85. Heaven's Gate

In this episode, Talisa and Sarah discuss the infamous Heaven's Gate cult, exploring its origins, beliefs, and the tragic mass suicide that occurred in 1997. They delve into the backgrounds of the cult's leaders, Marshall Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles, and how their unique ideologies attracted followers.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, I'm Teresa and I'm Sarah. Welcome to the Ship Show,
a half ass true crime podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
My finger gun to tell talesa to go ahead and
start recording popped this time, Yeah, which I know, great weird.
I mean it's only been two weeks. Yeah, so I
forgot how to do this. I don't even know what
life is right now. So how was it going good?
We didn't have an episode last week because I had

(00:31):
pneumonia and.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
I spent so long I forgot you had the pneumonia.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
I thought I was gonna die, and then we both
forgot to pack a case to re release because, in
my defense, I was on my literal deathbed.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
Pleisa text me on my birthday, on her birthday saying
it hurts to breathe and I have a fever, and.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
I'm like, yes, you fucking idiot, go to urgent gear.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
I was like, I can't breathe and I hook motrin
and my temperatures one hundred and three.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
What am I gonna? What do I do? You're like,
go see a doctor, like, go hit drugs.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Yeah, I yeah, because I was sick the week before
and then you decided to like just one up my Sack.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
So it's been.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
I mean, so that was a while ago, long enough
that Sarah forgot that I almost died.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
Yeah, in our year. I am very tired today.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
So I went to two concerts this feke went to
Low Wayne on Friday and then Willie Nelson last night.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
Wildly different vibe.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
I was gonna say, that is a wild wild the
different the drastic difference between the two types of music.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
But I also enjoy both. I mean, I'll never turn
on a concert so well.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
So Captain sent me the TikTok of the Little Wayne
concert that you were at, and I'm like, that looks
absolutely fucking terrible.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
We are two entirely different types of people place. It's
like there's a crowd, Okay, cool, I'm fine with that.
I'm totally finely, give me, give me a beer, let's
shout sing. And we were like off to one.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
There's one spot at that venue that like everybody goes
this way, like that's just where the crowd ends up being.
But you can see the full stage from where I was,
and it was not very crowded. It was totally fine.
It's still something terrible. Yeah, what did I do anything
this week? Then I did we had dinner? I think Saturday.

(02:27):
I textas Roadhouse. It was very good, excellent. Every time
we go there, I like, I don't know why I
order a meal. I literally can take one bite of
my meal by the time it comes out after like
rolls and appetizers.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
Yeah, but I I should not have ordered food. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
I haven't been there in like eight years. Anita got
my gift card for my birthday, so it's like, we're
kid free, let's go.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
I'll do it. Yeah. Their margurados are good too, so
but yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (02:53):
I honestly, the last two weeks have been like such
a blur that I can't even like, just like my childhood,
I can't remember up in the.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
Last two weeks, you know what. That's fair. So that's
where I'm at. Yeah, so it's your turn to tell
me a case. I'm going to tell you a case.
I'm very excited.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
I tease Sarah a little tiny bit. Do we want
to do socials first? Oh?

Speaker 1 (03:14):
We do? Just kidding? So you before we let me
just reword my face? What reword your face? I got today?

Speaker 2 (03:23):
I said, I don't even remember what I was trying
to say, But I as soon as it left my mouth.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
I'm like, that was entirely backwards.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
And then I just cackled for like five minutes straight
because I'm like, what what is my brain right now?
I did try a cut water yesterday?

Speaker 1 (03:38):
Oh yeah, did you die? I didn't die? Okay, don't
understand the hype.

Speaker 2 (03:43):
My TikTok is all people that are like I had
two cut waters and blacked out.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
No, I had two and I did not.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
I had a cut water a couple of years ago
at an airport because I didn't know what it was.
That's the best place to have one, no like, and
I had to drink it kind of quickly. Well I
took So I went to go Grand Vodka the other
day and I saw him there and it was like
the my taie ones and I'm like, oh, that sounds
kind of good and let's give that a go.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
So then I walk up to the counter and I
ask the lady. I'm like, oh, have you ever had these?

Speaker 2 (04:11):
And like before I could even finished my send it,
she's like, oh my god, they're so good. I'm like, oh, hey, cool, cool, cool,
that's thank you, thank you, thank you so much. You
hurt my feelings with not iding me, but it's another thing.
But yeah, so then we forgot about them. So I
tried it yesterday and.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
It was fine. I mean they were good. They were good.
They were you could definitely taste the alcohol in them.

Speaker 2 (04:32):
But it wasn't like, again, either I'm an alcoholic or
it just isn't as bad as people are saying.

Speaker 1 (04:38):
Yeah, I don't know, but yeah, I mean they were
It was fine. It was fine. It was nothing special
I was.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
I Also, I am on that side of TikTok where everybody's like,
oh I did this and I blocked out and now
I look at my face or whatever, and I'm like,
I don't understand. I was gonna say, maybe it's because
we grew up with four logos, but I doubt you did.

Speaker 1 (04:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:57):
I don't think I've ever had a four loco. Honestly,
we are completely opposite human beings. We're so much We're
like the same but also opposite.

Speaker 1 (05:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
No, I definitely have never had one. And I may
have thought that they were just an energy drink for
the longest time.

Speaker 1 (05:14):
Well that's not true. I found that out as an adult.
It's still have yet to have one. Anyways.

Speaker 2 (05:19):
Our social media, Yeah, what are we talking about I
somehow got off on a tangent, which is not surprising.
So our social media is before Tessa jumps into your case,
our Facebook. You can find us at The Shit Show,
a true crowd podcast. On Instagram, Twitter, TikTok YouTube, you
can find us at The Shit Show TCP. You can
email us at Chit SHOWTCP at gmail dot com. Please

(05:41):
case suggestions for the love of God, yes, send me
a joke or something. Thank you for am I subscribe,
and please for us to review on Apple Podcasts because
it would make me happy and it helps push us
out to more people.

Speaker 1 (05:56):
And more people should hear us.

Speaker 2 (05:59):
And I almost out of my birthday liking comment on
Spotify and obviously chairs with your friends. Oh that's another
reason we didn't record last Monday is because oh it
was my birthday.

Speaker 1 (06:08):
I forgot my birthday. That also feels like it did
not happen at the time.

Speaker 2 (06:11):
It does feel like it didn't happen all right. Well anyway,
so I tease Sarah and I was like, hey, I
am working through a case. I feel like it's cheating
though whenever I do something that's like super well known. Yeah,
but I said, it's a cult, and it's a heavy
hitter cult, and I did feel like it was cheating

(06:34):
to not be doing like lesser known thing.

Speaker 1 (06:36):
I'm going to cover Heaven's Gate today. Okay, it was
like Heaven's Skate or wait, go, like for some reason,
what are you doing both?

Speaker 2 (06:43):
Maybe I will eventually. I don't know how I feel
about I don't know. The thing is though, like I know,
like the base things about most of the bigger cults
or whatever, I've never really looked into Heaven's Gate, like.

Speaker 1 (06:56):
I haven't either, And honestly, I try really hard to
avoid any cult cases because you're afraid you're gonna get
sucked into it.

Speaker 2 (07:06):
No, because I want you to tell me all of
them cool, because if I'm just so fascinated on how
like that, like people can so easily be pulled into
something like yeah, my thing, like with this one in particular,
like I don't understand. I don't I fully I can,
I don't understand. I don't get it, and I like, okay,

(07:28):
so full disclosure, this is not gonna be like a
deep dive of three hour episode. I'm probably leaving stuff
out right, I mean, because I mean, especially with the
like more known ones, like there, it's gonna be There's
always going to be something that like you could have
gone down this changing, could have gone down this one.

Speaker 1 (07:44):
Like there's always gonna be like the.

Speaker 2 (07:46):
I might leave your favorite part of this out and
I'm sorry, but you're gonna have to deal with it.

Speaker 1 (07:50):
You the random listener I'm talking to me, I was like.

Speaker 2 (07:53):
I have it was your favorite parts of it and
trying to understand how people do this?

Speaker 1 (07:58):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (07:59):
So Marshall apple White was born in nineteen thirty one
in Texas and by most accounts, had a pretty normal life,
like nothing crazy. His father was a Presbyterian minister and
also a former soldier. Where was his mom? What did
his mom do? She?

