On this day 16 years ago, 38 people of the Heaven's Gate cult committed suicide, believing that their souls would be carried away by an alien spacecraft trailing the Hale-Bopp Comet. Their bodies would not be discovered by authorities until March 26.
The group had been founded in the 1970s in San Diego after its leader, Marshall Applewhite, had a heart attack. Believing it was a near-death experience, he began touring the country giving lectures. The groups core belief system stated that the planet Earth was going to be "recycled" by the galaxy, and the only way to survive was to evacuate. To them, human bodies were just vessels that could be discarded to achieve a higher level of existence. Surprisingly, the group was formally against suicide. They thought that it was a way of refusing that chance to ascend the plane.
Applewhite convinced 38 of his peers that killing themselves was the only way to get off the planet. He told them that there was a UFO trailing the Hale-Bopp comet, now at its brightest, would carry their souls to a level of existence beyond human feeling. Richard Ford, a member, was assigned to preserve the group's video messages and literature.
By the time authorities found their bodies, they had largely decomposed. An autopsy revealed traces of arsenic and cyanide. They all wore identical black shirts, sweat pants and Nike Decades shoes. One person had an armband which read, "Heaven's Gate Away Team." Among the dead was Thomas Nichols, brother of Nichelle Nichols, best known for her role as Lt. Uhura on Star Trek.
The group had largely been ignored by the media until now. The event was widely publicized, being the largest instance of mass suicide since involving American citizens since Jonestown.
