heavens gate

Heaven’s Gate is a destructive, doomsday cult centered in California. 21 women and 18 men voluntarily committed suicide in three groups on three successive days starting on March 23, 1997. Most were in their 40′s; the rest covered an age range of 26 to 72. Two months later, two additional members, Charles Humphrey and Wayne Cooke attempted suicide in a hotel room a few miles from the Rancho Santa Fe mansion; Cooke succeeded. Humphrey tried again in the Arizona desert during Feb 1998 and was successful.
They followed a syncretistic religion, combining elements of Christianity with unusual beliefs about the nature of UFOs. They interpreted passages from the four gospels and the book Revelation as referring to UFO visitation. In particular, they emphasized a story in Revelation which described two witnesses who are killed, remained dead for 3 1/2 days, were revived and taken up into the clouds. They look upon earth as being in the control of evil forces, and perceived themselves as being among the elite who would attain heaven. They held a profoundly dualistic belief of the soul as being a superior entity which is only housed temporarily in a body. Applewhite said that bodies were only “the temporary containers of the soul…The final act of metamorphosis or separation from the human kingdom is the ‘disconnect’ or separation from the human physical container or body in order to be released from the human environment.” Marshall Herff Applewhite was born May 17, 1931 in Spur, Texas to Louise Haeker Winfield and Marshall Herff Applewhite Sr.  
 Marshall Applewhite saw various natural disasters like the eruption of Mount St. Helens and other earthquake occurrences as possible signs of when the group should make their final move to ascend. However, it wasn’t until July of 1995 when he listened to the late-night Art Bell radio show that Applewhite heard the final message he was looking for. There was news that there was a “companion UFO” trailing the Comet Hale-Bopp. An amateur astronomer from Houston by the name of Chuck Shramek, called the Art Bell program to report that he had taken a photograph which showed a large object behind the comet. He described the object to be up to four times the size of Earth. The next night, Courtney Brown, a tenured professor of political science at Emory University and director of the Farsight Institute in Atlanta, was a guest on Bell’s show and claimed that three “remote viewers” associated with his institute had confirmed Shramek’s findings and had determined it to be a metallic object full of aliens. After the show, Brown sent Art Bell a picture of the comet with the companion UFO that he said was taken from a “top-ten university” astronomer that he knew. The condition was that Art Bell was not to post the image on his website until the astronomer had the chance to have the news conference about it. The news conference never took place and two months later, Art Bell posted the picture. The next day he was contacted by Oliver Hainut and David Tholen, two professors from the University of Hawaii, who let him know that the image was a fake. They provided a comparison of one of their recent comet photos to show that Brown’s image was a doctored copy of one of theirs. To this day, Courtney Brown has never revealed the name of the mysterious astronomer who took the photo and is also no longer welcome on the Art Bell show. Later on, the talk show host was questioned and put under fire about the show’s possible influence on the cult.

       Marshall had two older sisters (Louise Winant Applewhite who was born in 1927 and Jane in 1929) and one younger brother (John Winfield born in 1942). His father was a Presbyterian minister. While growing up, Marshall’s father moved around frequently starting new churches in various locations of Texas. As a teenager, Marshall Applewhite wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps and preach. His sister Louise described him growing up as funny, charismatic, and an overachiever. He went to Corpus Christi High School (now known as Roy Miller High School) where he was on the honor roll and amongst the head of

In order to fight off any sexual desires and to live a strict life of celibacy, some male members resorted to castration. There seem to be various stories about the exact time and full details. One story explains that in 1993, at the toss of a coin, one of the members agreed to go down to Mexico and have his testicles removed. The result was a botched operation that gave him extreme swelling and a considerable amount of pain afterwards. Applewhite was then reported to have had himself castrated to lead the way for the others. Another story explains that Marshall had himself castrated after two other members had quietly went down to Mexico to have the procedure done. Five other members had themselves castrated after Applewhite. One of the former disciples explained that they “couldn’t stop smiling and giggling” after the procedure.   The New York Times tried to get an interview with Applewhite’s former wife, Ann. She would not have anything to do with the press. Her present husband, Sam Nickerson, stated that his wife hadn’t heard from her ex-husband since he left her in 1964, and that his stepson hadn’t seen his father since he was 5.

         “It was a different man who killed himself in California from the music teacher who married Ann – they didn’t even know it was him.”

         In 1999, the San Diego county had decided to auction off the cars, televisions and furniture that belonged to the Heaven’s Gate cult. The money from the auction was to pay for the county administration costs and part of a $100,000 bill for funeral expenses of the cult members. The event created yet another media frenzy, with people from all over the world showing up. The money generated from the auction was supposed to go to family members to help them cover burial costs for their loved ones.

        In April of 1998, under the non-profit name, the “Telah Foundation”, two former cult members filed a petition to block the auction proceedings. Mark and Sarah King of Phoenix, Arizona had left the cult 20 years earlier, but claimed to have still remained in contact with the group. They also claimed to have the full proprietary rights to the property left by Heaven’s Gate. The couple left the celibate cult 20 years ago so they could marry. They had produced letters from cult members, along with a map and a pass code to an Escondido storage locker, to show that the group had intended the couple to take possession of the property. They said the deceased members were concerned that their possessions might fall into the wrong hands. Superior Court Judge Lisa Guy-Schall rejected the former cult members’ claim and ordered the couple to pay $17,000 in county legal fees for filing a frivolous claim. After that decision, the lawyers for the couple approached county officials with an offer to drop their appeal if they could gain ownership of certain belongings. They reached a settlement with the county and paid $2,000 for the religious writings, artwork, a videotape, and more than 20 arm patches left behind by the group. The video left behind showed members talking about how they plan to catch a ride on the tail of the Hale-Bopp comet to “reach a higher level of consciousness”. As part of the agreement, Mark and Sarah King had agreed not to sell the items. The couple went on to obtain the trademarks and copyrights for the all artwork, videotapes and Heaven’s Gate writings. The county contended that the rest of the property belonged to the owner of the estate. The deceased cult members’ families filed a $130,000 claim against the Heaven’s Gate estate owner to cover the burial costs and other outstanding debts they had occurred. At the time, the County Public Administrator estimated the estate net worth at around $50,000, but speculated the auction might take in a higher amount considering that the money generated would help recover surviving families’ costs. The county went though a series of negotiations with several of the cult members’ families and agreed that they would not exploit the sale by advertising the auctioned belongings as being from the Heaven’s Gate estate.

 his class.