Speaker 1 (08:15):
We don't know, buddy, homemakers. She was not spoken of
a woman.

Speaker 2 (08:19):
In the thirties, he was known for his musical talents
and once attempted to become an actor. That didn't pan out,
and he pursued more music focused careers at universities like
just teaching whatever.

Speaker 1 (08:32):
In nineteen seventy, he was.

Speaker 2 (08:33):
Allegedly fired from his job as a music professor at
Houston's University of Saint Thomas because he was having a
relationship with one of his male students, which is inappropriate
and frowned upon in the seventies. Yes, the male part
of it, not the student part of it.

Speaker 1 (08:52):
That's I was just going to say, wait, that's hopefully
still still frown.

Speaker 2 (08:56):
So in this time, like he was married and divorced.
Also that wife name, I didn't find it.

Speaker 1 (09:02):
I mean, did I look hard for it?

Speaker 2 (09:05):
Now it's I It was kind of unclear if they
got divorced because of him getting fired and having a
relationship with a male students. Also said that he might
have had like a nervous breakdown and he just had
a struggle. Okay, So a couple of years later he
met Bonnie Nettles. She was a nurse with a super
strong interest in the Bible as long as a few

(09:25):
other obscure spiritual beliefs. She was born in nineteen twenty
seven and was raised in Houston, Texas. Her family was
like Baptist. They as an adult, she moved kind of
away from the religion that she grew up with. After
after she became a registered nurse, she married a man
named Joseph Joseph Siegel Nettles. Joseph Siegull Nettles, I was

(09:49):
trying to really like focus on seagull. They were married
in December of nineteen forty nine, and they had four kids.

Speaker 1 (09:57):
They were marriage was.

Speaker 2 (09:58):
Mostly stable until nineteen seventy two because at this time
she began attempting to contact decease spirits by conducting sciences
and came to believe that a nineteenth century monk named
Brother Francis frequently spoke with her and gave her like
instructions on how to.

Speaker 1 (10:14):
Live her life.

Speaker 2 (10:15):
Maybe we should have done video today because my face
I can tell us doing something. She also visited you know,
fortune tellers, who told her that she was soon to
meet a mysterious man who was tall, with light hair
and a fair complexion. These descriptions were fairly close to
Marshall Applewhite. Okay, well, I mean when you're making up
whatever you want to make up, you can fit whatever

(10:35):
narrative you would like.

Speaker 1 (10:36):
Listen, Brother Francis, the monk. What do monks go by?
Do they go by? I think brother sounds right?

Speaker 2 (10:42):
It sounds more catholic to me, actually, you know what,
it sounds just it because of father. I am more
questions about Brother Francis, So I hope that there's more information. No,
that's that's about Brother Franciskay. So she made up this person.
She did sciences, she was being spiritually visited by Brother Francis.

Speaker 1 (11:03):
You know, you know all that stuff that happens normally. Okay.

Speaker 2 (11:07):
While the true story of how Applewhite met Nettles it
is kind of murky. Marshall's sister maintains that he went
to the Houston hospital with heart trouble and that Bonnie
was one of the nurses that treated him. Bonnie convinced
Applewhite that he had a purpose and that God had
saved him for a reason. Marshall Applewhite would say that

(11:27):
he was just visiting a friend in the hospital when
he met Bonnie, so like, doesn't anybody know they's got
heart problems?

Speaker 1 (11:33):
Maybe.

Speaker 2 (11:34):
No matter how they met, though, one thing was clear,
they felt an instant connection and begin to discuss their beliefs.
Like immediately was the connection crazy? It sounds like maybe
Brother Francis brought them together.

Speaker 1 (11:49):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (11:49):
Marshall Applewhite would later say that he felt that he
had known Bonnie for a long time, and he concluded
that they had met in.

Speaker 1 (11:56):
A past life.

Speaker 2 (11:57):
Su sure, so they had this instantaneous connection and apple
White decided that Nettles was going to be the sage,
to be the sage, and he the speaker, Like I
don't know if that's like he's she's my muse.

Speaker 1 (12:11):
So he's like the face of the.

Speaker 2 (12:13):
Campaign basically like the talking yeah, and she's like the
background person who was telling the talking head what to
do and say.

Speaker 1 (12:23):
Yeah kind of, I guess.

Speaker 2 (12:24):
So they skidaddled together okay at the beginning of nineteen
seventy three.

Speaker 1 (12:30):
Okay. So she that she divorced before or after a meeting.
I am not sure if she divorced. Oh okay. I
think she was like, I will see you never goodbye,
peace out, have fun with the four children. Bye.

Speaker 2 (12:43):
So her three youngest children were left with their father
and the oldest daughter, her name was Terry. She was
twenty okay, so she was just I don't on her
own yet.

Speaker 1 (12:55):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (12:55):
So Marshall and Bonnie were convinced that they were the
two witnesses described in the Christian Book of Revelation, and
they would prepare the way for the Kingdom of Heaven.
That is a quite bold I wrote underneath. How do
you even come to that conclusion? What is that conversation, like,
I mean, if brother Frank says it, Frederick Francis Francis,

(13:17):
I mean, if we're making.

Speaker 1 (13:18):
Of names, it can be whatever you want.

Speaker 2 (13:20):
Yeah, brother f said, I mean maybe manifestation. They're manifesting
that they are those people.

Speaker 1 (13:27):
Yeah, okay.

Speaker 2 (13:27):
So Bonnie told Marshall that the meeting had been foretold
by to her by extraterrestrials, and she like persuaded him
that he had a divine assignment to so prepare the
way for the Kingdom of heaven. We have a dead
monk talking to us. Yes, we have aliens talking to us.
Anybody else yet I don't think so, just that there's

(13:50):
a following the Bible though, because we're still going hey,
based off revelation she can We're just we're fusing everything together,
you know what.

Speaker 1 (13:57):
I might believe this more than anything else, honestly. Okay.

Speaker 2 (14:01):
So they ran off at the beginning of nineteen seventy
three June. Marshall and Bonnie's beliefs were like, we figured
it out. We know what we're doing. They concluded that
they had been chosen to fulfill biblical prophecies and given
higher level minds than other people. They wrote a pamphlet
that described Jesus's reincarnation.

Speaker 1 (14:22):
As a Texan, which the description was like a vague
reference to Marshall apple White. That was probably a super
gross ound. I'm sorry, Okay.

Speaker 2 (14:31):
The pair visited churches in spiritual groups to speak about
their identities and often responded or referred to themselves as.

Speaker 1 (14:38):
The Two or the UFO two because the aliens regular
churches allowed this. I don't know if it was like
groups study, you know, like offshoot groups or yeah.

Speaker 2 (14:50):
I mean, they weren't going to Sunday School and saying
all this, but okay, so they believed that they would
be killed and then resurrected and, in the view of others,
transported onto a spaceship. This event, which they referred to
as the demonstration, was to prove, like their claims like
this for sure was going to happen. It's really shocking,
but these ideas were really poorly received by other religious groups.

Speaker 1 (15:13):
Weird.

Speaker 2 (15:13):
I wonder, why do we know what type of drugs
were happening. I mean, it is it's the seventies, so
there are drugs happened.

Speaker 1 (15:21):
Some drugs. I mean, I feel like you'd have to
write I mean two thinks that you were the chosen
two of you a Folian, Yeah, did we do?

Speaker 2 (15:30):
We know how many can fit on this spaceship that
they're leading people to. We will find out more about
I mean no, there's no, there's not really a number. Okay, Okay,
marsh on their parts, well, yeah, you got to leave
it like vague. Yeah, you don't want to put a
cap on it because more people want to follow you,
like you don't want to cap off people who want
to follow you, right, yeah, Okay, So Marshall and Bonnie

(15:54):
began calling themselves bow and peep, him and her in
dow and te No.

Speaker 1 (15:58):
I think all of it.

Speaker 2 (16:00):
They immediately know all of Sometimes they went by Winnie
and pooh, shut the fuck up.

Speaker 1 (16:06):
They shared a platonic sexless partnership.

Speaker 2 (16:09):
Well that's because he's gay. This whole thing is just
because Marshall Apploy is gay in the seventies. Yeah, and
this was okay, So, like the platonic sexless relationship was
really the life that they would encourage like their followers to. Okay,
because if I can't, then you can't, yeah, because that's
not fun for me. Right, So if I can't have

(16:32):
any enjoyment neither can you know?

