[white noise]
[soft chatter]
The name of this song is
"When You Know Ti and Do,"
by the Class.
[piano plays]
[eerie music overtakes lyrics]
[insects chirping]
SAWYER: While I was in the group,
we were in touch with a bulletin board service.
Because of that, we were becoming informed
about what the... UFO community was talking about.
BENJAMIN: In late 1996,
the group began to orient itself towards departure.
And, in particular,
they bought into the conspiracy theory,
in 1997, that the government
was hiding the existence
of a flying saucer
that was trailing the Hale-Bopp comet.
The most important name to think about here is Art Bell.
Art Bell was
a source of conspiratorial thinking,
and you could tune in,
and you could listen to everything from beliefs
about space aliens and UFOs to Bigfoot.
ART: Chuck Shramek in Houston, Texas.
- Chuck, welcome to the program. CHUCK: Thanks, Art.
ART: A lot of people have felt
something's going on with Hale-Bopp.
CHUCK: Well, I have too.
There's been a real lack of pictures
from the Hubble Space Telescope or anything, observatories.
So, that got me all the more curious.
I can smell when they're--
ART: Why would they do that?
CHUCK: Perhaps they saw something
they felt might disturb people.
ART: You have just taken a photograph.
- [camera snap] - When did you take it? Tonight?
CHUCK: I took it at 6:00 this evening.
ART: Six o'clock, all right.
CHUCK: This thing appears to be
several times larger than the Earth.
And my heart starts going fasters.
The next day, Art Bell gets another call.
And this call is from Courtney Brown,
who's part of the Farsight Institute.
He and his students claim
there is a very large object
following Hale-Bopp Comet.
ART: Professor, what the hell is that?
COURTNEY: This object is four times--
approximately four times the size of the planet Earth,
and it's headed our way.
BENJAMIN: Now, for members of Heaven's Gate,
this is important for a couple of reasons.
One is, their idea of the Next Level spaceships
they're gonna go onto are really, really big.
The other is they have been looking
for a sign for the end for quite a while.
The term they use is a marker.
The Hale Bopp Comet had something to do
with the decision to do it now.
Why now? Why not 1999?
Yes, the Hale-Bopp Comet
did have something to do with it
because Ti and Do, from the beginning,
were very tuned in to the significance
of celestial events and their synchronistic...
association with events on Earth.
DO: Within the past 24 hours,
I have been clearly informed
by my older member
of how short the time is.
JANJA LALICH: They believe there was a spaceship
behind the Hale-Bopp Comet
that was Ti coming to get them.
And so they went to town, and they bought a...
very expensive telescope.
[soft chatter, laughter]
SAWYER: Do and the crew, they had a telescope,
and they were watching the heavens,
recording anything they saw
in the heavens that was unusual.
JANJA: And they looked up in the sky,
and they didn't see any bloody spaceship.
So, what did they do? They took the telescope
back to the store and said, "This telescope doesn't work."
MAN: They didn't see
what they thought they were going to see.
They said they were looking for the companion.
That's what they told me.
I said, "Companion?" And they said,
"The companion-- the companion of Hale-Bopp."
LARRY KING: Whitley, what do you make
of the connection with Hale-Bopp?
WHITLEY: Well, as you know, there was a lot of controversy
about whether or not there was an object
near the Hale-Bopp Comet.
Myself and another radio host, Art Bell, eventually
discovered this to be a fraud.
SAWYER: Whether there was a companion object
with Hale-Bopp or not was irrelevant.
They recognized that Hale-Bopp was the spacecraft
that they had been talking about coming in the 1970s.
So that just informed them of the timing of their exit.
BENJAMIN: The reason they chose March to exit was
that that's when the comet was closest to Earth.
And that also coincided with Easter.
DO: The Kingdom of Heaven is in our midst.
In other words, the door is open.
If you follow me, you believe in me,
you do exactly as I say,
and you'll get there.
You will not know death.
JANJA: This is, like, 20 years you're waiting
for the ship to come.
If you put yourself in their shoes for a minute,
you can sort of see their sense of relief.
Like, oh, my God, we're finally gonna get out of here.
