Sword and Scale - Episode 86

Episode Date: March 26, 2017

The 20 year anniversary of one of the strangest tales in modern American religious history is quickly approaching. On March 26th, March 26, 1997 Marshall Herff Applewhite led a group of 39 devoted followers to their final destination. In their minds they were headed to a spaceship following the Hale-Bopp Comet where they would be taken and transformed into perfect angelic alien beings, a state in which they would live forever. We're joined by Benjamin E. Zeller, Religious Historian and Author of the book "Heaven's Gate: America's UFO Religion."See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Sort and scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences Listener discretion is advised That's their logic right so yet ahead working bodies, but they decided it was time to leave their bodies got them where they wanted to go when it was time to part Welcome to season 4, episode 86 of Sword and Scale, a show that reveals that the worst You know, there's something inside of us that longs for acceptance and reaches out for community. Perhaps it's part of our evolution, something that helped our descendants survive the horrors of nature, generation after generation. This tribalism, which undoubtedly kept our ancestors alive, doesn't seem to have changed much in thousands, if not tens of thousands of years. We still long to be part of a group. We still segregate ourselves into communities.

We still exhibit the same tribal mentality, and it's all to apparent nowadays in the age of social media. We've seen it again and again, whether the tribes are based on sports, or politics, gender, race, or religion. The problem with tribalism is that all too often the individual is lost. A cult like mentality develops where members lose any semblance of independent critical thought

and simply believe whatever the leader tells them to believe. Whatever their leader wants them to believe. Something like this occurred a few decades ago, with a group that called themselves Heaven's Gate. And exactly 20 years ago, on March 26, 1997, it resulted in the willing suicides of 39 of its members. We're joined by Benjamin E. Zeller, Associate Professor of Religion at Lake Forest College, and author of the book Heaven's Gate, America's UFO Religion. Stay with us. Hello. Hello. Yes. I need to report an anonymous tip. Who do I talk to? Okay. This is regarding what?

This is regarding a mass suicide. We still say that was one suicide in 38 murders. Well, I can't be an option to go to your creator the way you feel like you wanted to go. Why do you have to wait? Here's all these people that I love that aren't how gone. And I just let them know that I love them and I miss them. On March 26, 1997, Rio de Angelo received a package in the mail. In it, we're a set of videotapes, containing what the group referred to as exit videos.

There was also a note, note a fine de AngAngelo that by the time he got this package, the group had exited their vehicles. With his former boss, DiAngelo drove to the mansion in Rancho Santa Fe that had served as the home for the members of Heaven's Gate. DiAngelo, who was a former member, already knew what to expect, but he had to confirm. When he arrived, he found the back door of the mansion had been intentionally left open. What he found inside was a nightmare. Hi, Mike. Good to chat with you. This is Dr. Benjamin E. Zeller. He's an associate professor of religion at Lake Forest

College, and he wrote the book, Heaven's Gate, America's UFO Religion. So, I mean, I can tell you my is i i work from the perspective of an american religious story and so i study everything from the foundations of of the religious culture here with the the puritan's and the pilgrims and such to contemporary in your religious movements and everything in between so for me heavens gave while it's a fascinating story and while the sort of the strangeness of all the sort of events surrounding suicide

are in and of themselves interesting, I see it as part of an unfolding story of American religious history, and while they are weird, they're not actually that weird compared to some other stuff which has happened in terms of American religious history. So for me, I really see my job is

in understanding them within the context of all of these new and interesting groups which have emerged over the past couple hundred years here. But I think also part of my job in terms of having studied this group is as almost a translator to try to explain how this might have made sense to people because it does look so strange, particularly from the outside. And I've ended up, so just last week I was talking at a, you know, like, an academic group.

And so I was trying to explain sort of the history of the group to other academics. But I've been interviewed by, I was interviewed by a podcast interested in sort of paranormal and UFO stuff. I mean, there's, there's interest from all corners and everyone's from sort of the true believer you aologist to, you know, very straight-laced,

like, Tweedcoated Dell academics, we find it interesting. When you talk about Heaven's Gate, for most of us that remember the story from back then, almost an immediate mental picture emerges, and it's that of that camera going from room to room of that house, capturing the images of human body after human body. Yeah, yeah.

That's funny. I actually thought you were to go with the image of Marshall Herff Apple White, because that's the other image which we have. So I'd say that the two big images are of that, the crime scene, so it speaks, are the bodies in their purple shrouds lying on their bunk beds with the roll of quarters next to them, all of these elements.

And the other image is of Apple White, the leader of the movement, giving sort of his White, the leader of the movement, giving his videotape final sermons, which they propagated online and on physical videotape. So those are the images we have. So I walk up into the living area, the living room, and that's when I start to notice the mattresses with people lying on them with the purple shroud. And of course I knew from the odor what was happening.

