What's the creepiest thing you ever seen? Members of the Heaven's Gate cult who, in March of 1997, were convinced to take their own lives by leader Marshall Applewhite video footage
What's the creepiest thing you ever seen?
Members of the Heaven's Gate cult who, in March of 1997, were convinced to take their own lives by leader Marshall Applewhite.
They believed Earth was about to be wiped out and that taking their lives was necessary to escape and reach an alien spaceship that was traveling behind the Hale-Bopp comet.
Footage from inside the Heaven's Gate cult's mansion in San Diego that they rented for $7,000 a month and called "The Monastery" after their mass suicide in 1997 which claimed the lives of 39 people.
Marshall Applewhite, a name synonymous with one of the most infamous cults in American history, was the leader and founder of Heaven's Gate.
Born in 1931 in Texas, Applewhite's journey to becoming a cult leader was a complex one. He started his career as a music teacher and was known for his engaging personality and musical talent. However, his life took a dramatic turn in the 1970s. After being dismissed from the University of St. Thomas in Houston due to allegations of a sexual relationship with a male student, Applewhite's personal and professional life began to unravel.
He entered a psychiatric hospital, where he met Bonnie Nettles, a nurse and his future co-leader in Heaven's Gate. Their shared interests in mysticism, biblical prophecy, and UFOs laid the foundation for what was to come.
Together, Applewhite and Nettles developed a complex belief system combining elements of Christianity, science fiction, and New Age philosophy. They believed they were the two witnesses described in the Book of Revelation and that they would be killed and then restored to life in view of others, ultimately ascending to heaven in a spacecraft. This belief system attracted a small but devoted group of followers.
The group lived a nomadic lifestyle, often sleeping in tents and begging in the streets, while Applewhite and Nettles preached their apocalyptic message. In the 1990s, the group increasingly focused on the idea of leaving their physical bodies to ascend to an extraterrestrial spacecraft they believed was following the comet Hale-Bopp.
This belief culminated in the tragic mass suicide in March 1997, where 39 members, including Applewhite, ingested poison in a carefully planned sequence, believing they would be transported to a higher spiritual plane. This event shocked the world and marked a grim chapter in the history of American cults.
(See how the s*ic*de occurred)
Video footage contain disturbing scenes
The 39 adherents, 21 women and 18 men between the ages of 26 and 72, are believed to have died in three groups over three successive days, with remaining participants cleaning up after each prior group's deaths.
The s*ic*des occurred in groups of fifteen, fifteen, and nine, between approximately March 22 and March 26.
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