[music playing]
[distant chatter]
BENJAMIN: Members of Heaven's Gate had
their Christmas party in December,
before the suicides.
[soft chatter]
You see them baking cakes, 39 cakes, right?
A member had left and come back,
and you see them greeting the member
and hugging the member.
[laughter]
This is like springtime for you, huh?
[laughing]
Hey, ALXODY!
- You were invited! - [laughter]
...slowly turned to silence...
BENJAMIN: You see them reading out of books.
Sort of telling a story. It was "Jumanji," actually.
"'Jumanji,' she read on the box.
A jungle adventure game..."
BENJAMIN: You see them doing a talent show.
[applause]
[laughter]
Everything about this group, if you didn't know
there was a suicide three months later,
you wouldn't say, well, this is a group that was
about to end their lives.
[laughter]
[applause]
SAWYER: For the group to lay down their vehicles,
their suits of clothing that they were wearing,
wasn't a big deal to them because they believed
all this... already,
and they not only believed it,
but they-- they had related with Do enough,
and they trusted him a hundred percent.
No, I'm just here for the entertainment.
[laughter]
♪ Let's start at the very beginning ♪
♪ A very good place to start ♪
♪ When you sing, you begin with do re mi ♪
♪ When it's time, you begin with Do and Ti ♪
♪ Ti and Do ♪
♪ Do re mi fa so la ti ♪
[Radiohead, "Everything in Its Right Place"]
They all headed up to Gold Beach, Oregon,
which is where Bonnie and Herff had had their revelation.
REPORTER: In a detailed ledger left behind by the cult,
the weeks leading up to the mass suicide read
like one big vacation.
Trips to SeaWorld,
San Diego's wild animal park.
Mexico, and the Stratosphere Hotel in Las Vegas,
where they gambled and won $20.
BENJAMIN: Suicide was not something that
they decided on a moment's notice
they were going to do.
They began the buildup actually in the end of 1996,
in terms of uploading content to their website.
♪ Everything ♪
♪ In its right place ♪
BENJAMIN: They feared the government may try
to take down their website,
so they had sent physical floppy disks
around the world with copies of their materials,
so that, in the event the government took down
their American host, it could be hosted
in, I believe, it was Brazil and Poland.
♪ In its right place ♪
BENJAMIN: They also made efforts
to have their intellectual property maintained
by several ex-members with whom they had
a positive and favorable relationship.
♪ Yesterday, I was... ♪
BENJAMIN: And they actually thought that all the interest
in Hale-Bopp Comet was an impetus for doing this.
♪ Sucking a lemon... ♪
♪ Everything ♪
For members of Heaven's Gate and for Do,
this was their chance.
Are you filming this? No.
This is March 19, 1997.
I've been talking to my students
that are sitting in front of me.
And, let me say that our mission here
at this time is about to come to a close
in the next few days.
They were trying to get our attention,
'cause they thought we might follow them,
and we might save our souls, effectively.
BENJAMIN: They created several VHS tapes,
which they sent to some former members.
JASON BARTEL: They planned it out really well.
They were just asking that our information
be distributed after we're gone.
DO: We're gonna begin our interviews today
with SRRODY.
How long have you been in this classroom circumstance?
Since Valentine's Day, 21 years ago.
Yeah, I'll be happy just to get the suit of clothes off
and put on a brand-new fresh set with new vibrations
and-- and be in a new atmosphere.
I just wish people could understand
how... it was instant recognition for me
when I met Ti and Do in Waldport
only 21 years ago,
and-- and there was never a doubt in my mind.
I just wish that people out there could understand
how much we feel and know this is real.
This is not a fantasy.
FRANK LYFORD: She has completely adopted
the mindset as taught to her by her older member.
JANJA: You can see them...
taking on exactly the same...
emotional characteristics as their leader.
When you watch the night before,
they had a meeting with Do,
and whenever he talked about Ti,
he choked up
and got teary
and would have to pause.
This chair represents...
my partner...
who I think I mentioned earlier
was with me physically, had taken a body with me.
And so the next day,
when they're saying their goodbyes
and whenever they would refer to Ti,
that they were going off to see Ti,
they would do the same thing.
They would choke up in exactly the same way.
