en.wikipedia.org
On March 26, 1997, deputies of the
San Diego County Sheriff's Department discovered the bodies of the 39 active members of the group, including Applewhite, in a house in the San Diego County suburb of
Rancho Santa Fe. They had participated in a coordinated series of ritual suicides, coinciding with the closest approach of Comet Hale–Bopp. Just before the mass suicide, the group's website was updated with the message: "Hale–Bopp brings closure to Heaven's Gate ...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."
Gets dark...
During March 19–20, Marshall Applewhite taped himself in a video titled Do's Final Exit, speaking of mass suicide and "the only way to evacuate this Earth". After asserting that Comet Hale–Bopp was the sign that the group had been looking for, as well as the speculation that an unidentified flying object (UFO) was trailing the comet, Applewhite and his 38 followers prepared for ritual suicide, coinciding with the closest approach of the comet, so their souls could reach the Next Level before the closure of "Heaven's Gate". Members believed that after their deaths, a UFO would take their souls to another "level of existence above human", which was described as being both physical and spiritual. Their preparations included most members videotaping a farewell message.[41][42][43] The 39 adherents — 21 women and 18 men between the ages of 26 and 72 — are believed to have died in three groups over three successive days, with the remaining participants cleaning up after the prior group's deaths.[44]
The suicides began on March 22–23 in three waves.[45][46][a] To kill themselves, members took phenobarbital mixed with apple sauce or pudding and washed it down with vodka. After ingesting the mix, they secured plastic bags around their heads to induce asphyxiation. All 39 were dressed in identical black shirts and sweatpants, brand-new black-and-white Nike Decades athletic shoes, and armband patches reading "Heaven's Gate Away Team" (one of many instances of the group's use of the terms of Star Trek). Each member carried a five-dollar bill and three quarters in their pockets.[51][45] According to former members, this was standard for members leaving the home for jobs and "a humorous way to tell us they all had left the planet permanently"; the five-dollar bill was for covering the cost of vagrancy laws and the quarters were for calling home from pay phones.[52][45] Another former member stated that it was a reference to a Mark Twain story, which said $5.75 was "the cost to ride the tail of a comet to heaven."[53] No such passage from the writings of Twain is known to exist.[54]