Speaker 1 (16:33):
This is why I couldn't be in a cult. Right.
So once they really like they put their beliefs together,
they went out to a couple of churches. The church
people were like, exactly how I expected. Yeah, yeah, no,
think whatever.

Speaker 2 (16:45):
They were like, you know what, we need pamphlets, presentations
like we're we're rolling with this because we're right and
or wrong. Okay, Jesus is coming back, as I can
some text him duh, but I don't know. I had
added the handsom burden, but I'm assume that's the way
he talked about himself.

Speaker 1 (17:03):
I have no clue what he looks like. I do
have a clue, but you know what I mean, Like,
I don't like.

Speaker 2 (17:06):
He's got the biggest creepiest culty eyes ever.

Speaker 1 (17:10):
You have to have seen a picture. I for sure have.
I'm just like, off the top of my head, I
can't like exactly.

Speaker 2 (17:16):
So they prepared presentations for potential followers all over the country.

Speaker 1 (17:20):
They would distribute.

Speaker 2 (17:21):
Posters, and the posters promoted a mixture of like conspiracy theories,
science fiction, and UFOs, which I guess follows under science fiction.
Did we depict Brother Monk Frank, I think we're done
with brother. Sorry, brother Frank, he started this whole thing.
These invitations too, or posters, I think they're so. These

(17:41):
posters were pretty eye catching. The word UFO was in
big letters on the top, but there was a disclaimer
at the bottom that said, quote not a discussion of
UFO sightings or phenomena. We are going to board a
large ship when all of this is over, but we
do not talk about you possibly seeing one. Right, So
the posters usually claimed quote two individuals say they were

(18:02):
sent from the level above human and will return to
that level in a spaceship UFO within the next few months.

Speaker 1 (18:11):
We are putting a cap.

Speaker 2 (18:12):
Well, I mean yet, I feel like with col sets
always the downfall is when they start.

Speaker 1 (18:17):
Putting like a timeline on and like, oh, this is
gonna happen.

Speaker 2 (18:20):
We're all going to go meet Jesus on this day
and time, and then that happened or comes and then
it's going to be Jesus cowboy boots spurs. Okay, I'm
going to say this and we're not going to laugh,
because I think it's just the dumbest thing ever. The
term ancient astronauts, the term ancient astronauts is used to
refer to various forms of the concept that extraterrestrials visited

(18:43):
Earth in the distant past. So Marshall and Bonnie took
part of this concept and taught it as the belief
that aliens planted the seed of current humanity millions of
years ago and have come to reap the harvest of
their work in the form of in the form of
spiritually evolved individuals who will join the ranks of flying

(19:07):
saucer crews. Okay, so, okay, Only a select few members
of humanity will be chosen to advance to this transhuman state.

Speaker 1 (19:18):
The rest will be left to just like wallow in
the misery.

Speaker 2 (19:24):
Yeah, only individuals who joined Heaven's Gate and followed Marshall,
Appleoy and Bonnie Noddles belief system and make the sacrifices
required by the membership would be allowed to escape the
human suffering. Okay, how much does that all track? How
much does this membership cost? How many tickets to join
this ride?

Speaker 1 (19:42):
How many? How many mundane.

Speaker 2 (19:44):
Tasks do I have to complete for you so that
I can be in your cult? Well we'll get into
one one thing, which I think is pretty drastic Okay.
So Heaven's Gate interpreted the Bible as recordings of events
of extraterrestrial contact. The Bible tells the story of the
aliens in the Ancient Astronauts.

Speaker 1 (20:07):
Okay, Okay.

Speaker 2 (20:08):
Every time you say ancient astronauts, all I can think
of is the one scientist off of ancient aliens.

Speaker 1 (20:15):
It's think of. Okay.

Speaker 2 (20:18):
So they believed that evil space aliens or Luciferians falsely
represented themselves to earthlings as God and conspired to keep
humans from developing. Okay, so they are the ones that
fed Eve. Yeah, if we're just spacing it off of
alien interactions, yes, so, as you know, technically advanced humanoids.

(20:42):
These aliens have spacecrafts, they can space time travel, telepathy.

Speaker 1 (20:48):
Blah blah blah.

Speaker 2 (20:49):
They have all the things, and their evil, the evil
space aliens, they do not the good ones.

Speaker 1 (20:54):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (20:55):
So we have evil and good aliens naturally. Yeah, follows
the tracts.

Speaker 1 (21:00):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (21:01):
The two would gain their first follower in May of
nineteen seventy four. Her name was Sharon Morgan. She abandoned
her children and family to join them.

Speaker 1 (21:10):
Sharon, what kind of mental illness did you have? I'm
sorry that but it's true. I mean.

Speaker 2 (21:18):
A month later she left the okay, the two and
we'd go back to her family.

Speaker 1 (21:23):
She was like, hey, actually, but what did they get,
Like what did they say to her to like get
her to be like all the things?

Speaker 2 (21:30):
I just said, Hi, you have to be with us
so that the aliens when they come to reap what
they have grown, take you to the good spaceship and
not the bad spaceship because the evil aliens are trying
to make it so you can't be the next level
human above human.

Speaker 1 (21:42):
Oh, I don't understand what you're not understanding.

Speaker 2 (21:44):
That just sounds crazy to me. Okay, maybe I'm more
stable than I thought. Nettles and Appleway were actually arrested
and charged with credit card fraud for using Sharon Morgan's cards,
although she said that she consented to their use, so
the charges were drip.

Speaker 1 (22:00):
Oh okay.

Speaker 2 (22:01):
A routine check revealed that Marshall apple White had stolen
a rental car from Saint Louis like nine months earlier,
and he still had it in his possession, so he
spent six months in jail in Missouri and was released
in early nineteen seventy five, rejoining Bonnie Nettles. Okay, imagine
him in jail, just like fucking ranting honestly about the aliens.
You would never be bored okay listening to him.

Speaker 1 (22:26):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (22:27):
In nineteen seventy five, after he gets out of jail
and all that stuff, the two received some national attention
after they gave a particularly successful presentation in Oregon. In
this presentation, they promoted Heaven's Gate, but at that time
they called it human individual metamorphosis or total overcomers Anonymous.

Speaker 1 (22:49):
Okay, that one may have gotten me. How do I
overcome the total overcomers?

Speaker 2 (22:54):
Anonymous? That sounds like what are it's somebody who comes
to me. When I read that and type it, I
was like, I'm gonna laugh at that. For sure, they
really needed somebody in their corner to help brainstorm better.
I wish that they stayed with total overcocomers Anonymous.

Speaker 1 (23:14):
I mean honestly, and yeah, that's when they got so.

Speaker 2 (23:17):
It is so at this presentation they you know, the
promise of the spaceship that would whisk their followers way
to salvation. Also said that before you could be a follower,
or in order to be a follower, you had to,
you know, renounce sex, drugs, and all of your earthly possessions.

Speaker 1 (23:37):
So we weren't doing drugs, no, I don't think. So
who are we giving our worldly possessions to? I think
you just leave them at your home. I think you
just leave them at your home and then you go away.

Speaker 2 (23:49):
In most cases, they also need to abandon their families
because because those are worldly.

Speaker 1 (23:54):
Well, I mean, you can't have a relationship.

Speaker 2 (23:58):
Okay, But but if you bring your family into it,
can you keep them?

Speaker 1 (24:02):
Then?

Speaker 2 (24:03):
I for some reason, this doesn't strike me as like
a the whole family is gonna want to join.

Speaker 1 (24:09):
I mean no, but I'm just saying like they're definitely somebody.

Speaker 2 (24:11):
Who like imagine if Kenton was like, Hey, we're going
to join this group and we're no longer allowed to
have sex, but don't worry, the aliens are gonna.

Speaker 1 (24:18):
Come save us.

Speaker 2 (24:19):
Well, they can save me from having sex when it's happening,
but until then, I'm not doing that. Okay, So only
after you do all that, join the group, get rid
of your family, sex, drugs, all of the fun stuff,
then you could be elevated to a new world and
a better life known as or at the evolutionary level

(24:40):
above human telh No, like if you're gonna make up
some bullshit like make it interesting.

Speaker 1 (24:48):
I mean they are, is it? The aliens are coming? Okay? Okay.

Speaker 2 (24:53):
So they started publishing advertisements for meetings where they recruited
disciples and they called them the Crew.