I wish I had the opportunity to meet Ti,
but I know that I soon will,
very shortly, and I can't wait.
And we've all tried to prove to our older members
that we're worthy of the effort
and the sacrifice they made. [sobbing]
We're very happy and proud
to have been members of Ti and Do's Class
and couldn't be happier about what we're about to do.
[laughter]
To me, that's one example of what we might call brainwashing.
I can hardly wait.
And I'm ready to go.
JANJA: So, if you're sitting there,
and you say, "I'm gonna do this,"
and you say it in front of everyone else,
well, you're far less likely then
to say, "Oh, no, I don't wanna do it."
You know, go running out in the street, right?
I feel very honored
and very, very lucky
that I wasn't stuck back in the world
where I chose to...
make the mistake of going for a while.
KELLY COOKE: I think when I first saw it,
I wanted to grab her
through the camera lens. [laughing]
Tell her, "No, you don't have to do this."
[chuckling]
This isn't a troubling circumstance.
Don't take it as that. It's just a gateway.
Just a doorway.
DO: Okay, thank you.
This was the last log that was used
when they signed out before the suicides.
And they wrote little comments for their ETR--
estimated time of return.
And say things like "Bye!" or "Never."
Question mark. "Hasta la vista, baby."
We hope that we took advantage of the time that we had
incarnate in these human vehicles
and will be of better service to The Next Level because of it.
If you want information about us,
and lower forces don't interfere,
you can find it at our site on the internet.
www.heavensgate.com
And one last thing we'd like to say is,
39 to beam up, thank you.
[background laughter]
[solitary clapping]
[eerie pulsing music]
VOICE: Dispatcher 55.
DiANGELO: Hello? VOICE: Hello?
DiANGELO: Yes, I need to report...
an anonymous tip.
This is regarding... [continues]
SAWYER: Rio joined the group,
I think, from California in 1994.
And then he left the group
two weeks before they laid down their lives.
I had a very uneasy feeling--
a strange feeling-- that I needed to do something
outside of the Class.
And I spoke to Do about it,
and he felt that
it was probably part of the plan.
Some higher plan that we didn't know about.
DAVID: Apparently, he had talked to Do
and asked if he could leave.
That he had a vision, that he should
write about his experiences
and write something about the group.
So, he left within a week before the suicides.
After leaving the group, he got a packet from--
instructions from Do and others saying,
if you could go to the house and make a recording
of what you see, you'll find us here.
SAWYER: Rio is the one that Do sent
a bunch of information to, with a letter that...
said that they were laying down their lives.
And so he informed the police of that.
That became what's known as the Heaven's Gate suicides.
REPORTER: Police in San Diego County say
they've discovered what appears to be
a mass suicide
at a multi-million dollar mansion in Rancho Santa Fe.
That's about 20 miles north of San Diego.
2nd REPORTER: Rumors are rampant around here.
Unconfirmed rumors that there may be
as many as 30 or 40 people inside that house.
We do know from neighbors though
that a religious group did move in back in the fall,
and that they have been very, very quiet.
I waved over the fence to some people.
They never uttered a word.
3rd REPORTER: Around town, the cult next door was
paying its bills in advance, picking up the mail.
Eating a sort of last supper
of turkey pot pie.
They all ordered the same drink,
and they all had the same dinner and dessert.
And bidding a cryptic farewell to friends at the car wash.
ALEX: And he said, "Hey, Alex,
we just stopped by to say goodbye."
Um, and he took off his-- his pendant
and handed it to me.
REPORTER: We have just learned from a briefing
by sheriff's deputies that apparently
39 bodies have been found.
All of them apparently male.
I knew they were thinking they were men, all men,
because they all had short hair.
And I knew the females had short hair.
4th REPORTER: Now, the coroner's officials have
stopped in the street; they are talking
to members of the media.
Several dozen of them now gathered
outside the van's door,
trying to get word, any detail at all,
on this story.
Peaceful.
That's the only way I can describe it, peaceful.
We don't know what the cause of death is at this point.
REPORTER: What did the inside of the house look like?
We have-- We have no idea.
FRANK: I heard a news report
on the radio of
"monastic group of men
had been found dead."
