5 U.S. Cults So Terrifying We Can’t Get Over Them

#5 Heaven’s Gate

In the 1970s, Marshall Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles began to think that they were the two witnesses mentioned in The Book of Revelation, chapter 11. with ominous predictions about how salvation would arrive (for those who were ready) in the form of a spaceship. The worthy’s remains would eventually be preserved in a cocoon state so that they could be transformed into bodies fit for heaven.

The two started preaching and garnering disciples in California and Oregon. Before changing its name to “Heaven’s Gate” in the 1990s, the group went by the names “Human Individual Metamorphosis”, and “Total Overcomers Anonymous”.

Members were required to give up their families and possessions as well as live with the group. Applewhite advised followers to completely give up intercourse and detach themselves from emotions in order to be ready for redemption. Members wore loose clothes and neatly shaven heads, dressing androgynously.

However, the sad incident from the 1990s is what made Heaven’s Gate famous. The group meticulously planned and then carried out a mass suicide in March 1997, timed to coincide with the appearance of the Hale-Bopp comet, which they believed would disguise the alien spaceship on its course to Earth.

Forty members of Heaven’s Gate, dressed in black blouses and Nikes, consumed applesauce laced with vodka and a sedative before passing away. Nine of the 18 men, including Applewhite, had undergone castration procedures because the group insisted on celibacy. Prior to their suicide, the group’s members recorded a positive message in which they expressed their willingness, even happiness, to pass on to the “next level”.

Indeed, the 60s and 70s were some wild times! If you want to know more about that period, you should check out: 6 Weird Beliefs People Had 50 Years Ago