HEAVEN GATE

Heaven Gate

Heaven Gate

Introduction

Some 39 members of Heaven's Gate were found poisoned in a large house on the outskirts of San Diego, California, in March 1997, apparently as a result of orchestrated suicides. Each member lay on a bunk bed, covered with a purple shroud, and wearing black trousers and Nike trainers. Each had packed a suitcase, as if embarking on a journey. Marshall Herff Apple white, the leader, taught that extraterrestrials had come to collect them in a spacecraft, docked behind the Hale-Bopp comet, and which could be boarded by undergoing death.

In 2000, more than 500 members of the Movement ...