Chills went up and down my spine.
I thought,
"They've finally done it."
I knew it was them.
REPORTER: Now, police are saying that
these bodies were found in different rooms of the house.
They were found lying prone,
with their hands at their sides,
and they are saying that there were no signs of trauma.
TOM BROKAW: 21 women, 18 men,
all dressed in similar outfits.
Apparently they all thought
they were headed to Heaven in a spaceship.
CALVIN VINE: This room here was the actual computer room,
and there were two bodies in there.
Back in the far right-hand corner,
there were four bodies back in there.
And they were dressed in black slacks.
Black Nike shoes.
And most of them wore a wedding band
on their left hand.
Most of them had $5.75 in their pockets.
The $5.75
has to do with the old Mark Twain story.
Mark Twain said that $5.75
was the cost to ride the tail of a comet to Heaven.
MAN: The bodies have been dead for varying periods of time.
Some of them look like 24-36 hours.
Others look like three days, three-plus days.
It appears there were... in three groups.
First group went ahead with this plan,
and the second group sort of assisted them,
cleaned up after them, and covered them
with this red cloth after they had died.
And the third team helped the second team.
And then they were finally down to two people
who were not shrouded with these sheets.
We believe they were the last ones.
They did have plastic bags over their heads.
CALVIN: Cause of death was
asphyxia by plastic bag,
and contributing factor was the alcohol
and the phenobarbital.
Of interest was that Marshall Applewhite
was not the last one to die.
He was in the second group.
Upstairs was the huge master bedroom,
and he was there alone in the king-sized bed.
TOM BROKAW: For the families of the victims,
news of these suicides, in many cases,
that was the first they had heard
of their relatives in years.
It was part of a Heaven's Gate credo.
No contact with outside family members.
When you heard about what happened
north of San Diego, did you know immediately?
No, I didn't, umm, a friend of mine called me at work
and started telling me, "You're not gonna believe
what I'm seeing on TV."
And she mentioned the term "Father Do,"
and she mentioned the UFO and...
- with the Hale-Bopp Comet. - Then you knew.
And then I went, "Oh, man," so I started
making some phone calls, and I found out
they'd shown my mom's picture and Herff's picture.
- Sad. - It is, it really is.
TERRIE: My mom was such a special lady,
and she had such a genuine heart
and so much compassion for people.
And she would've never taken the group
to the conclusion that it came to.
Do was so caught up in his own head
and his own narcissistic beliefs.
I know that the former members don't feel that way.
And I try really hard to honor what they believe.
Uh, and-- but my own belief
is that they might all still be with us,
had Do gotten the mental assistance he needed.
The moment I was dreading most of my life...
had finally happened.
DO: SLVODY was also out of the classroom
for a while, and she knew that this was where her life was.
Then she came back to life when she had an opportunity
to return to the classroom.
ROBERT: Leaves an awful big hole in your life.
ALICE: And it's been a big enough hole
for three years, but now that hole is never gonna heal,
because she's... she's gone.
ROBERT: I mean, the kid's supposed to bury the old folks,
not the other way around.
ALICE: Every day, you think about her, you know?
What would she be like at 48?
What we're about to do is certainly nothing to...
think negatively about.
We're all choosing of our own free will
to go to The Next Level with Ti and Do.
REPORTER: In an odd footnote, one of the dead has been
identified as the brother of actress Nichelle Nichols,
the actress who played Lieutenant Uhura,
in the "Star Trek" television series,
much of it set on a spaceship.
NICHELLE NICHOLS: I respect my brother's wishes.
And I respect him as a human being.
I respect him as an intelligent human being.
We all feel very emotional about, um...
the gift that we've been given.
And...
I'm the happiest person in the world.
I think Sawyer is the one
that actually first used this term.
Do always wanted to go out with a splash.
[distant clamor]
And right from the beginning, the whole thing is
they're gonna have this Demonstration
where they're gonna be assassinated
in front of thousands of people,
and this is gonna be worldwide news,
and it's gonna be on TV all around the world
when the spacecraft comes down and picks them up.
As the old saying goes, you know,
the worst death of all is death by obscurity.
So, by killing themselves,
they ensured their immortality in a sense.