I have a gagging reflex with smells so I wanted to take care of that. So I put cologne on my shirt and put my shirt over my nose. It must have been a lot to take in. It was a lot to take in. It was disturbing because I'm yelling for people to see if they're still alive. And I'm also saying goodbye as I walk through. What causes 39 individuals from different walks of life to suddenly take their lives like that?

It's what made the most sense to them. I mean, they had, this was the end of their journey, but for many of them they had been on very long alternative religious spiritual journeys. For some of them beginning back in the late 60s of trying to find spiritual religious truths which made sense to them and appealed to them and they could live within. Some of the early members of the group that joined way back when it started in the 70s

had talked about being part of, in some cases, dozens of other alternative religions before they found this group. There was one member who said she had joined Trans-Dial Meditation for a while. She had gone to live in Israel on a couple of boats. She had tried a bunch of psychedelic drugs and she finally found in this group the answer she was looking for. There was another member whose husband was interviewed by a journalist who said, well he wasn't really surprised she had joined this group. She had been baptized three times in the last year. I mean,

she again, through all sort of conversionary experiences. So in many cases, these are people who define their lives by looking for a truth outside of conventional religious answers. And this was for that very small number of people. It's very niche movement. It's only 39 people for whom this made sense. But for them, it did make sense. And for them, nothing on this earth mattered as much as what was promised to them in the heavens. This idea of leaving behind our fallen, failing earthly lives on a dying planet to reach out

for the stars towards this heavenly, quite literally heavenly state of becoming these sort of angelic extraterrestrials, which is what their goal was. So that's why it made sense to them. And again, if you're outside of it, it looks like nonsense. But within the group, it made sense to them. But this idea of suicide wasn't always part of the core belief system itself. It sort of evolved over time. Yeah, exactly. So what's really interesting about this group in terms of the suicides,

that they were actually asked about it way back in the 70s when the group first began, in different ways to date the start of the back in the 70s when the group first began. There's different ways to date the start of the group. The founders met in the mid 70s. They had their first public meetings in 76 and 77, but they were asked in 1977 by a couple of different journalists for a couple of different newspapers. Is this group, which was just in the process of founding? Is it a suicide group? Is this a group of people who are going to, if they're always about leaving the planet, it's an obvious question,

are you going to leave the planet by suicide? And they directly said no, both the leaders of the group, so that was Apple White and the nettles. Both nettles and Apple White, and also the people who joined the group explicitly said no. In fact, if you die, you can't complete the voyage they want to go on.

They wanted to go on a physical voyage to the heavens in their bodies. They described it as a biological chemical transformation they were going to go through. And in fact, suicide or death would prevent you from completing this transformation that they were looking for. So they were specifically asked if there was a gig headline about one of these meetings they had in Oregon in 1977 and the headline was grave not path to heaven, the cycle said, that you don't get to heaven by dying, which is the traditional sort of Christian or maybe Jewish Christian model, whether you get to heaven by getting on this UFO in your bodily form. So all that is a very long way to answer

your question of yes, it was a huge transformation. There's a 180 shift that they began rejecting suicide and then 20 years later embracing suicide. In fact it was supposed to be some sort of process by which you would float up into the heavens and the u.f.o. would sort of scoop you up and take you to where this place far away is that you would become some sort of extra terrestrial, correct? Exactly. So what they're really doing here is they're reinterpreting the Christian book of Revelation

and its description of the End Times, and particularly they're talking about the rapture. There's the idea of the rapture, which according to one of the interpretive models for interpreting Revelation in the End Times, is that Christ will come down and sort of hover midair and the save the elect will sort of fly up and join him. This was really popular in the 90s. There was left behind series. It was the name of the series, which had a fictional account of it. So some of your listeners might have heard of this before, but that's what the rapture is. So the UFO version within Heaven's gate is just that instead of it being christ coming down

it's a u.f.o. but it's still going to hover sort of mid-atmosphere and the lack the save the believers will get lifted up by a tractor beam basically and and get aboard the u.f.o. and fly off. It's basically the same thing as the rapture but instead of jesus it's u.f.o. instead of sort of a miracle or magic it's it's a tractor beam instead of the Christian elect it's UFO, instead of sort of a miracle or a magic, it's a tractor beam. Instead of the Christian elect, it's those who believe and accept the heavens get UFO message. But same basic idea.

I'm glad you used the term tractor beam because there's so many weird connections with Star Trek, the away team and the deep space references and that kind of stuff. Is that just coming from Apple White? Because he did have a sort of an interest with science fiction. I believe he did but here's was interesting he actually was not a sci-fi fan he committed the card mill sin of confusing star trek and star wars in one of his videos. He clearly was not if you're a fan I admit being a fan of both series I'm probably more of a trekkie than I am a star wars fan but either way you're not supposed to i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i who brought with them this interest in science fiction and they really looked to sci-fi and that that sci-fi really hit some of the answers about how the

how the universe actually worked the two founders marshal apple white and Bonnie nettles they don't always have this idea to start a new religion in fact wasn't apple white press but they're in initially it was press but he's so his friends called in perth so uh... marshal her apple rights over on he was the son of marshal her apple Senior, who was a very popular Presbyterian minister in Texas. He grew up, you know, son of a preacher basically.