Speaker 1 (25:00):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (25:02):
At these get togethers, they purported to represent beings from
another planet, the next level, which the next level sounds
like in MLM. It really deem honestly it does. That's
why I wondered how much the membership cat So they
were seeking participants for an experiment is like kind of
what they Okay, they said those who agreed to participate

(25:23):
in the experiment would be brought to the higher evolutionary level.

Speaker 1 (25:27):
Okay, yeah, okay.

Speaker 2 (25:28):
According to Heaven's Gate, once the individual has perfected himself
through the process, there were four methods to enter or
graduate to the next level.

Speaker 1 (25:38):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (25:38):
Number one a physical pickup onto a tele spacecraft and
transfer to a next level body aboard that craft. Okay,
I would like a next level body, thank you?

Speaker 1 (25:50):
Can that one not be broke in this version?

Speaker 2 (25:55):
So there's I mean, there's obviously lots of people who
have studied the shit out of this, right yeah, so
this guy. Professor Zeller said that this would be like
a UFO version of the Rapture where an alien spacecraft
would descend on Earth and collect Yeah, Marshall, Bonnie and
their followers and their human bodies would be transformed through

(26:16):
like a biological or chemical process to perfected beings whatever that,
okay looks like.

Speaker 1 (26:23):
So we're putting like a remix on revelation right now.

Speaker 2 (26:27):
But yeah, Number two a natural death, accidental death, or
a death from random violence. Here the graduating soul leaves
the human container for a perfected next level body container.

Speaker 1 (26:40):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (26:41):
So basically, any death, it doesn't matter how you die,
you are brought to your next level. Number Three, outside
persecution that leads to death.

Speaker 1 (26:50):
After the deaths of.

Speaker 2 (26:52):
The Branch Davidians in Waco and the events involving like
Ruby Ridge, which I will cover it, Okay, Marshall was
afraid that the American government would murder the members of
Heaven's Cape. So if the government murders you, then you
get right next level body?

Speaker 1 (27:12):
Do love that are her? What did you call the
three the four ways? What would you call them? Like?
How like?

Speaker 2 (27:19):
How to that we just already factored graduate to the
next level. I just like, how do we already factored
it in the United States government?

Speaker 1 (27:27):
And two those things? He's like, you know what one
and two? But again repetitive, it's.

Speaker 2 (27:33):
Alien, it's aliens, random death, death by government, or number four,
a willful exit from the body in a dignified manner.
So near the end, Marshall had a revelation that they
might have to abandon their human bodies to achieve the
next level, as like, just like Jesus had done.

Speaker 1 (27:53):
Jesus didn't technically have a choice in that, but okay.

Speaker 2 (27:57):
Well, so animals were said to have souls in this scenario,
and a soul in an animal could enter the next
level a human soul if it became a servant to humans,
like a.

Speaker 1 (28:10):
Guide dog or something.

Speaker 2 (28:11):
It's like, your dog can go with the aliens too,
as long as it's like a member of your family,
which doesn't make sense because you're not supposed to have
a family with you and you're not supposed to have
any human like relationships.

Speaker 1 (28:25):
Yeah, it does seem that we have a few contradictory
things happening, yes, but I mean, who's to question there
are aliens.

Speaker 2 (28:33):
In April of nineteen seventy five, during a meeting with
a group of about eighty people in Los Angeles, they
shared their revelation that they were the two witnesses of Vantim.
While accounts of the meeting differ, I'll describe it as
like momentous and that the two were very charismatic leaders
with an important message, and they actually got about twenty

(28:55):
five people to join their group.

Speaker 1 (28:57):
It's wild today.

Speaker 2 (28:58):
So in September of nineteen seventy five, I have a
Marshall and Bonnie preached at a motel hall in Waldport, Oregon,
and then after selling all worldly possessions and saying goodbye
to all their loved ones, about twenty people vanished.

Speaker 1 (29:11):
From the public eye and joined the group Jesus.

Speaker 2 (29:15):
Later that year, on the CBS Evening News, Walter Cronkite
reported on the disappearances in one of the first national
reports on this religious group.

Speaker 1 (29:25):
That was missed up.

Speaker 2 (29:26):
He said, quote, a score of persons from a small
Oregon town have disappeared. It's a mystery whether they've been
taken on a so called trip to eternity or simply
have been taken Okay, I mean again, they are all
adults choosing to do or believe and follow what they
would like, I just do.

Speaker 1 (29:47):
I think they were correct.

Speaker 2 (29:48):
No, Okay, in reality, Marshall and Bonnie had arranged for
the group to go underground. There's like, we're worried about
the government. We're worried about this. The news is now
word that all these people are missing. We are drawing
too much attention to ourselves at this Also at this point,
they were like, really going by Dough and t.

Speaker 1 (30:08):
I hate it. Who is who? I think Marshall is
Dough and Bonnie is Tea.

Speaker 2 (30:14):
This is the worst, Like, and I'm somebody who comes up
with nicknames for literally everything.

Speaker 1 (30:19):
Those are the worst.

Speaker 2 (30:20):
So it's said that they had nearly one hundred members
across the country. These people were sleeping in tents and
begging in the streets because they gave up all their
worldly possessions. But they're trying to be the perfect right
being to be taken in the alien rapture. So, like
we told everybody, they have to do these things to

(30:41):
get the next steps, So we didn't really give them
any guidance on how to get to those next steps.

Speaker 1 (30:46):
I just kind of have to die be murdered by
the government. Other than dying.

Speaker 2 (30:50):
Okay, so trying to become the higher evolutionary level above
human dough and t claimed that they had already done
that without being their containers. Apple White believed he was
directly related to Jesus, meaning he was an evolutionary kingdom
level above human for sure. His writings combined aspects of

(31:11):
the Book of Revelation, the Doomsday stuff, some spiritual you know,
brother Francis stuff, science fiction, and suggested that he believed
himself to be Jesus's successor in the present representative of
Christ on Earth.

Speaker 1 (31:28):
Amen.

Speaker 2 (31:28):
No, they taught that apple White's body with bodily vehicle
was inhabited by the same alien spirit that belonged to Jesus,
and Bonnie was God the Father and apple White's older member.

Speaker 1 (31:41):
Okay, very bold, not surprising. Uh, imagine my camp one
day and me like, you know what today's day, I'm
tell him I'm Jesus.

Speaker 2 (31:50):
Like, no, it's not even that I'm Jesus, It's that
my body is inhabited by the same alien spirit that
belonged to Jesus.

Speaker 1 (31:58):
Yeah, can you please or be not sure?

Speaker 2 (32:00):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (32:00):
And also this platonic lady, she's my God.

Speaker 2 (32:05):
She's got the Father, and we got all of this
from brother Frank Francis.

Speaker 1 (32:09):
Right. No, well, I mean I don't think brother Francis
is really listen.

Speaker 2 (32:12):
I'm still telling everything to Brother Francis because he started us.
He got the ball rolling for tea and toe and
Doe and tea, the same thing in Winnie and Pooh.
The crew used various recruitment methods as they toured around
the United States. Literally, like I wrote in Destitution, like

(32:33):
they were nothing. Yeah, they claimed, proclaiming the gospel of
the higher level metamorphosis in the deceit of humans by.

Speaker 1 (32:43):
False God spirits. Okay, okay.

Speaker 2 (32:46):
In April of nineteen seventy six, the group stopped recruiting
and became even more reclusive, and they instituted some really
rigid behavioral guidelines. They had already band sex obviously obviously.
They were to have no human level relationships, no socializing
at all, no use of drugs, absolutely like no, like

(33:07):
what does no human level relationships mean?

Speaker 1 (33:11):
Like?

Speaker 2 (33:11):
And no socializing like you just can't speak to anybody.

Speaker 1 (33:14):
Not even a hey, how's your day? Like, oh, so
we're going back to being a monk where.

Speaker 2 (33:18):
You just have to be mule, right, you are literally
tying everything. And I mean not all amongst our you, obviously,
but I know that a lot of them like do
take a vow of yeah, silence whatever, and celibacy.

Speaker 1 (33:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (33:33):
So I mean I'm not crazy for trying them back
to You're not. I mean, you're the least crazy perspective
right now. The followers were expected to dress largely alike
and conform to some really specific rules about the most
mundane things, like literally, I read a thing about how
like if I make pancakes, it needs to be done
exactly this way, this size, cook for this long, no deviation,

(33:56):
or you were not going to make it to the
next level.

