fan of what the group believed and ultimately did, Zeller said, but that’s not the point. “You can’t just dismiss them as different,” he said. “Even the largest religions of today were once small and new. Who’s to say what will one day be world religions with hundreds of thousands of followers?”
While some wonder about the next Heaven’s Gate, the old one remains operational, at least on the internet. The website, heavensgate.com, is maintained by two former members who live in Phoenix.
The site has the flashing “RED ALERT” at the top, the same wording sheriff’s deputies saw on computers when they were called to the mansion on March 26, 1997, and discovered the 39 bodies. There are links on the site to videotapes, “Earth Exit Statements” and other religious material.
We just have to live this life out and wait.
— Two former Heaven’s Gate members who maintain the group’s website
Responding to emailed questions from The San Diego Union-Tribune, the former members who run the site declined to identify themselves, but others who have tracked the website’s digital fingerprints say they are Mark and Sarah King, a married couple. (That’s why they’re former members — they wanted to get married, and the group didn’t allow that kind of relationship.)
A year after the suicides, the Kings got into a legal fight with San Diego County officials, who wanted to auction off the cult’s belongings to reimburse the families of the deceased for funeral expenses. The Kings said they had done video and audio work for Heaven’s Gate, and the group wanted them to safeguard its property, especially the religious teachings.
Although a judge ruled against them in 1999, they negotiated an agreement to buy the writings, artwork and other items for $2,000. In return, they agreed not to profit from the sale of any of it.
Related: Heaven’s Gate revisited »
In their emailed responses to the Union-Tribune, they said they were in the group for 12 years. Why keep the site running? “They asked us to do it and we were honored to perform the task.” The information, they said, “is still timeless and we are here to provide it to those who ask.”
Interest from around the world “is very high,” they said. Most people get information from the site, but some order copies of an anthology, “How and When Heaven’s Gate Can Be Entered,” which includes teachings dating to 1975 and the text of a “final offer” ad the group placed in USA Today in 1993.
They said there are a few other former members spread around the country, but “there is no group.” Asked what they want people to know about Heaven’s Gate, they said, “The simple understanding is that there is a real, physical level above the human one here on Earth. It is not a spiritual existence. It is real individuals, in real bodies, in real crafts taking care of the issues of their planet.”
Do they anticipate one day joining their former colleagues?
“Yes, but probably not until our next reincarnation on this planet. We just have to live this life out and wait.”
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