He went to college and used that to sort of prepare himself for ministry and then he got into a seminary. So we actually started a seminary career to train to be a Presbyterian minister himself. Then he dropped out. But it's important that he got that training because later on in havens gave history, you can see that he really understands Christian theology in a way in which someone would study religion in college and then a year of seminary training really would bring with them. So, he began on a much more conventional Christian journey, so to speak.

And he was a son of a Presbyterian minister and he planned on becoming himself a Presbyterian minister before he dropped out. He dropped out to pursue music. Music was really his love. Yeah, he did seem to have a real interest in music. But then there was also this other side to him. He was, according to some accounts of bisexual and had had a series of relationships that didn't work out and do you think this sexual turmoil led to some of the beliefs behind heaven's gate specifically the chemical castrations that occurred later on yeah so there's a big debate in the academic community over this some scholars think that that really is sexual demons as they were basically

led directly to the sexual teachings of hemiscate which were basically reject sexuality in all forms, no sex and that's why some of the male members became castrated. So there's one interpretation is in a very Freudian sense, he's just sort of, you know, he's taking his repressed sexuality and he's projecting it out onto the religion and saying, I don't want to give into my sexual procladity as you can't either. I think that goes too far because I, it wasn't just him, it was also nettles who was co-founding to group, but both of them were rejecting their relationships, their sexual relationships

and their familial relationships, to say that what is important is this internal spiritual development. In any relationship you would have with another human being would detract from that. So sex wasn't bad because it was messy or because it was sinful or because it was impure. Sex was bad because it distracted you from reaching towards the sort of heavenly next level practice. Certainly, his rejective sexuality played into why this appealed to him, but if you look at the way that group actually turned out in in in practice

i don't think we can entirely lay at the feet of his service sexual david so speak uh... but they both had these failed relationships uh... nettles was divorced did and didn't uh... didn't apple white get fired for pursuing a sexual relationship with a male student while he was uh... a teacher yeah that's correct so there's uh... there's no doubt that he was bisexual and you can say a leg but it's alleged correctly in fact he didn't talk about

it in his own journal uh... i mean this was in in the seventies of course so it's a very different sort of language but no he was having relationships uh... with both men and women and it was after uh... serious a particularly bad relationships with men in particular that he related in i'm sorry i women and it was after a series of particularly bad relationships with men in particular that he related in I'm sorry I said journal it was a letter to a friend that he really felt captured by this and imprisoned by his own sexuality and he certainly was reflective about that and aware that he was a bisexual and that this for him was a problem he was a bisexual and that this for him was a problem not so much because of he had some sort of you know queer fear he was you know um...

homophobic in some ways but because all of his relationships male and female were failures so for him it wasn't the sadness wasn't that he was attracted to men the sadness was that he was attracted to men and women and it never worked out that you know he had a hundred percent of the population to work with and he just couldn't get it right so for him that was the source of the frustration uh... i think you really cared about being being by i think that was really an issue for him but when he meets nettles

the two seem to hit it off right away how how how did they meet what were the circumstances under that to the met in the hospital and there's different stories about how they met in the hospital according to the two of them they met when he was visiting a friend who was was a patient uh hospital. According to the two of them, they met when he was visiting a friend who was a patient. According to the sociologist and the story that looked at the very beginning of the group, this seems to be the truth. There was a claim later on that a reporter for Time Magazine had that he was a mental patient,

but there's no evidence for this whatsoever. So I think that was just sort of basically made up. But he was likely visiting a friend. It's also possible that he was himself taking treatment for some heart problems. He had experienced sort of a shortness of breath earlier. So it's possible he himself was a patient, but it would have been, if anything, for this sort of shortness of breath and then possible heart palpitations. Regardless, they met in this hospital and according to their recollection she immediately sensed a connection and she was sort of the more intuitive of the two of them. She was an astrologer so she did the astrological chart for the two of them and determined

that the stars had determined that the two of them were destined for a great journey together and that they were destined to be spiritual partners and that they had a great sort of a future ahead of them. So yeah, they hit it off immediately. There's no evidence that it was anything other than spiritual and platonic. There's no evidence there was any sort of sexual relationship. I don't think it happened. That would never know. But as far as we know, nothing happened. But they eventually have these almost like weird little pet names for each other like t-in-do they do actually those are the those are the most normal of them uh... gimme and pick actually my favorite uh... i forget which one was which i think that uh... i think uh... nettles was was it was getting in and poor apple like that pig

