It's been 29 years since 39 cult members killed themselves in the largest mass suicide ever in the United States. The Heaven's Gate cult suicide came as a result of years of systemic brainwashing and remains shrouded in mystery, all these years later.

An April 1997 PEOPLE cover story detailed how the group first came together in the spring of 1975 in Los Angeles, where Marshall Applewhite, "a onetime choirmaster from Texas, and Bonnie Lu Nettles, a former nurse, regaled a group of meditation enthusiasts with their belief that spaceships would someday arrive to carry away their spirits."

Applewhite and Nettles went by the nicknames Bo and Peep, urging their members to abstain from sex, alcohol and tobacco and leave their families behind.

Over the years, the group moved around — first putting down short roots in Oregon, with some 20 to 30 followers and later moving to Medicine Bow National Forest, Wyo., and then Bonny Reservoir, Colo. They also changed names — at one point going by "Human Individual Metamorphosis" and "Total Overcomers Anonymous" — before settling on Heaven's Gate.

The group found its peak in the late 1970s, when they counted several hundred members among their ranks.

In 1985, Nettles died of cancer, leaving the wide-eyed Applewhite as sole leader of the group.

His teachings — on aliens, space, and life on Earth — grew ever-disturbing, with Applewhite ultimately convincing a sizable group of his followers in 1997 that they could ascend to a higher, extraterrestrial existence by rejecting their humanity.

An original member of the cult who left prior to the mass suicide, Joan Culpepper told PEOPLE in 1997: "Most cults want to sweet-talk you, draw you in and make you feel loved. These guys weren't like that."

The idea, as authorities would later find out, was that the cult members and Applewhite himself had to free their mortal souls in order to board a spaceship — one flying in the wake of the Hale-Bopp comet — that was bound for a distant planet of androgynous aliens called the Next Level.

In late March of that year, the group put their plan into action, meeting at a Rancho Santa Fe restaurant for a final meal of iced tea, salad, chicken pot pie and cheesecake on March 21.

On March 22, 15 members of the group killed themselves alongside bags they had packed with identification cards and $5.75 in cash and coins. On March 23, 15 more members died, with those still alive following detailed instructions on how to clean up and cover the corpses.

On March 24, the final nine, including Applewhite, killed themselves, with their bodies discovered by authorities responding to an anonymous tip two days later.

The dead ranged in age from 26 to 72 and were all dressed in matching black track suits with brand-new Nike sneakers on their feet and plastic bags over their heads. All had willfully ingested apple sauce or pudding laced with barbiturates, which was then washed down with vodka.

The story would dominate headlines, with images of Marshall's face often appearing on magazine covers at the time, as media from around the world descended on Rancho Santa Fe to cover the story.

Adding to the mystery and mystique was a letter on the Heaven's Gate website, and farewell message videos left by its members.

As Commander Alan Fulmer of the San Diego Sheriff's Department told The New York Times shortly after the incident, those who recorded the videos seemed to be "very upbeat, very outgoing," and "did not appear to be upset about...making their final exit, if you will."

Said former cult member Culpepper to PEOPLE following the suicides: "I still get teary-eyed when I think about it. When I think of [them] lying in bed as bags were being put over their heads, I could almost hear them say, 'I'll see you on the spaceship.' "

Source Link: https://people.com/heavens-gate-cult-suicide-anniversary-11914222