BENJAMIN: The public response to Heaven's Gate
was dismissal of these people as idiots,
as brainwashed, as fools, as a joke.
You know who else tried to teach
a bunch of Dumbos to fly?
The leader of the Heaven's Gate religious cult.
[laughter]
Who told his followers that they could all
fly away from Earth on a spaceship
by committing mass suicide.
Whoo! Yay, religion!
Okay, no, no, don't...
[cheering]
Ted! Ted! Whoo!
We made it! We made it, whoo!
[cheers]
Tell me, are there any regrets?
Yeah, the castration thing.
I was way off on that one, Ted.
It turns out it had nothing to do with anything.
And in fact, when we got here,
everyone just looked at me like, "Applewhite, you nutball."
Yeah, but he's our nutball.
- He's our nutball. - Yeah!
SAWYER: I was scared of going public,
but I felt like I-- I needed to...
I knew that they weren't getting
the most accurate reporting on them.
LARRY KING: Joining us now from Seattle is
Andrew, a member of Heaven's Gate
for 18 years, from 1975 to 1993--
that's an assumed name, by the way.
In New York is Sawyer, also an assumed name,
and he was a member of Heaven's Gate.
What do you make of this, Sawyer?
Well, see, the group was looking to leave the planet,
and they were gonna do it in any way
that they possibly could.
Okay, so they were thinking, brainstorming constantly
on how that might occur, so that they could then--
- their souls could then... - I see.
...move into The Next Level.
If you had stayed a few more years,
would you have killed yourself with them?
I doubt it. I... I mean...
- Sawyer, if... - It was a shock to me.
You left in '94, that's not too long ago.
Would you have killed yourself with them, Sawyer?
Well, surprisingly as it may seem,
I... had-- at the time, I thought I would, yes.
FRANK: The people who covered it, in general,
weren't of a mind to dig deeper with it.
[music]
MAN: This is a failed episode from "Star Trek"
that Gene Roddenberry would put his thumbs down to.
2nd MAN: What we're talking about in this case
is really mental illness disguised as religion.
3rd MAN: I just think it's something we've gotta let people
practice under the First Amendment.
These people were adults, they did this freely,
and from all we can gather, they're now happy.
4th MAN: I think only a fraction of people
would really fall for something so bizarre.
There-- There-- There is an underlying desperation.
MATT LAUER: When you hear the word "cult" used
to describe this group, Will, how do you feel about it?
Just 15 seconds, if you will.
If you look up the definition of cult,
the Republican Party is a cult.
- [Matt laughing] - I mean, you know,
there are so many...
you know, you attach a label to all this,
and you read the labels,
and you don't get behind and look
at what's really going on deep.
We've been compared to Jonestown,
we've been compared to...
MAN: Well, now you're gonna be compared to Jonestown.
And what do you mean, "we"? You're not part of this anymore.
In a sense, I am.
I left, but when you see those people,
you reexperience that.
It will always be with you. This will always be with me.
I don't disclaim it.
STEVE: I got a call from a producer
who had just interviewed Dick Joslyn,
and said, "We think he's gonna kill himself.
Can you help him?"
In all of my interventions,
the goal isn't to get the person out
or to force the person to agree with me.
The goal is to empower them to think for themselves.
WOMAN: Is that today's paper?
DICK: No, that's an older...
STEVE: Well, as I've discovered in my work,
the vast number of people who get involved with groups
walk out of them.
But just because you physically leave,
doesn't mean the group
- gets out of your head. - Right.
I mean, I've been out of the group seven years,
and I'm very aware that I haven't ever processed
anything of it, other than just my own
in-the-middle-of-the-night struggles.
And I'm also aware that I-- I'm just like,
I feel dysfunctional.
- Mm-hmm. - And that's why I'm here, Steve,
that's because there are all these issues
that make me feel like something is...
is keeping me from readjusting,
and being a happy person, and functional in the world.
And I know that I've got stuff to give.
- Mm-hmm. - And that process
of the will emerging.
- Mm-hmm. - And-- and in spite of how...
solidly it's been put down, it still raises up.
It's like a little plant breaking through concrete,
that the power of the... of the individual mind
is saying, I'm sorry, I just can't buy this anymore.