gimme and pig uh... t-in-do uh... let's be bowing peep with the other ones they used yeah and part of what's going on there is renaming yourself as part of a religious journey. I mean, that's pretty common. Probably the most classic example would be Paul, St. Paul, who originally was Saul. So when Saul becomes a Christian,

he rejects his Jewish name and embraces this Greek name, Paul. But when a person joins a monastery in many communities, but he can do a Christian, they often take a new name. So part of what they're doing there is taking these new names, but the particular names they're taking are ones which are meant to separate themselves from their human existence, these very silly names, which are meant to really disrupt their human processing and their human psychology and say, we don't belong amongst you and we're going to take strange names. Think more can Mindy here. They're taking strange and more

catch names because they're trying to represent they're not, they don't belong here on this planet. As someone who studies this, how do you go from having this weird eclectic interest in all these different faiths? I mean, there's elements of Christianity, Hinduism, and sci-fi and all these different faiths. I mean, there's elements of Christianity, Hinduism, and sci-fi, and all these different things, and decide to create your own and not realize you're just making things up at that point. Is that a great question? Well, I guess there's different ways to come about it.

So first of all, religions include conglomerations. So the classic example within Christianity would be if you look at a Christmas, for example, contemporary 21st century Christian Christmas practice draws not just from the Christian tradition, but from Nordic paganism too. I mean, the tree itself is taken from

Northern European pre-Christian practice. And if you look at any religion, you can see elements of other religions where they've been drawn in and absorbed and new practices are developed. The difference, I think, with these sort of new religions and heaven's gates, a great example of that, is the changes are theological or sort of ideological and not just the practice of it in terms of we're going to add sort of a tree or something like that. How did they take themselves seriously without being them I can't tell you except for that?

They believed they were in touch with this next level. They really thought of themselves as prophetic figures, as channels for higher intelligence. And like any self-proclaimed prophet, they believed that because they had direct access to the truth that they were receiving it and the truth they were being given, no matter how silly or strange, were in fact accurate and were in fact the sort of truth they should build their lives around. And again, make another religious sort of reference here, but if you've ever read any of the prophetic literature in the Hebrew Bible. Isaiah, Daniel, these are good examples. The prophets sometimes act like real nutcases. They do some really strange stuff. And their only recourse is to say, this is what God told me to do,

or this is how I felt moved by the spirits. And if you don't share their beliefs, it does look very, very strange. So they start on this journey, and they try to recruit believers, but their early endeavors aren't quite so successful, are they? They're chemical failures. It's amazing.

So they start as two people and they really, really try. And they eventually get one convert to join them and she sticks around for a while. So it's almost, it's almost comical. You have two founders and one followers so they're the leaders out number the followers. So there's one follower sticks with some for a while. Yeah, I mean, you have to laugh. And then eventually she leaves and it was what makes it even worse is she doesn't leave because she doesn't believe them. She leaves because she feels bad that she left her family behind.

She was married and she had a child and she feels bad that she abandoned them to join the group so it's not like she had some sort of big falling out where she says you know now what y'all i'm out of here i don't believe it anymore it's actually says sorry i'm actually with the program i think you're you're preaching the truth but i just i i can't do it because i feel so bad it feels so guilty but when i was reading some of these early accounts and i i thought i mean this is poor people right i mean

you think they finally get a convert you stick with them for a couple of months and then she abandoned them they did eventually have some success out on the west coast they went up and down the coast to california org and washington and they eventually got a couple dozen and eventually a couple hundred people who were willing to accept this basic teaching they had which was that there was a process by which you could overcome your humanity

and try to become an extra trust your next level being as they called it so they did achieve some success eventually but it was uh... it was long and coming the one convert you were you were talking about it's even worse than that because she joins the the two and uh... because of that doesn't apple white end up going to jail yeah oakey it's it's it's just it's wonderful

it's it's a bit of a great and the story and it's it's it's rich indeed but wonderful i certainly wouldn't want to be there at the time so according to apple white and nettle this convert she gives them their credit card and says one you go ahead and use this i have to leave but you know at least i want to give you some funds. Umpedones to her, her husband has reported the credit card stolen. So they put a rental car on the credit card and they think it's paid for and in fact, it

was, it was not because the card was reported stolen. This was back in the day of the old pre-digital credits, you know, so you put the card in the machine, you put the paper down, you go chunk, chunk, and you're anyone who's of a certain age remembers the sound that it would make. So, you know, today, of course, you've run the card and you'd be told, sorry, you can't have the car. Back then, they were given the car. And then, a couple days later, as it's covered, the car doesn't work. And so, the car was reported stolen. Eventually, they are arrested. Applewhite fits in jail. apple white fits and jail he actually fits and jails so long that by the time he's brought up and actually put on trial