Speaker 1 (33:58):
Like I have too much anxiety for that. I have
too much.

Speaker 2 (34:01):
Don't fucking tell me what to do for right, like
like I am purposely leaving a sun for five extra
seconds now.

Speaker 1 (34:07):
And also I like my pancakes too. You're not allowed to.

Speaker 2 (34:10):
This is the perfect pancake for you to be a
perfect being, for you to get a next level body, wait,
which you need smaller pancakes out I can get I
can eat pancakes and have a next level body. Though
the alternative religious experience in this really helped grow the group,
Sheilaism is a word that I did not make up
but had to look up. Okay, is a way for

(34:32):
people to combine diverse religious backgrounds and agree on a
more generalized faith. And I guess this was more appealing
to people at the time than a more traditional religion. Okay,
I just think that's fine, right, we can do that. Yeah,
sounds great.

Speaker 1 (34:48):
When you start.

Speaker 2 (34:48):
Adding alien rapture is I think that's where I fall off, Like.

Speaker 1 (34:53):
Well, the and the.

Speaker 2 (34:57):
When any religion is getting so strict to the point
of you have to cook your pancakes this is exact way,
or you cannot advance.

Speaker 1 (35:06):
That should be a huge red flag to.

Speaker 2 (35:08):
People like no, this he's made it how long in
this episode without even saying red flag?

Speaker 1 (35:13):
This list whole things of red flo That's probably why
we haven't. But the first red flag was Brother Francis. Yes, yeah,
I just there's a lot of red flags. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (35:23):
So many of the crew came from some you know,
diverse backgrounds. Most of them were described by researchers as
having been longtime truth seekers or like spiritual hippies who
had been like trying to find themselves through other spiritual
means that weren't yeah, liketional, like I especially how heavily
like religion is and was even that, Like I feel

(35:46):
like it was more heavily involved back then than it
maybe what it is now. Of course that I'm not
in a religious I have zero religious aspects of my
life now that I'm an adult. But like, just like
back then, I just seemed like everybody ever already had
their home church and everybody, you know what I mean.
Like it just seemed like that was part of a
daily life for everybody. So then when you're growing up
in whatever religion you are, then you do tend to

(36:09):
want to like Ran John and be like, oh is
there something different? Is there something more? So I understand
the like curiosity and wanting to learn and know more.
Tell me how to make my fucking pancakes. That's where
you lose Sarah. You lose me at the aliens. You
lose Sarah at the don't boss me around. Okay, the
alien part is just pure fascination to me. Okay, well

(36:30):
there's literally the next part. So Michael Conyers was in
earlier recruit and he said that the cult's message was
appealing because they were quote talking to my Christian heritage.
But in a modern updated way.

Speaker 1 (36:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (36:45):
For example, Heaven's Gate apparently taught that the Virgin Mary
was impregnated after she was taken up in a spacecraft,
not just like just didn't just turn.

Speaker 1 (36:55):
Up, had to. Yeah, God put a Jesus Fetu center.

Speaker 2 (37:02):
So okay in that aspect, like that's what how it
was appealing, Like there were answering questions the people had
with aliens. Yeah, are there aliens? Who knows? There was
one early recruit named John Craig that was a respected
Republican ranch owner who came really close to winning the
nineteen seventy Colorado House of Representative race.

Speaker 1 (37:23):
He joined the group in nineteen seventy five, so he homeboy.

Speaker 2 (37:26):
Just like straight up fell off after He's like, I
didn't win this race.

Speaker 1 (37:29):
I'm just going ball alien. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (37:33):
Identifying itself by its business name Higher Source, the group
used its website to spread the word and recruit followers
beginning in the early nineties. Rumors started spreading among the
group in the following years that this upcoming comment, that
Haley Bop comment housed the secret to their ultimate salvation

(37:53):
and ascension to the Kingdom of Heaven. So now we've
got this comment coming. They're like, that's got our spaceship
in it.

Speaker 1 (38:01):
Now, now we have a time Yeah, logic, you're logic.

Speaker 2 (38:05):
I just said that way my next line. One of
the cult's major problems was it's now operating on a clock.
If you're going to start a cold, don't don't put
a time limit, right. Followers believe that if they stayed
on Earth long enough, they would face recycling, which is
the destruction of Earth, as the planet was to be
wiped clean. Now, like our beliefs are evolving into more

(38:26):
it's not just you'll stay here in this mundane shithole Earth.

Speaker 1 (38:30):
Everything is going to be wiped out and keen and recycled.

Speaker 2 (38:33):
Okay, So Bonnie and Marshall, we're convinced that it wouldn't
come to that, Like they were like, this is what
But the spaceship is going to come before that and
take us and it's not going to be a problem.
We're all great, perfect next level bodies. Yes, you got
to continue. You get an next level body, you get
a next level body, you get a next level body.

Speaker 1 (38:53):
Just hang tight.

Speaker 2 (38:54):
Unfortunately, though, their plans got ruined when Bonnie Nettles died
from cancer in nineteen eighty. Her death was a severe
blow to Marshall, not only emotionally but just philosophically, Like
this whole thing, his god died, the god.

Speaker 1 (39:08):
The Father, Yeah died.

Speaker 2 (39:10):
Yeah but no, okay, but yeah, she graduated, she didn't die.
Annie Nettle's death had the potential to call into question
a number of the cult's teachings. Girls, girl, like, why
would she die before the beings came to pick the
followers up. She's gonna hurry up and get up there
and help prepare everything before everybody else comes and join.

(39:31):
It's like she's going up there early to make sure
everything's in line for you.

Speaker 1 (39:37):
See, I could run my uncle.

Speaker 2 (39:40):
Sara's so proud of herself, and I'm like, do I
even have to say the next So it was with
this that Marshall began to rely very heavily on the
one one particular tenet of the cults beliefs that the
human bodies were just vessels or vehicles that were carrying
them on their journey, and these vehicles could be abandoned
when humans were ready to ascend to the next level. Yeah, okay,

(40:01):
So Marshall believed that Bonnie had simply exited her vehicle
and entered her new home with the UFO beings.

Speaker 1 (40:08):
Yeah, she went up to be me up base Jesus. Yes,
I don't know. I haven't made that joke, sinner.

Speaker 2 (40:14):
I don't know how either, Oh I didn't, but anything
like they also mixed like some star Trek stuff, and
I wonder that when you said.

Speaker 1 (40:21):
Science fiction, I'm like, that's what the science for shure.

Speaker 2 (40:23):
I didn't like dig deep into that because I don't
know anything about star treks. Imagine like you're one of
the writers at that show and then you find out
like this crazy colt was like based off your TV shows, right,
you literally just made up to entertain people.

Speaker 1 (40:37):
Like all that took a.

Speaker 2 (40:38):
Turn, Okay, So he believed Bonnie exited her vehicle, went
to her new home.

Speaker 1 (40:42):
She's with the ancient astronauts.

Speaker 2 (40:46):
He believed that he still had work to do on
Earth and would guide their followers in the hopes that
they would be be reunited with Bonnie again.

Speaker 1 (40:54):
Which also like it seems it feels.

Speaker 2 (40:57):
To me like Marshall and Bonnie had a relationship relationship
which is not allowed. Correct, But you do what I
say now what I do, right, See, this is why
I couldn't be in a cult.

Speaker 1 (41:07):
I'd be like, hey, motherfucker, what are you talking now?
I know you're fucking necking out back like okay.

Speaker 2 (41:13):
So it's unclear exactly when, but eight men in the group,
including Marshall Applewhite, voluntarily underwent castration as an extreme means
of maintaining the lifestyle of no boners like chemical no.
The group initially attempted castration by having one of its members,
who is a former nurse, perform the castration, but this

(41:35):
resulted in I believe the patient's death and caused at
least one member to leave Heaven's gape. Every castration that
followed that was done in the hospital, Like they went
to Mexico.

Speaker 1 (41:47):
Good all Mexico.

Speaker 2 (41:48):
They're like, oh, you can't get that done in the
United States. But it's fucking wild. Okay, sure, sure, I don't.
I can't.

Speaker 1 (41:55):
I mean when you hate boners that much.

Speaker 2 (41:57):
Also, why are we like somebody litter a nurse like
no zero shaped nurses Like I know that they like
carry the medical field, like, but I am trusting them
to like do surgery on me either. I barely trust
a doctor to do that right as I am hoping
to have surgery. So okay, I don't like any of that.