And why did I do that, and why didn't my Classmates,
who were such richly gifted people?
STEVE: You're a very strong person
and you saw through it.
Thank God.
And we're gonna sign off on...
- Bye, see you next time. - ...May 28th, 1997.
See you next time.
My frustration with the media is pretty universal,
that they tend to want sensationalized elements
without getting into the nitty-gritty
of how this can happen to intelligent, educated people
from good homes.
So, it's again, this fundamental attribution error
of, like, "what's-- what's wrong with these people,"
instead of saying they were just programmed
and influenced in a systematic way.
Dick Joslyn says that he is aware
of at least a half-dozen members
who plan to do the same thing in the future.
Wow, he said that just today?
Yeah, just-- we just got this on the wire this morning.
Yes, well, that doesn't surprise me, either,
and I wouldn't be surprised if there were more.
When I think of my brother,
I think of him with sad brown eyes.
And although this is in black and white,
this is very typical of him.
I was watching TV one night,
and I saw pictures of the 39 people.
They were showing tennis shoes with purple shrouds over them.
And so, I got a hold of my aunt.
You know, I said, did you see the mass suicide today?
And she's like, "Oh yeah, those people are crazy."
And I said, that's the cult Jimmy was in.
Five weeks after the mass suicide,
I got a call from my aunt, and she was crying.
He had sent her a letter saying,
"By the time you get this, I should be dead."
And she sent my cousin's husband over.
And when he knocked on the door, he heard the gun go off.
[gunshot echoing]
He left his farewell, and then he left pictures
that he had cut out of a magazine
of all of his former cult members,
of all of his former Class members.
And he had tagged them underneath
with their ODY names.
And he drew an image
of the 39 of them being lifted up.
LESLIE STAHL: Wayne Cooke, a Heaven's Gate dropout
who still believed,
appeared on "60 Minutes" in March
to explain why his wife and 38 other Classmates
committed suicide.
KELLY COOKE: The only reason I was on "60 Minutes,"
is I accompanied my father to these things.
LESLIE: Your mother was one of the 39
who committed suicide with that group.
Now, they think that she's up in a spacecraft.
Do you believe that?
[sighs] This'll be very difficult
for people to understand, but this is something
she worked all of her life to accomplish.
This-- she graduated.
LESLIE: You wish you had gone with them?
I wish I had the strength to have remained,
to have gained the kind of control
through Do's help, Ti's help,
to have stuck it out
and continued to be a part of that group.
Yes.
KELLY: I was just pleading with him
to live this life with-- with me
in this world, you know?
Not-- Not to abandon it.
[sighs]
He was living in Vegas then, with Chuck.
I just could tell it was gonna happen.
DAVID TAYLOR: After the suicides,
we interviewed Chuck Humphrey,
and he gave me this t-shirt.
And true to his own beliefs,
it says, "Heaven's Gate-- what if they're right?"
Hi, my name is RKKODY,
and by the time that you see this tape,
um, I'll be gone.
KELLY: I had been up all night.
Doorbell rang, and it was a FedEx package.
I open it up, and it was a video.
I'm happy. [chuckles]
And I... want very much to follow my Classmates
and... my teachers, Ti and Do.
MAN: It took about three hours
for San Diego County sheriff detectives
to zero in on this Encinitas hotel,
and this particular hotel room, room 222.
This is where two people tried to commit suicide.
I got a call, someone was alive still.
I don't think I've ever experienced
such a confusing emotion to have.
You know, maybe my father's alive.
But is that good? I don't know, you know?
I mean, it went back and forth a couple times,
like being on a rollercoaster for several hours,
no sleep, just insane.
MAN: This is where two people tried to commit suicide.
One of them, former Heaven's Gate member,
55-year-old Wayne Cooke, died here,
and his body was removed late this afternoon.
His partner, 57-year-old Charles Humphrey
was found on the floor, barely alive.
Chuck reflexively pulled the plastic bag,
and the drugs didn't kill him.
JASON: This'll sound morbid, but I felt bad.
I was like, I knew he wanted to go.