he's given time served with his visiting a jail so long effectively it was uh... was complete failure you know i'll have a conversion experience right you have this person to join think she's doing the best thing the right thing in fact really ends up screwing over the founders. And yeah, it's comically tragic. Except for I would say, Apple Light himself thought about that time in jail as actually a very important time in his own life where he was able to grow in terms of his spiritual

awareness and nettles the co-founder. She writes about it as well as being important because she lost that connection to apple white and they saw themselves as spiritual partners and since they could no longer work together she was left to drift and she really in that time of separation it was made it up on the clear to her she wrote that she really had to work with apple white

that without him she was only half of the spiritual partnership that they really had to work together. So eventually, like you said, they do gain some followers and they begin sort of living together in different homes. And I think they come into some money sometime around the 70s. Tell me about life in this place, in this religious group or some may call it a cult where you know there were some weird connections to sci-fi in terms of the everyday living experience like the the home was considered almost like a flying saucer is that correct? Yeah a craft they called it a craft so initially

they were living at a campgrounds and everything was sort of in flux and eventually nettles decides that they have to sort of straighten up and start acting like a group and not just allowing anything to go and living all over the place because the members were living in different campgrounds in different states. So eventually nettles decides everyone's going to come together in one spot they're going to actually try to have some rules about how you live and basically yeah they try to construct themselves as if they were a crew of a spaceship living together.

So they eventually, once they can afford to rent homes as opposed to just living out of tents, they refer to the homes they're renting as crafts. And they refer to each other as a crew. And they even come to refer to the different parts of their home as labs. So the kitchen is the Nutra lab, the laundry room is the fiber lab, and they see themselves as functioning really like the crew of a space station or a spaceship.

When they have to leave their home to go do something, it's an out of craft task, basically a space walk. So they go in an out of craft task if they need to go, well, it could be, you know, pick up parts to fix the refrigerator or if they have to go get a job so they can afford rent, whatever it is. But the goal was always to return back to the craft where the rest of the group was. They called themselves also a class that was their other self-reference so they were either a crew or a class they saw themselves as a learning from from T and from Dell from Adelaide from Dettles. I also find the experimentation with diets very interesting.

Yeah, they went through a number of those. So most of the time they ran their diet in a pre-conventional way and they were trying to feed 40 people. So they basically ran a you know a math kitchen. But they interject the sort of a purging diets every couple months. The one that some next members told about which was particularly gruesome was sort of if cayenne pepper purges where they would they were basically trying to overcome their human bodies by putting their bodies through hell effectively. These were dynamics they were you, you couldn't keep it down one direction. It was coming out the other direction, so to speak.

So it was, this was not a pleasant experience. It was designed to separate you from your body and make you feel like you were overcoming your body and transcending your body, these sort of these purging diets. For a while, they experimented with necrobiotics or with vegetarianism briefly. They tried a bunch of different diets, but in the end, they decided that none of these diets were particularly effective at breaking their connections to their bodies.

It seems like the purpose was, even with the benign diets, for people not to get accustomed to certain foods, like they didn't want them to get favorite foods so that they could detach themselves from any sort of pleasurable earthly experiences, is that right? Yeah, you're entirely right. It was about separating oneself from the earth because they really solved themselves as trying to escape this earth, trying to go to this next level, this extra terrestrial place, and anything which was an earthly attachment was a problem. So that's ultimately why they said no sex, why they said no drugs, no alcohol,

no enjoyment of food, and why they disrupted their normal diet so much, was to really break the very natural connection most of us have for our fleshy, earthly, bodily attachments. I love chocolate, I love cheese. I can go without them, but I enjoy them, and that enjoyment tethers me to the earth. Therefore, they would say that I have to break that tether by giving those things up. Nettles never got to see the culmination of revision, did she?

No, no. She died of cancer in the 80s. It was a long time coming, too. She got very ill. It's unclear where the cancer started, but she eventually lost an eye to it, and then what eventually killed her was liver cancer. And this was a really powerful moment for the group, because they had taught that you bodily are supposed to go into and out of space aboard the UFOs. And when she died, her body, you know, it decomposed. And they had to cremate it.

And even for that year building up to her death, her body was falling apart. It was literally her body was falling apart. Her eye had to be removed. She was gone. She was dying of cancer. And so it was clear to everyone, her body was not going to outer space.

Her body was falling apart. and then they could see this. And then of course she dies. And the UFOs do not pick up her body. She does not come back to life. So for the members of the group, this sort of two-year-long process of her slow-aconizing death really fundamentally forced them to rethink their model about how you get from Earth to the next level, as they called it, how you get to the outer space.

