The Heaven’s Gate Tragedy

In 1997, authorities responded to an emergency call in the Rancho Santa Fe San Diego suburb, where they discovered thirty-nine bodies, all members of the new religious movement Heaven’s Gate. This would be the largest mass suicide in the United States.

Heaven’s Gate originated when Marshall Applewhite met Bonnie Lou Nettles after a near-death experience in 1972, according to History.com. By 1975, Nettles, Applewhite, and about 20 others relocated to Colorado hoping a spacecraft would take them to a higher plane of existence, leaving their physical bodies behind. In 1985, Nettles passed away from cancer. Applewhite would reinvent the group in the early 1990s, and in 1995, with the discovery of the Hale-Bopp comet passing, he moved the group to Rancho Santa Fe. Rules became more strict over this period, including members maintaining an asexual appearance, according to ABC News.

Between March 22nd and 26th, thirty-nine members, both men and women, participated in a ritual suicide in three different groups, including leader Applewhite. The members completed their ritual through consuming barbiturates and tying bags over their heads. They also had five dollars and three quarters in their pockets, and all members wore Nike Decades shoes. They coordinated the mass suicide with the passing of the Hale-Bopp comet in the hopes that they would leave their physical bodies, or “containers” and enter a UFO located behind the comet, according to History.com. The San Diego police department responded to an anonymous call, where the caller gave the address of the Rancho Santa Fe mansion that the members had been living in monastically.  

Rio DiAngelo, a member who left a few years before the mass suicide and sent the anonymous tip, has since reconnected with his family while recounting the history of the cult, according to ABC News.