(42:19):
It makes me uncomfy and I'm not even a man.
In June of nineteen ninety five, they purchased land near Manzano,
New Mexico, and began creating a compound out of rubber,
tires and concrete.

Speaker 1 (42:32):
But are we affording any of this if we are.

Speaker 2 (42:35):
Well, they're doing stuff online websites. Oh that's why you
said whatnot? Yeah, they left this project abruptly in April
of nineteen ninety six. If they were smart, they would
have been like, you have to give up and sell
all of your worldly beings or belongings, but you have
to give that money back to the church. So that,
like I'm wondering if that is part of it, Like
that would make the most culty sense. Yeah, but I

(42:59):
think they largely were making money off from whatever whatever
website things. In October of nineteen eighty six, the group
rented a large house, which they called the Monastery, was
nine two hundred square feet all in Santa Fe, California.
They paid seven thousand dollars per month in cash for this.

(43:21):
In the nineties, Yeah, I didn't a fuck ton of money.
We're just gonna it's just a fucked money.

Speaker 1 (43:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (43:28):
In the same month, the group purchased alien abduction insurance
that would cover up to fifty members and would pay
out one million dollars per person. The policy covered abduction impregnation.

Speaker 1 (43:40):
Where the fuck is this?

Speaker 2 (43:41):
What?

Speaker 1 (43:41):
Insurance company? Death by aliens?

Speaker 2 (43:44):
In an article from nineteen ninety seven, the brokerage said
that it insured four thousand people against abduction by aliens,
but quote, there has never been a genuine claim for
alien abduction. I okay, So I read that on like
the Wikipedia page, like when I'm peruising through it right,
and then I'm like, hold, hope, pump the brakes. What

(44:06):
the fuck? So I had to go do a whole
separate Google just for this. I found the article and
it was like a legitimate can we still get alien abduction?

Speaker 1 (44:13):
Also?

Speaker 2 (44:15):
Why are we getting insurance to pertect us from what
we want to happen with the evil space aliens? Oh
that's right, okay, yep, I forgot there's good and bad evil.

Speaker 1 (44:26):
Okay, Oh, never mind a retracted question.

Speaker 2 (44:29):
I just love that there was a quote that was like,
I I'm sorry, I got to google this right now
to see if I can get alien abduction insurance. In short, yes,
you technically can purchase alien abduction insurance and New York,
but there are some important considerations.

Speaker 1 (44:42):
What are the.

Speaker 2 (44:43):
Legality the legality of alien aduction abduction insurances that's specifically
addressed or prohibited under New York insurance.

Speaker 1 (44:51):
Availability their payouts. So yeah, you could, I guess you can.
Still you can still get that wild and fascinating.

Speaker 2 (45:00):
So they settled in the San Diego area in nineteen
ninety six and support themselves by creating websites. They had
their own website. Their website is still there today right now. Yeah,
but they like.

Speaker 1 (45:13):
Built websites for people. That's okay making their money.

Speaker 2 (45:16):
And on March thirteenth, thirteenth, nineteen ninety seven, at around
seven fifty five PM, a witness in the Henderson, Nevada
area reported seeing a large V shaped object traveling southeast
in the sky. At eight fifteen, unidentified former police officer

(45:38):
in Arizona reported seeing a cluster of reddish orange lights
disappear over the southern horizon. Shortly afterwards, there were reports
of lights seen over Prescott Valley, Arizona. So this family,
Tim Lay, his wife Bobby, his son Hal and his
grandson Damien, first saw the lights when they were about
like sixty five miles away from them, and they were like,

(46:00):
what the fuck is that? At first, the lights appeared
to them as five separate and distinct lights in an
arc shape, like they were on top of a balloon.
They soon came to realize that the lights appeared to
be moving towards them, and over the next ten minutes
or so, the lights appeared to come closer. The distance
between the lights increased, and they took more of a
shape of an upside down feet Eventually the lights Nope. Eventually,

(46:21):
when the lights appeared to be a couple of miles away,
the family said they could make out a shape like
a sixty degree Carpenter square triangle.

Speaker 1 (46:31):
I don't know, that's what they said. It was just tried.

Speaker 2 (46:33):
So with five lights set onto it, one at the
front and two on each side. Okay, the object appeared
to be moving towards them, about one hundred to one
hundred and fifty feet above them, and traveling so slowly
it gave the appearance of like a silent hovering object
and then just like skidaddled okay, towards the direction of

(46:54):
the Phoenix Sky Herbert International Airport.

Speaker 1 (46:57):
So they were just landing for the day. Yeah, they
were tired.

Speaker 2 (47:02):
So even the actor Kurt Russell, he was an amateur pilot,
he called into air traffic control because he saw it too.

Speaker 1 (47:12):
No shit, Yeah, that's a weird coincidence or connection.

Speaker 2 (47:16):
Met About ten o'clock that evening, a large number of
people in the Phoenix area reported seeing a row of
brilliant lights hovering in the sky and then.

Speaker 1 (47:24):
Like slowly looked like they were slowly falling.

Speaker 2 (47:26):
A number of photographs were taken, and this prompted this
author named Robert Schaeffer to describe it as perhaps the
most widely witnessed UFO event in history. This became known
as the Phoenix Phoenix Light Incident of nineteen ninety seven.

Speaker 1 (47:42):
And it was actually just the government. I was gonna
say it was.

Speaker 2 (47:46):
Operation Snowbird was a pilot training program operated in the
winter by the Air National Guard out of Davis monthan
Air Force base in Tuscan, Arizona.

Speaker 1 (47:57):
Okay, I mean, and people were like, that's.

Speaker 2 (48:00):
A fucking spaceship, right, I mean, that's why I would
I mean, yeah, especially like when like now it's a
lot easier to like debunk things like that. But like
back then where you have limited information and access to
certain information, then yeah, it's going to be like, holy fuck,
is this an alien right? I wrote like what kind

(48:21):
of planes it was or whatever? It's really not that interesting,
And they sorry that I offended myself by saying that
that is offensive. So like this was going on, it's
something that the cult was aware of, and they're like,
that was not the government, that was right, it's it's
happening like.

Speaker 1 (48:38):
Covering it up the government. See, the government is.

Speaker 2 (48:41):
Covering up our ancient aliens astronauts, and they're covering up
that they're going to try to kill us, which is
a way to graduate, right, But like why would you
think they would be running towards that, because you'd want
to graduate into the next higher level than be stuck
in this earthly container. You said container earlier and it

(49:01):
stuck in my head. Sorry, I just think, like I
think you're joining the cults?

Speaker 1 (49:06):
Are you not?

Speaker 2 (49:07):
Like I am one hundred percent just being really shitty
about other people falling for this, which is I do.
I do feel bad for the people. I hope it's
not like misconstrued, but like I just I still cannot
wrap my brain around how people are so easily, because
it's even nowadays, people are still being like drawn into
like the most crazy, off the wall shit, and I

(49:27):
just want to know, like what was in their brain
when that's happening, Like, how do you process that? Clearly
different than I would process it. I was gonna say,
I can't even begin to I have no idea. Okay,
So members of Heaven's Gate believed that suicide was wrong,
but their definition of suicide was different than like the
traditional you know definition or whatever. They believe that the

(49:50):
true meaning was turning against the next level when it
was offered to them. I mean, we're making up everything else,
we might as well make up our own definitions for
already very defined towards that word already has a definition.
And unfortunately, this offer to go to the next level
was made in March of nineteen ninety seven. It's not

(50:11):
clear exactly where Marshall Applewaite got the idea that there
was a UFO trailing behind the Haley Bop commet his brain,
but he could not let it go. Yeah, like that's
where that's where the UFO is. That's how I get
back to Bonnie my not relationship right, my platonic, my situationship,
Yes that you guys were not allowed to have, but

(50:32):
I secretly was necking and.

Speaker 1 (50:35):
The why are you saying necking? I'm old.

Speaker 2 (50:39):
During March nineteenth and twentieth, Marshall Applewhite taped himself in
a video titled Doe's Final Exit speaking of mass suicide
and quote the only way to evacuate this Earth after
asserting the comment Haleybop was the sign that the group
had been looking for, as well as the speculation that
the unidentified flying object was trailing the comment and all

(51:02):
of the light stuff that just happened.

Speaker 1 (51:03):
He was like, it was a quick check in to
see where they're going, right.

