Marshall Applewhite And The Heaven’s Gate Suicides
YouTubeMarshall Applewhite, the leader of Heaven’s Gate, in a recruitment video.
The cult of Heaven’s Gate preached many things: the existence of UFOs, a transcendental lifestyle on another planet, and some major tenets of Christianity. A bizarre mix of sci-fi and spirituality, the cult’s end was decidedly stranger-than-fiction when nearly 40 people turned up dead in a mass suicide.
The man who saw those people to their deaths was Marshall Applewhite. He was born on March 17, 1931, in Spur, Texas. The son of a Presbyterian minister, his father’s preaching frequently required the family to move.
According to CNN, his sister Louise Winant later remembered her brother fondly as an overachiever who could do anything he set his mind to.
“He was usually president of everything,” she said. “He was always a born leader and very charismatic. He could get people to believe anything.”
Applewhite spent his 30s participating in stage musicals in Texas and Colorado, working as a choir director, and teaching at the University of St. Thomas. He sang 15 roles for the Houston Grand Opera and struggled with his sexuality throughout his life.
Applewhite even got married and had two kids — but things shifted dramatically when he met 44-year-old nurse Bonnie Lu Nettles. After divorcing his wife, he left his family in 1972. He and Nettles began traveling and proselytizing about the impending end of the world.
The pair claimed to be Christian-based angels and soon founded a cult to save others from the end. Though Heaven’s Gate never amassed more than 39 close, active members, all of them would die as a result of their faith.
Anne Fishbein/Sygma via Getty ImagesMembers of the Heaven’s Gate sect pose with a manifesto. 1994.
According to Biography, Applewhite and Nettles claimed they were “The Two” mentioned in the Book of Revelations. They thought their calling trumped earthly laws, but society disagreed when Applewhite was sentenced to six months in prison for stealing a rental car.
It was behind bars that he coined “Level Above Human,” which was a literal version of Heaven that existed in outer space. The pair believed they were sent to Earth to help others ascend and that the human body and its desires were mere distractions.
The cult’s ideology blended asceticism with mysticism, and science-fiction with Christianity. For instance, the group explained Virgin Mary’s pregnancy by claiming she was taken up in a spacecraft and inseminated by elevated beings. For some, that logic was enough.
“Now as unbelievable as that sounds, that was an answer that was better than just plain virgin birth,” said Michael Conyers, and early recruit. “It was technical, it had physicality to it.”
The end goal was for such a UFO to transport all members to the “Next Level,” before Earth faced “recycling” — its natural end.
Applewhite did most of the talking, while Nettles employed her medical training to provide emotional strength. According to The Washington Post, they called themselves Bo and Peep, and later Do and Ti. They also commonly went by Winnie and Pooh or Tiddly and Wink.
By 1975, they managed to garner 20 followers. Their 1976 book, U.F.O. Missionaries Extraordinary, propelled their recognition and led them to amass 200 global members. However, Applewhite and Nettles only kept the most devoted of members around.
Together, they lived at campsites and busied themselves with chores to keep their corporeal desires at bay. Of course, experimentation with sex and unusual diets quickly followed that pretense. Most unnerving was the castration of some members, including Applewhite himself.
In the 1980s, the group expanded from campsites to rented houses, with some members even working real jobs under fake identities. In 1985, Applewhite experienced a profound loss when Nettles died of cancer.
This forced the cult leader to revamp some of his ideology to match the narrative that physical existence wasn’t as real or important as the one waiting in outer space.
By the late 1980s, Applewhite’s apocalyptic prophecies escalated. Heaven’s Gate produced a video series called Beyond Human — The Last Call, which was broadcast in the early 1990s and explained the cult’s Next Level beliefs.
They even took out ads across the world in 1993, with a USA Today headline reading:
“UFO Cult Resurfaces with Final Offer.”
In 1997, eager to meet Nettles in the Next Level and transcend their earthly bodies, Applewhite and his 39 active cult members rented a mansion outside of San Diego. The lone leader had become fixated on the Hale-Bopp comet, convinced a UFO that was “the only way to evacuate this Earth” trailed behind.
Fully confident this was their last chance to jump ship, the Heaven’s Gate cult started on a three-day mass-suicide trip on March 26.
The 39 acolytes used vodka to wash down a deadly combination of barbiturates and applesauce, and even used staggered groups to tie bags over the others to ensure asphyxiation. The dead were laid out in their beds and had their faces covered with purple cloth.
Applewhite was the 37th to die. For the final two devotees, the silent mansion must’ve felt like the bleakest place in the world — were it not for their belief they’d soon be welcomed in Heaven.
When a former member dropped by to check on his old friends, he found 39 corpses wearing matching black-and-white Nike sneakers and armbands that read “Heaven’s Gate Away Team.”