And it was no longer guaranteed to be a bodily process. It now became something which could be separated from the body. You could journey onto the next level in some sort of non-bottling, non-material form. And this is, of course, it opened the door towards the eventual suicides. It seems like the suicides occurred pretty quickly after her death. Well, they initially said that her death was a special case, that her human body couldn't handle her vibes. She had this next level of vibe, next level of vibrations, next level of energy, and she

burned up her human body. So initially, this was was a problem for her. But as they expanded that idea, and once you open the door towards saying, well, you can basically upload your consciousness. And that is the language they use. They use computer languages. And once you can upload your consciousness,

yet then it became plausible to consider choosing to do so and not just waiting for it to happen to you. The other metaphor they start to use, postnetals as death is the body is vehicle. Before this point, the body was a caterpillar. They used the language of the chrysalis of the cocoon that the body had to go into a transformative process and you would emerge as a next level being. You brought your body in and then you left with the new body. The new metaphor they use in the early 90s is of the body as a vehicle that you get to your

destination and then you get out of your vehicle, you leave it behind. And that very much doesn't just open the door towards suicide, it sort of pushes you through the door because if the body is just a vehicle, you could drive your car until it dies. I've done that. But it's a lot more effective to replace a car when it's still going. You know, when you can still trade it in, you don't just let it die in the set of the road somewhere. Right. So logically, most of us would say, yeah, of course, there's no harm done to replace a car

when it's still working. That's their logic, right? So they had working bodies, but they decided it was time to leave. Their bodies got them where they wanted to go when it was time to depart. In the end, the members of Heaven's Gate would film a series of exit videos, with each member or student, as they called themselves, leaving a prepared statement for the world, that they would leave behind. The leader, Marshall Herfapowite, or Doe, would leave the longest message. In it, he sounds tired, somewhat run down, quite similar to how Jim Jones sounded at the end of his spiritual journey. This is March 19, 1997. And I'm Doe, some called our partnership T and Doe. That's not

my name, but that's how I'm referred to on planet Earth at this time. I've been talking to my students that are sitting in front of me about talking to you. And let me say that our mission here at this time is about to come to a close in the next few days. We came from distant space and even what some might call somewhat of another dimension. And we're about to return from once we came. And I say that when we say we came from distant space that we're talking about what your religious literature would call the Kingdom of Heaven or the Kingdom of God. And we came for the express purpose to offer a doorway to the Kingdom of God. At the end of this civilization, the end of this age, the end of this millennium.

Doe's tired voice is in stark contrast to some of the videos by other members of the group. Okay, before we move on to the question, one last question, how do you feel about what is ahead for us? This is the happiest day of my life. I mean, I'm not looking for this for so long. Some would probably sit here and, I mean, somebody on the other side of this camera

watching this tape would probably say, what's going on, you know, you all must not have a life or you're deluded or you're brainwashed or whatever the thinking might be. It's hard to an into. From our perspective, from my perspective, this is, that's it. I mean, this is the answer to everything. You know, these, these flash vehicles, I mean, if you use the analogy of a car, and, you know,

people may keep their cars for a long time before they finally wear out and they clunk out and they die on them and, you know, they go and give another car. Or some people, they say, well, you know, here's a newer model, so that's nicer. And this one, you know, doesn't quite perform the way I could. I'd like to move into this new car. I'm like, you're at the old one, you're a new one.

I mean, that's how we're talking about. It's not a big deal. I'm talking too long. So I'll pass up that just. This isn't a troubling circumstance. Don't take it as that. It's just gateway a long time since I've been here. This isn't a troubling circumstance. Don't take it as that. It's just a gateway, just a doorway. How does the Halebop comment fit into that? They were looking for a way to demonstrate to the world the truth of their message.

Very early on, they had the idea of the demonstration, was what they called it, that just apple-white nettles would be killed and they would be resurrected through this sort of next level technology. And that everyone would see this and they would be resurrected through this sort of next-level technology. And that everyone would see this and everyone would see the truth of their message and people would join them. Now that didn't happen. They sort of dropped that idea of the demonstration. But then later on with Helpop, they saw Helpop as a way in which to capture all of the attention

of the world. And there were these claims that there was a UFO trailing hellbop comment. Some members of the group deeply believed that there was a UFO following hellbop comment. Others were suspicious, and there were even a few who said that they didn't think this was relevant. Either way, the regardless of what your approach was, if you believed there was a UFO or not, they believed everyone was looking at the sky. They were paying attention to the comet, paying attention to these claims that there were a UFO, and the time was right to get the attention of the planets and to demonstrate that they were serious and that their message had resonance and they were willing

to take this final step and abandon our planet. And you know what, they were right. We all paid attention, all right? That's why we're talking about it 20 years later. Yeah. But didn't the whole UFO trailing the comet then come from George Norris coast to coast radio program? Yeah, it was our bell too. Our bell, yeah.

