On March 26, 1997, Applewhite and 38 other members of a cult called Heaven’s Gate were found dead in a mass suicide at a rented mansion in Rancho Santa Fe, California. The group members, who killed themselves by eating applesauce and pudding mixed with drugs, believed that a spaceship following the Hale-Bopp comet (which made its closest approach to Earth on March 22, 1997) would pick them up and take them to a higher plane of existence. 

  

Following an anonymous tip, police enter a mansion in Rancho Santa Fe, an exclusive suburb of San Diego, California, and discover 39 victims of a mass suicide. The deceased–21 women and 18 men of varying ages–were all found lying peaceably in matching dark clothes and Nike sneakers and had no noticeable signs of blood or trauma. It was later revealed that the men and women were members of the “Heaven’s Gate” religious cult, whose leaders preached that suicide would allow them to leave their bodily “containers” and enter an alien spacecraft hidden behind the Hale-Bopp comet. 

The cult was led by Marshall Applewhite, a music professor who, after surviving a near-death experience in 1972, was recruited into the cult by one of his nurses, Bonnie Lu Nettles. In 1975, Applewhite and Nettles persuaded a group of 20 people from Oregon to abandon their families and possessions and move to eastern Colorado, where they promised that an extraterrestrial spacecraft would take them to the “kingdom of heaven.” Nettles, who called herself “Ti,” and Applewhite, who took the name of “Do,” explained that human bodies were merely containers that could be abandoned in favor of a higher physical existence. As the spacecraft never arrived, membership in Heaven’s Gate diminished, and in 1985 Bonnie Lu Nettles, Applewhite’s “sexless partner,” died. 

  

During the early 1990s, the cult resurfaced as Applewhite began recruiting new members. Soon after the 1995 discovery of the comet Hale-Bopp, the Heaven’s Gate members became convinced that an alien spacecraft was on its way to earth, hidden from human detection behind the comet. In October 1996, Applewhite rented a large home in Rancho Santa Fe, explaining to the owner that his group was made up of Christian-based angels. Applewhite advocated sexual abstinence, and several male cult members followed his example by undergoing castration operations. 

In 1997, as part of its 4,000-year orbit of the sun, the comet Hale-Bopp passed near Earth in one of the most impressive astronomical events of the 20th century. In late March 1997, as Hale-Bopp reached its closest distance to Earth, Applewhite and 38 of his followers drank a lethal mixture of phenobarbital and vodka and then lay down to die, hoping to leave their bodily containers, enter the alien spacecraft, and pass through Heaven’s Gate into a higher existence. 

Marshall Applewhite 

  

Marshall Herff Applewhite, Jr. (May 17, 1931 – March 26, 1997). 

A native of Texas, Applewhite attended several universities and, as a young man, served in the United States Army. After finishing school at Austin College, he taught music at the University of Alabama. He later returned to Texas, where he led choruses and served as the chair of the music department at the University of St. Thomas in Houston. He left the school in 1970, citing emotional turmoil. His father's death a year later brought on severe depression. 

Over the course of the group's existence, several hundred people joined and left. In the early 1990s, their membership dwindled, numbering as few as 26; these defections gave Applewhite a sense of urgency. In May 1993, the group took the name "Total Overcomers Anonymous". They then spent $30,000 to publish a full-page advertisement in USA Today that warned of catastrophic judgment to befall the Earth. Its publication led about 20 former members to rejoin the group. This, along with a series of public lectures in 1994, caused membership to double from its nadir at the beginning of the decade. By this time, Applewhite did not regiment his disciples' lives as strictly as he had and spent less time with them. 

In the early 1990s, Applewhite posted some of his teachings on the Internet, but he was stung by the resulting criticism. That year, he first spoke of the possibility of suicide as a way to reach the Next Level. He explained that everything "human" had to be forsaken, including the human body, before one could ascend. The organization was then renamed "Heaven's Gate".Davis speculates that this rejection may have encouraged him to attempt to leave Earth. 

  

Applewhite recorded a video shortly before his death, in which he termed the suicides the "Final exit" of the group and remarked, "We do in all honesty hate this world". Lewis speculates that Applewhite settled on suicide because he had said that the group would ascend during his lifetime and thus appointing a successor was unfeasible. 

The deaths provoked a media circus, and Applewhite's face was featured on the covers of Time and Newsweek on April 7.His final message was widely broadcast; Hugh Urban of Ohio State University describes his appearance in the video as "wild-eyed [and] rather alarming". 

Bonnie Nettles 

  

Nettles was born and raised in Houston into a Baptist family. As an adult, she moved away from the religion. After becoming a registered nurse, she married businessman Joseph Segal Nettles in December 1949 with whom she had four children. Their marriage remained mostly stable until 1972. According to the New York Times, their marriage began to deteriorate due to Nettles' belief a 19th-century monk named Brother Francis frequently spoke with her and gave her instructions. Furthermore, Nettles often conducted seances with mediums in order to contact other deceased spirits. A circle group was held every Wednesday at her house in relation to this. In 1972, Nettles went to see multiple fortunetellers, who told her that she was soon to meet a mysterious man who was tall with light hair and a fair complexion. This description was fairly close to Applewhite's appearance. 

Nettles met Applewhite in March 1972, though where they met is uncertain. According to the writings of Applewhite, "[Applewhite] was visiting a hospitalized friend when Mrs. Nettles entered the room and their eyes locked in a shared recognition of esoteric secrets." However, Applewhite's writings were prone to hyperbole or relaying everything as some occurrence of fate. Terrie Nettles, Bonnie's daughter, has stated that "The two met at a drama school in a theater." and that Applewhite had been teaching in the school, with one of Bonnie's sons attending it.Bonnie's son, Joe Nettles, also corroborated this version of events. 

Original Text from: 

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/heavens-gate-cult-members-found-dead 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Applewhite 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonnie_Nettles