Cult Members Speak Out On 25th Anniversary Of Heaven's Gate Mass Suicide

Former members of the religious Heaven's Gate cult have reflected on the mass suicide of 39 affiliates in an upcoming documentary.

On March 26, 1997, 39 bodies were discovered in a suburban home in California. Television stations around the world aired footage of cult leader Marshall Applewhite and photographs of cult members buried under blankets.

Now, 25 years since the mass suicide-by-poisoning, former members of the cult are set to speak out in a TV special led by broadcast journalist Diane Sawyer titled The Cult Next Door: The Mystery and Madness of Heaven’s Gate. You can watch the trailer below:

The show is set to feature footage and audio recordings which have never been seen before to give a greater insight into what life was like within the cult, The Independent reports.

It will also give viewers a look into the house in South California where the bodies were found.

Former acolyte of the cult Jana Gibbons stated: 'My guess is three-quarters of the people never stepped foot out the door, and I was one of them.'

Gibbons noted that the home where the mass suicides occurred 'probably [didn't have] any open windows'.

Marshall Applewhite, leader of the Heaven's Gate cult (Heaven's Gate)

The cult first started in the 1970s. It was founded by Applewhite, who had a religious background and was a divorced father.

Applewhite was soon joined by Bonnie Nettles, who shared his theological interests. The pair resolved that they were prophets and most commonly referred to themselves as Do and Ti. They preached that God was an alien.

Those who joined the cult were required by Do and Ti to cut ties with their family, friends and the outside world, and to give away all their belongings.

Members had to follow strict rules, such as adhering to specific bath times. Do and Ti are also reported as ordering some members to be castrated.

A former member of Heaven's Gate (ABC)

In 1996, Applewhite preached that a spaceship was coming to pick him and those in Heaven Gate up, after seeing an image of the Hale-Bopp comet. Applewhite resolved that the comet had a spaceship trailing behind it in the shadows.

On the cult's website, the comet is called the 'marker' which members had 'been waiting for'.

It states: 'The time for the arrival of the spacecraft from the Level Above Human to take us home to ‘Their World’ – in the literal Heavens.

'Our 22 years of classroom here on planet Earth is finally coming to conclusion – ‘graduation’ from the Human Evolutionary Level. We are happily prepared to leave ‘this world’ and go with Ti’s crew.'

Cult Heaven's Gate website. (Heaven's Gate)

Using pudding or apple sauce laced with phenobarbital, Applewhite and 38 other members of the cult poisoned themselves.

They were all dressed exactly the same, and after consuming the poison, all placed plastic bags over their heads.

Despite this, the website features a statement 'against suicide'.

Religious cult Heaven's Gate's 'position against suicide' (Heaven's Gate)

Surviving members of the cult told Mail Online that they are 'still connected' to the 39 members who took part in the mass suicide in 1996.

They told the Mail in 2017: 'The simple understanding is that there is a real, physical level above the humans one here on Earth.

'It is not a spiritual existence. It is real individuals, in real bodies, in real crafts taking care of the issues of their planet. The Next Level, as it is called, created this planet and all the life on it. The Next Level are the care takers of not only this planet but all the systems of the universe.

'From that, all the other understandings follow. They periodically come down to this planet to check in on this civilization’s development. The last time they took a very close up observation, in human form, was from about 1972 to 1997.

'The time before that was 2000 years ago. At those times they talk to those interested about the opportunity of the Next Level and how a very select few can enter into it only after a long period of transition and instruction.'

The Cult Next Door: The Mystery and Madness of Heaven's Gate is available to stream now on Hulu.

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