Speaker 2 (51:07):
Marshall Appowoy and his thirty eight followers prepared for ritual suicide,
coinciding with the closest approach of the comment, so their
souls could reach the next level before the closure of
Heaven's Gate. Members believe that their deaths NOPE members believed
that after their deaths, a UFO would take their souls
to another level of existence above human, which was described
as being both physical and spiritual. Their preparations included most

(51:33):
members videotaping a farewell message. So the thirty nine followers
was twenty one women and eighteen men between the ages
of twenty six and seventy two. Are believed to have
died in three groups over three successive days, with their
remaining participants cleaning up after the prior group's death.

Speaker 1 (51:53):
That make sense, say who's cleaning up after Group number three?

Speaker 2 (51:56):
No?

Speaker 1 (51:57):
One.

Speaker 2 (51:57):
The suicides began on March well went from March twenty
second to the twenty third. Members took phenobarbital mixed with
apple sauce or pudding and washed it down with vodka.
After ingesting this, they put plastic bags around their heads
so that they would exphyxiate. All thirty nine were dressed
in identical black shirts and sweatpants and brand new black

(52:18):
and white Nike Decade Athletic shoes, armband patches that read
Heaven's Skate Away Team.

Speaker 1 (52:25):
I'll cut that.

Speaker 2 (52:27):
So the Heavens Skate Away Team is one of the
group's use of like that's a star trek thing. I
guess that sounds about right. Each member carried a five
dollar bill and three quarters in their pockets, and according
to former members, this was standard for members leaving the
home for jobs. And a humorous way to tell, a
humorous way to tell us they had left the planet permanently.

(52:50):
The five dollar bill was for covering the cost of
vacrancy laws like if they got picked up for that,
and the quarters were for calling home from payphones. Okay,
heaven we have they were making a joke. I am
too literal to understand that it was a joke. Okay, right, sure,
I mean, I guess if that's where we would like

(53:11):
to throw in a joke poorly, it's a poor, poorly formulate,
formulated one. Another former member said that they thought that
this was a reference to a Mark Twain story which said,
since seventy five cents was the cost to ride the
tail of a comment to heaven. But there's like no
passage from writings of Mark Twain that say that, oh

(53:31):
that any I know we're making shut up, we must
we don't make up whatever quote we want to as well.
I feel like you've said that like seven times before
this episode. Okay, So after a member died, a living
member would arrange the body by removing the plastic bag
from the person's head, posing the body so it laid
like neatly in its bed with the face and torso

(53:53):
covered by a square purple cloth for privacy.

Speaker 1 (53:57):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (53:58):
In a twenty twenty interview with Harry Robin, Well Harry Robinson,
two members who were not like obviously not there.

Speaker 1 (54:06):
When they were away a team, they were not on
the way a team.

Speaker 2 (54:09):
They said the identical clothing was a uniform representing unity
for the mass suicide, and the Nike decades were chosen
because the group got a.

Speaker 1 (54:17):
Good deal on the shoes. Just the fuck up. I
forgot about that part. Oh my god. They said that.

Speaker 2 (54:23):
Marshall was also a fan of Nike and therefore everyone
was expected to wear in like Nike's within the group,
I mean Marshall item heavens Gate also had a saying
just do it, echoing nike slogan, but they pronounced do
as dough, So.

Speaker 1 (54:37):
Just do it? Shut the fuck all the way up?
What not?

Speaker 2 (54:42):
Only is it like the disappointment on your face when
I said that, sir, stop making dough. Try to happen.
Appleoy was the third to last member to die. Two
people remained after him, and they were the only ones
found with bags still over their heads and not having
the purple cloths covering the the top pat. I wondered
what happened to or how the last group transitioned, since

(55:07):
with that there was nobody there to do.

Speaker 1 (55:08):
That for them.

Speaker 2 (55:09):
I thought we were supposed to avoid alcohol, but all
of a sudden, we can have alcohol for this beautiful
ceremony of death with pairswell with pudding. I literally almost
threw up when you said apple sauce or pudding because
as a child, that's helped my mom used to force
me to take medicine because I couldn't do it.

Speaker 1 (55:28):
Apparently I'm still scarred from that.

Speaker 2 (55:29):
Apparently, before the last of the suicides, packages were sent
to numerous Heaven's Gate like affiliated, formally affiliated, past members, individuals, whatever.
And I guess one media outlet had reached out to
the group a little like, let's say, six months before
and wanted to do like a little documentary like covering them,

(55:50):
and Marshall was like, no, we're.

Speaker 1 (55:51):
Busy, we are busy.

Speaker 2 (55:55):
He sent he sent whoever that was, so one person
who received him message was a member named Rio DiAngelo.
I don't know if that's his real name, to be honest,
I feel like I read somewhere he changed his name
in the when he was in the.

Speaker 1 (56:11):
Group or something. I don't know him for not wanting.

Speaker 2 (56:14):
He was supposed to spread the word of the group's purpose,
so he was not on the away team. And I
do think that he left the group after being involved
for several years and was helping with the website stuff.

Speaker 1 (56:24):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (56:25):
The package that D'Angelo received on the evening of March
TWI was very similar to other packages sent It contained
two VHS tapes, one with Doe's final exit and the
other with the farewell messages of the group's followers. It
also contained a letter stating that, among other things, quote,
we have exited our vehicles just as we had entered,

(56:47):
just as we entered them. So Dangelo conducted his boss
and was like, hey, this is happening, and he needed
to ride the mansion, yeah, to like check in. Yeah,
Like hey guys, this this concerning Did you really do it?
Like and you left me behind? Because I mean, if
you're in ther you believe the beliefs of it, right,

(57:10):
I don't know, Like I read that he might have left,
That's how you said that, So I don't know, all right,
So he found the back door intentionally left unlocked, and
I read that he used a video camera to record
what he saw. I didn't look up to try to
find any footage because I don't I don't care to
see that.

Speaker 1 (57:26):
But he went in, saw that they were there. They
were there, well, their their vehicles were there. Right.

Speaker 2 (57:32):
He left the house, and his boss had to encourage
him to make some phone calls to alert the authorities.

Speaker 1 (57:39):
Boughs, just make the phone calls. You're sorry, but if
you like, if he's not doing it, you do it.

Speaker 2 (57:43):
The San Diego County Sheriff's Department received an anonymous tip
through nine one one at three fifteen on March twenty six,
suggesting that they check on the welfare of the residents. Okay,
so they sent one deputy to the house, which I
think is rude.

Speaker 1 (57:58):
He entered the home through.

Speaker 2 (57:59):
A side door and initially saw ten bodies. Was said
to be overcome like as soon as you went into
the home by like the smell of yees because they
were decomposing. It's like three days California spring days like.
After a cursor research by two more deputies, they found
no one to be alive, and they left until a
search warrm could be right.

Speaker 1 (58:20):
Let me get out of this scene as soon as side.
I am not on that type of patroll. Okay.

Speaker 2 (58:27):
So the aftermath of this discovery is pretty chaotic. Reporters
swarmed the scene and they were, you know, needing all
of the details about the suicide cult, as the media
will do. Marshall Appleloy's image was plastered on newspapers, magazines, everything.
His wide eyed expression was like, like I wrote, it's

(58:48):
got to be something that you can picture unless you
legitimately have never looked up cals.

Speaker 1 (58:51):
Yeah. Oh, I wish I had a picture of Laura's dad.
I'm not joking. Is he on Facebook? No, I don't think.

Speaker 2 (58:57):
When the news broke of the relation to the Haley
Bop comment, the co discoverer of the comment, named Alan Haley,
was drawn into the story. He said his phone didn't
start bringing for days and he chose not to respond
initially until he get a press conference together, and he

(59:18):
wanted to research the details of what happened.

Speaker 1 (59:20):
What happened.

Speaker 2 (59:22):
He said that well before Heaven's Gate, he told a
colleague quote, we were we are probably going to have
some suicides as a result of this comment.

Speaker 1 (59:30):
He said.

Speaker 2 (59:31):
The sad part is that I was not really surprised.
The comments are lovely objects, but they don't have any
apocalyptic significance.

Speaker 1 (59:41):
We must use our minds or reason. Like, I didn't
know that people thought comments.

