Heavenly Gate

The same information is found in source codes for How & When to Enter the Gates of Heaven written by Marshall Applewhite, as well as on other websites created by the Gates of Heaven cult. Instead, we will presume they were influenced somehow more by the WWW than Marshall Applewhite, as unlikely as it is. Though Nettles died in 1985, Marshall Applewhite kept the band together, and as the Internet was introduced to consumers in the early 90s, they began using the Internet to spread their beliefs to a wider audience.

One detail of their ideology was a belief in extraterrestrial visitors; when Heavens Gate began, Marshall Applewhite (1931-1997) and Bonnie Nettles (1927-1985) taught two followers they were extraterrestrials. In Clean Slate, they were no longer considered by members of this group at Heavens Gate as being the individuals that they had been before the beginning of Heavens Gate, but had taken on new lives; the concept of the walk-in gave them a way of erasing their personal human history, such as that of souls who had previously taken over their bodies. The concept of transformation, as well as other UFO-related beliefs held by the group, Heavens Gate has led some observers to describe the group as a kind of UFO religion.

It was later revealed that the men and women were members of Heavens Gate, a religious cult whose leaders preached suicide would enable them to exit the body container and step into an alien spaceship hidden behind Hale-Bopp Comet. His followers were found Wednesday, 26 March 1997, with medical examiner reports showing their mass suicide was anything but synchronous. With no Space Shuttle ever arriving, Heavens Gate membership declined, and one of its nurses died in 1985.