Heaven's Gate Mass Suicide: The UFO Cult That Convinced 39 People to Die for a Spaceship

In March 1997, 39 members of the Heaven's Gate cult were found dead in a mansion in Rancho Santa Fe, California, in what remains one of the largest mass suicides in U.S. history. Led by Marshall Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles, this UFO religious movement convinced intelligent, educated people to abandon their lives believing they would ascend to a spacecraft traveling behind the Hale-Bopp comet.

This episode explores the 22-year journey of Heaven's Gate from its origins as "The Two" in the 1970s to the tragic "graduation" that shocked the world. We examine Marshall Applewhite's transformation from a music teacher to cult leader, the group's extreme beliefs about gender, technology, and alien salvation, and how they recruited members through early internet websites.