So they had gotten into conspiracy theory material and our bell and coast to coast in particular because they had believed in the existence of extraterrestrials and UFOs. So this connected them into this sort of conspiratorial subculture. They believed that the government was hiding the Roswell UFO crash and all these other sort of sightings of UFOs. So that got them hooked into these conspiratorial oriented AM radio shows and there were internet websites about this and actually even before there were internet websites there were dial-in BBSs bullet boards where you could dial in with your old modems, you don't remember this technology,

you could dial in and communicate with other believers. And this by the way connects to the X files too, they were big X files fans, so the X files really encouraged them to think about this. So yeah, so they were really tuned into this conspiratorial belief. And then when they were sort of the colon that was Chuck Shramp, who claimed to have a visual evidence of a UFO, an actual picture of a UFO following a help-up comment, that really captured their attention.

And as I said, some of them believed it. Others weren't sure, but they thought it was entirely plausible and believable that there was a comment following help up because they believe in uofos and that was sent to them so if you believe they're out there if you believe that they're get a come get you eventually this claim that there was one behind the comment would have been total sense

and it did to them uh... uh... and american softwares you're all but you need to put to running across all these many time zones, it's going to be a very, very exciting show this morning. So buckle down and get ready. A lot of surprises coming up. I'm Arbel. Then this,

from the Psehishan and Hawaii Island chains in the west, you've heard across this great nation. So the Caribbean and the US Virgin Islands, south into South America, north, west to the pole, and worldwide on the Internet. This is Coast to Coast, AM. Great to be here. The new photograph of Hairbop, let me see what I'm at it. If I can read you some portion of what's going all over the net right now. If I've got it here it is. Deart, Bridget, strange object sighted near Hillbop. Art, I have just taken some amazing photographs of Hillbop. They show a Saturn-like object near the comet.

This thing, if it's solid and near the comet, would be about four times the size of Earth. I have called Hogan. He says that he's getting other calls about it. This strange thing that just showed up tonight. Since Hale Bob was first discovered, it's a mind-blowing to find a comment 20 months out, Art. You bet. Remember Cahotec? Oh, yeah, of course.

It made a big thing of that, because that was found seven months out. Most comments were found three or four. Cahotec was seven. Hale Bob was 20 months out there. And I knew from the start, it's not from the start, just kind of drew me to this comment to find out all I could.

And image here, I've been out there early, clear night that I can for a couple of months now taking pictures of it. All right, well, I guess Professor Kurt and Brown is going to have a lot to say about Halebop, and this is sort of a setup for that. You have just taken a photograph. When did you take it tonight?

I took it at 6 o'clock this evening. 6 o'clock. All right. Halebop is too big. Well, actually, the nucleus, nobody really knows. Fairly small, they suspect. But I don't think anybody knows. actually the the nucleus nobody really knows fairly small basis back but i don't think anybody knows although the envelope of gas around he'll pop it several times larger than the sun

what is yeah that's big that's big and a big comment yeah all right uh... in this news photograph you take a hip hop's gonna come around the horn uh... and be most visible april may something like that next year. March, April, 97. Right. And I guess we all knew that, but a lot of people have felt something's going on with Hillbop.

Well, I have to. There's been a real lack of pictures from the Hubble Space Telescope or any big observatories. And Art, I can tell you when they cut them off, it was about end of May, 96. And so that got me all the more curious. I can smell them there. Why would they do that? Perhaps they saw something they felt

might disturb people. And now maybe you've got it on film. Yeah, although this thing, what I photographed tonight, just showed up, I mean, I have pictures of the comment from last night, the night before. This is a big thing. But not far, I estimate maybe about 150,000 miles away from Halebop.

If it is as far out as Halebop, I don't know. It's in the same picture. I'm just making that assumption that out there in that neighborhood is it appears to be several times larger than the Earth. I guess about four times larger than the Earth. And there appears to be what looks like Saturn-like rings. They're very flat. It's almost as if we're looking at them on edge.

And, you know, I ran inside and thought, no, it's just a star. They're very flat. It's almost as if we're looking at them on edge. And you know, I ran inside and thought, no, it's just a star. And I have a computer-generated star map. I can tell ahead of time what stars are going to be in the background. And there was no star there. I mean, just nothing. There's a couple of stars that show up in the frame to the right of Halebop and those showed up. But this big, white thing did that show up in the frame to the right of Hail Bob and those showed up,

but this big, bright thing did not show up. And I kept, I checked the data and my watch, I checked the data on the computer and lifted the pictures coming in again. I, on the computer, I have a CCD imaging system and my heart starts going faster and faster and faster and I realize, I'm really, this is, this is amazing. I'm photographing something that's actually out there that's big and I don't have much of an observing window for hail pop here. It's about 30 minutes.

But I saw a shot that whole time I have perhaps a hundred pictures of it. What could it be? Well that might be an area for Courtney to get into. I have no idea. All right, whatever it is, it would roughly, if it's in the same area as hellbop, would be roughly to scale it about four times the size of the earth. And that's real rough. It's certainly larger than the earth.

