The Heaven's Gate Cult: A Sad, Strange Story of Manipulation

Heaven's Gate members died by suicide as the Hale-Bopp comet approached planet Earth, in hopes of leaving the confines of their human lives to a ride on an alien spacecraft hiding in the comet's wake.

On the group's website, members explained:

"The joy is that our Older Member in the Evolutionary Level Above Human (the "Kingdom of Heaven") has made it clear to us that Hale-Bopp's approach is the 'marker' we've been waiting for — the time for the arrival of the spacecraft from the Level Above Human to take us home to 'Their World' — in the literal Heavens. Our 22 years of classroom here on planet Earth is finally coming to conclusion — 'graduation' from the Human Evolutionary Level. We are happily prepared to leave 'this world' and go with Ti's crew."

The resulting deaths horrified and confused America and the rest of the world. Reflecting on the cult two decades later, former member Rio DeAngelo told ABC News, that being a part of Heaven's Gate affected his career.

"I tried to get a job and people would not hire me because they thought I was part of some crazy thing. And so it's really a matter of choice for me to get along with my career, my life, just so people would not look at me," DiAngelo said. "It's not about me, you know?"

The group had its roots back in the '70s when a Texas music teacher named Marshall Applewhite lost his job after having an inappropriate relationship with a male student, according to Rolling Stone. Not long afterward, he met a nurse named Bonnie Nettles. Both had an interest in biblical prophecy, and Applewhite believed the two shared a bond because they'd met in a previous life.

For her part, Nettles told Applewhite that she knew they'd meet someday ... because extraterrestrials had preordained their encounter.

Together, the two blended multiple religious teachings from the New Testament with various bits of eschatology, mysticism, astrology, asceticism, reincarnation and science fiction, as well as aspects of Applewhite's Presbyterian upbringing. All of this was a result of Nettles' belief that a monk from the 1800s often had conversations with her, providing life guidance.

The two didn't have a romantic relationship. Instead, they bonded in their efforts to ascend to a higher existence and ultimately reach the kingdom of heaven. Applewhite began calling himself "Do," and Nettles became "Ti." Sometimes they called themselves "Bo" and "Peep."

In the mid-1970s, they persuaded a group of 20 Oregonians to leave behind their families, lives and worldly possessions for Colorado. There, they waited for an alien spaceship to arrive. It never did, so the group began dwindling.

In 1985, Nettles died from cancer, leaving Applewhite depressed. But he remained undeterred.

By the early 1990s, he'd tweaked his beliefs and started recruiting new members to the UFO religion. The group bounced from place to place, sometimes living in campgrounds around the country, occasionally panhandling and always looking to recruit new converts, reported The New York Times.

Throughout the years, hundreds of people joined and cycled in and out of the group. To improve retention rates, Applewhite gradually began to control many aspects of members' daily habits and routines.

He was a master manipulator. As his techniques improved, more people stayed on to follow him, becoming fanatically devoted.

"Cult leaders come in many shapes and sizes with assorted facades. One mask is in the form of a teacher," emails Rick Alan Ross, author of "Cults Inside Out." "Marshall Applewhite was a teacher and he regarded the members of Heaven's Gate as his 'class' of students. He claimed to have the keys to self-improvement, with tantalizing promises of a panacea, a magic formula for evolution to a level above human."

Members were forced to wear the same clothes and have the same haircuts. They gave up their jobs, families, possessions and their sexuality. Several male members (including Applewhite) even agreed to be castrated to help them loosen ties to their earthly lives.

"Cult members can appear 'brainwashed,' because they are so cocooned within their leader's contrived bubble world," Ross says. "Applewhite tightly controlled his devotees who lived communally in a house that he controlled. They were isolated from family and friends and could not travel outside the community without an accompanying escort."

When astronomers in 1995 discovered the comet Hale-Bopp, Applewhite came to believe the aliens were finally on their way, hiding behind the comet as it raced toward Earth. He also felt sure that Nettles was aboard the ship.

Applewhite rented a mansion in Rancho Santa Fe, near San Diego. To make money, the group designed websites for several customers. In fact, the Heaven's Gate website is still functioning.

As Hale-Bopp came closer by the week, Applewhite figured the only way to join Nettles was for the group to leave their "container" bodies and elevate to the ship.

So in late March 1997, he persuaded 38 other people to drink a blend of phenobarbital and vodka — and then, for good measure, wrap plastic bags around their heads. Their corpses were shrouded in purple cloth, for privacy.

Days later, the news of their deaths — and the beliefs that led them to mass suicide — shocked the world. How could so many people follow Applewhite into death?

"The truth is people can be tricked more easily than we think and then become trapped within a cult leader's grasp," Ross says via email interview. "Held within this manufactured and seemingly mystical milieu such devotees become virtual prisoners, unable to readily break free, due to carefully contrived and implemented psychological and emotional restraints, which we cannot easily see or understand."

So in spite of Applewhite's off-kilter and self-invented belief system, he still managed to convince many people they had to follow his path to a higher plane of existence. Sadly, it cost them their lives. That blend of weirdness and devotion has echoed in the public's imagination for decades.

"Destructive cults are stranger and often more fascinating than fiction," Ross says. "Cult tragedies often include crazed lunatic leaders, who feed upon their faithful followers like vampires, extracting money, free labor, sexual favors and at times literally controlling people to death, such as Applewhite did, who dictated the terms and details of a group suicide."