Speaker 2 (59:46):
Were Yeah, I mean there's all sorts of different like
for him to be like, oh, we discovered this comment
that's going to be flying close to here. People are
going to kill themselves, Like yeah, that connection would never
happen organically in my brain. Well, I mean since somebody
who researches and studies the things, obviously it's more no,
you know, that's more common knowledge for somebody like him

(01:00:07):
versus somebody like us who doesn't. I mean, it does
attracts I guess if you ask me, that makes sense
that people would tie some sort of I don't know,
religious aspect to something like that.

Speaker 1 (01:00:19):
I don't know, I guess I don't know. Well, I
just think about the like the oble White du caving. Yeah,
you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (01:00:28):
Like, I'm sure people also probably self deleted after that
or when that was happening, you know, I mean, you
know what I mean, because like everything's going to shut
off the world's going to collapse, like that's what was
being said basically, right, So I'm I'm sure even with
like that happening. You know, people tied religious aspects to

(01:00:48):
that as well, so I can I can't imagine that, Oh,
this new found comment is flying next to Earth.

Speaker 1 (01:00:54):
Yeah, there's got to be something attached to it, okay,
like a UFO.

Speaker 2 (01:00:59):
News of the mass suicide motivated the copycat suicide of
a fifty eight year old man living near Marysville, California.
The man left a note dated March twenty seventh, which
said quote, I'm going on the spaceship with Haley Bop
to be with those who have gone before me, and
imitated some of the details of the Heavens Skate suicides

(01:01:22):
as they'd been reported in the media. It was said, though,
that there is said that there was no connection with
this man and Heaven's Skate, like he wasn't oh on.

Speaker 1 (01:01:33):
The list of follow Like I don't know if they
had a list or what. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:01:38):
At least three former members of Heaven's Skate died by
suicide in the months following the mass suicide. On May sixth,
nineteen ninety seven, Wayne Cook and Chuck Humphrey attempted suicide
in a hotel in a manner similar to that used
by the group, Cook died, but Humphrey survived and was
saved by authorities. Another former member, James Perky Junior, died

(01:02:01):
by suicide by a self inflicted gunshot wound on May eleven.
In February of nineteen eety eight, Humphrey, the guy who survived,
killed himself in Arizona. His body was found carrying a
five dollars bill in four quarters in his pocket, and
next to him he had a note that said, do
not revive.

Speaker 1 (01:02:18):
Unfortunate.

Speaker 2 (01:02:20):
It's really sad like they I know, I made a
joke earlier about like what mental illness is happening here,
but there's clearly something mentally going off with these people
that they are so susceptible to something like this that
that and he felt strongly enough about it that he
didn't succeed the first time. He felt that confection so
deep that he still had to follow through with it. Also, weirdly,

(01:02:43):
on the same day as the Heaven's Gate mass suicide,
five members of the Order of the Solar Temple also
died in a mass suicide, So the Solar Temple.

Speaker 1 (01:02:51):
The Order of the Solar Temple was a group with some.

Speaker 2 (01:02:54):
Similar beliefs in so In both cases, they believe suicide
would allow their souls to be trans reported into space,
and this led initial suspicions of like a connection, although
police investigating the Heaven's Gate deaths refused to acknowledge like
any of these speculations. The Solar Temple suicides had been
timed for the vernal equinox on March twentieth, not the comment,

(01:03:16):
but owing to several failed attempts, it happened on the
twenty second.

Speaker 1 (01:03:21):
I guess we failed the day we were supposed to
do it.

Speaker 2 (01:03:22):
So let's just there's like no apparent connection between the
two groups.

Speaker 1 (01:03:27):
Okay, I think I've looked at that one up before.
I can't remember.

Speaker 2 (01:03:33):
I would have been like when we first started, and
then I'm like, nope, this is Lisa.

Speaker 1 (01:03:38):
This is for t Lisa.

Speaker 2 (01:03:39):
Although most people consider the event like they call it
a mass suicide, sociologist and formal former cult member Janna
Lilac referred to the event as a murder, and the
UCLA psychiatrist Louis West described the members as victims of
a hoax.

Speaker 1 (01:03:58):
I mean, I mean, throw whatever label you want on it. Yeah,
you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (01:04:02):
Like these it was a form of religion that these
people what decided to follow and unfortunately had terrible outcome.
But I it doesn't seem like anybody went into it
without prior knowledge of what they were getting into.

Speaker 1 (01:04:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:04:21):
The house that the mass suicide took place became a
stigma in the neighborhood, and local residents opted to rename
the street.

Speaker 1 (01:04:28):
I didn't write the name may would I. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:04:30):
The property itself ended up being purchased by a local
developer in nineteen ninety nine. This was during a foreclosure sale,
so it sold for six hundred and sixty eight thousand
dollars in it. That's like half of what it was said. Yeah,
I was going to say, a huge amand generally so
it was purchased and then demolished and they built a

(01:04:54):
new house in its place and changed the address.

Speaker 1 (01:04:57):
It's smart.

Speaker 2 (01:04:58):
Two former members, Mark and Sarah King of Phoenix, Arizona,
operated operating as the Tell te Lah Foundation, are believed
to still maintain the group's website, and in an article
from I think it was twenty sixteen, they said, quote,
we do this to make the information available to those

(01:05:18):
who are interested in learning about it. In a way,
it's like planning seeds into the future so people can
get familiar with the ways of the next level and
prepare for an eventual return. They so they're still straight
up believers, like yeah, even without their profit or whatever
they want to call him.

Speaker 1 (01:05:35):
And that is the story of Heaven's Gate.

Speaker 2 (01:05:38):
I just I really wish I could know what was
happening in these people's brains when they relate. Yeah, this
tracks you know, you know what I mean? Like, right,
that's what that's the parson. That's so fascinating to me.
That like, because if I came up to you and
I was just saying the most off the wall shit
of I am one of the two from the Book

(01:06:00):
of Revelation. I am here to lead you to your
next level being we're all going to die one day
and become aliens, I would calmly be like, how do
I excuse myself from this conversation? I would be like, Hi,
I think you need some help, Yes, exactly to that part.
It's like just always going to be like fascinating to me,

(01:06:24):
like trying to understand like what people were thinking when
they decided like yeah, this is this, this is the
way to go.

Speaker 1 (01:06:30):
This is what we're doing. Yeah, yeah, I don't I
and I and I still stand by.

Speaker 2 (01:06:35):
I feel like it's people who are usually have some
sort of compromised psyche. Yeah, I mean I have a
compromise psyche, and you're not getting me chasing a comment
to be no aliened. Although the next level body is
really tempting. I mean that is very tempting. This this,
the body that they gave me here is broken as fought.

(01:06:56):
So like hopefully I get like an upgrade, like I
get special upgrade upline.

Speaker 1 (01:07:01):
Okay, so my sources.

Speaker 2 (01:07:02):
There is an article on Vice dot com by Kylie Rodgers.
Wikipedia had a ton of information heavenskate dot com.

Speaker 1 (01:07:11):
Oh, type that into your computer right now.

Speaker 2 (01:07:14):
LA Times had articles, but they were all archives and
associated press like no byline and all.

Speaker 1 (01:07:21):
It's interesting.

Speaker 2 (01:07:21):
Had an article by Jacqueline Angelus red alert. It popped
up red alert like this is a very nineties it is.

Speaker 1 (01:07:31):
I love it.

Speaker 2 (01:07:34):
Hold on, let me just give a quick Hailey Pop
brings closure to whether Haley Bop has a campaign in
or not is irrelevant from our perspective to like.

Speaker 1 (01:07:46):
For another one.

Speaker 2 (01:07:48):
I guess I just started typing how many members does Heaven?
I was gonna do heaven scape. My finger caught in
the first dropdown is how many people can Heaven help?

Speaker 1 (01:07:57):
How many? So that's too. It's dope. I almost close
my whole computer over that.

Speaker 2 (01:08:02):
I don't do that over dough, Doe and tea and
Winnie and pooh.

Speaker 1 (01:08:07):
So that's the well known cult that I teased you
with yesterday. Thank you. You did a good job.

Speaker 2 (01:08:12):
I still just cannot wrap my brain around the vast
majority of it and how it pulled people in to
the extent that it did.

Speaker 1 (01:08:20):
But yeah, you did. You did a good job. Yeah,
so that's I think that's something. Oh, wash your water bottle.
Oh shit, yeah, wash the water. It's been I know,
we took a week off, so it's probably been a
couple of weeks. Wash your water bottle. But that's all
we have this week. Thanks for listening. Heaybye, okay bye