That will send the rough gas. I'll have to go over my pixels later and measure it more carefully. One thing you do in your buck, which seems quite clear, is to try to dismiss this idea of brainwashing as an explanation for what happened here. Yeah, and I'll tell you why. So one reason I've spoken with a lot of ex members, if this was brainwashing, it was particularly ineffective brainwashing, because you end up with 40 people and at the heights back in the 70s, they probably had 500, maybe even more than that.

If your brainwashing gets less than 10%, I'm not a math professor, I'm a religion professor, but I think that's 8% or 9%, that's pretty bad brainwashing. And when I spoke with X members about why they left, in many cases members left for a variety of reasons, everything from, you know, they wanted to have a career or a job, to they couldn't handle the limitations on tax and alcohol. And they were really mundane sort of reasons that a person would leave. And no one I spoke to who left. So these are apostates, people who left. No one I spoke with said that they felt that they had been sort of brainwashed or sort of captured and they had to escape.

They all went about it in a very logical, sane way. I've decided they wanted to leave and telling the leaders and their comrades in arms that they were departing and off they went. So I just don't think that it's any sort of model of brainwashing. If they were brainwashed, we have to read about what we mean by brainwashing, because there's a really different brainwashing. It's a brainwashing. Because there's a really different sort of brainwashing. There's a brainwashing which fails most of the time, and a brainwashing which didn't

depend on confining people because they were free to come and go. What did you define Heaven's Gate as a cult? I don't use the word cult because it has that pejorative connotation. I was studying a very different group at one point, and this came up just because they were labeled a cult, it meant that the neighbors were frightened of them and this was uh... pretty benign group that i was studying their base that a particular very you know normal sort of hindu guru was teaching meditation stuff but

because someone had said this was a cultic group the neighbors thought they were going to be performing you animal sacrifices and all sorts of stuff so i stay away from the term i brothers described them as a new religion and indicate what they did what they believed and if people choose to think about them as a cult that's fine but uh... i know that people refer to all sorts of things as cults and i was on i was just reading uh...

the comments on uh... on a on a new site you should never read the comments right but i was reading the comment of an article it was talking about the christian church and so much of the christian church to cult well if the christian church is a cult that the word is meaningless right because the christian church is the largest church in the world in a general sense you add up all the christians so

i can convince the the cult is a pretty meaningless term uh... i'd rather just say what it is that they didn't believe even if it's unpleasant and we can just say that that's a religion that did some stuff which the rest of us think of as weird at best called fadiot means a new religion or a small religion but uh...

weren't they all at some point are there still followers out there that were left behind but they still believe yeah yeah yeah there's still followers and there's different sorts of followers still believe some Some still believe, but they're very private about it. Others don't really say whether they believe or not, but they sort of they identify this as part of their spiritual journey. Others are true believers who see themselves as continuing to sort of hold the flame for the group.

And I have spoken with an interviewed representatives of each of these sort of camps. And you can find them on the internet pretty easily, at least the ones who want to promote themselves, the private folks obviously not so much. But yeah, there's a bunch of people out there who still believe, the thing about heaven's gate is they also believed in reincarnation. So just because you missed the comment, or you missed the UFO this time, doesn't mean you'll miss it a couple thousand years when it comes back. So that is in a possibility, I suppose, if you believe. And who's running the website now? The website is run by some ex members who run very good terms with the group.

They've been outed by a journalist, but although I know who they are, I don't want to give those details because they would prefer to keep their privacy. But they run this site really as a testimony to their time in the group and their familial love, so to speak, of the group members. This was their family because these ex-members are people who spent decades in the group. And these were their best best friends their brothers and sisters who committed suicide So a lot of the people who run the websites are

No longer true believers in the sense that they're gonna commit suicide. They are still People who associate with the group in terms of it. That was their family those were their friends So they run it really as a as a memorial but also because they believed that this message Had a value and then it should be So they run it really as a memorial, but also because they believed that this message had a value and that it should continue to be out there. And there are some articles up there where a journalist interviewed them and talked with them so you can find the details. But ethically, I don't feel like I should say much more than that because I've spoken

with them and they did ask me to keep their identities private. So I have to leave it at that. Doctors, thank you so much for the interview and a fantastic book. Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure. It's really been a nice to chat. Thank you. Very special thanks to Benjamin E. Zeller, willing to his book in the show notes, it's

called Heaven's Gate, America's UFO Religion. And as always, we link to all our sources and the music used for each episode is up there too. Just go to Sword and Scale.com and find the episode and it'll all be right there for you. Remember, this is TriPod Month. So please think of a close friend, a family member, a co-worker, and tell them about your favorite podcast. Ask them to pull out their phone,

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