And then, he wakes up chained to a hospital bed,
you know, and he's like, "This doesn't look
anything like a spacecraft."
Our objective was to leave the vehicles
and catch up with the Class,
and catch up with our Older Member.
I-- I tried my best to do it at this time, at failed.
Mr. Humphrey, would you ever attempt suicide again?
- I don't know. - You don't know?
I can't answer that question.
JASON: Chuck emailed me, and he's like,
"I'm going out to this spot.
I'll see you upstairs," essentially.
I knew exactly where he was going.
It was a spot we'd camped at.
He knew I was the only person
who-- who wouldn't freak out and try to stop him.
I mean, he was always adamant
that he was 100% supportive of what they did,
and obviously, he tried to follow in their footsteps,
not once, but twice.
In their minds, Ti and Do were the Second Coming,
just different form.
So, how do you tell them
that the Second Coming is wrong? [chuckles]
ROBERT: Shortly after the suicides happen,
there was this woman, Lee Ann Wolfe, she called me up,
and she identified herself as an ex-member
and told me that she was just living
up on Flathead Lake here...
and kinda put me in touch with a lot of other people.
And we have the reunion in 1998.
TERRIE: In 1998, out in Montana,
there was a Heaven's Gate reunion.
Rob flew me out there,
and a bunch of other people, ex-Heaven's Gaters.
ROBERT: People getting along.
Lorraine remaining 100% true believer.
It is a very difficult trip.
It's a very difficult thing to do.
But it had such wonderful, beautiful endings,
that it is all very much worthwhile.
I believe that TiDo know my mind.
And her daughter Sharon was the very first follower.
SHARON NELSON: At the beginning, they were sort of humble.
You know, two people out there in the wilderness
trying to figure out what they're supposed to do.
And you must understand that Marshall Herff Applewhite
has a complex, and it's called the messiah complex.
Regardless of how they left here,
it doesn't matter.
To me, they're on a higher level of understanding.
Absolutely convinced that all of her Classmates
were out in The Next Level.
Dick Joslyn at this point is convinced
that he had been brainwashed, but here they are,
hanging out on very good terms.
It was very cathartic
for most people, I think, who went there.
But then, Terrie Nettles had brought copies
of these letters that her mom had written her.
So, Terrie read excerpts from these letters
to these people in the group,
and they were, all of them, absolutely dumbfounded
when they heard
that while they're being told,
"you gotta give up your family,
"and you're never gonna see them again,
and you can't have any human attachments,"
and all of that, and meanwhile,
Ti has been writing home and signing letters
like "Love, Mom, love always,"
and giving advice about how her daughter
should conform to the ways of the world.
The date on here was August 13th, 1982.
She says, "Be good, strive for goodness,
"and by all means, conform to society
so that you will have peace of mind."
I'm sorry, that was not their MO.
They didn't believe in causing violence
or anything like that.
But by all means, conform to society?
That was not what they were doing.
That was code.
I look back on that, that was code,
but I didn't know it at the time.
But I just feel like she wanted out of the group.
ROBERT: When Terrie read those passages,
I was really shocked.
And all the members, absolutely across the board,
they were just like-- not just flabbergasted,
but a couple of 'em were just, like, pissed off.
JANJA: During that whole time, Ti was writing letters
to her daughter back in Texas and telling her to, like,
do the right thing, go to college.
[laughing] You know, and so you think,
okay, if this lady really believed what she's saying,
to me, that is the most duplicitous example
of sort of the con.
TERRIE: People were angry,
and I just kinda wanted to slither out of there.
They weren't angry at me, and I knew that.
Looks to me like Ti really wanted to go home,
but at the same time, she's probably thinking,
"Here I am in this group, I have this comfortable life,
"or I go home, and I'm constantly barraged by,
"'Why did you run away? Why did you abandon your kids?'
"Hm, I think it's gonna be easier for me to stay here
"and die in this group than it is to go home
and deal with all of that."
She got in so deep and into it,
that she wasn't able to turn around.
FRANK: When I left the Class, left the group,
and tried to navigate my life
as a citizen at large,
didn't really know who I was.
I'm finally at a point where I could say
I want to be free.
I want to travel the country,
I want to roam free.
So, I got a van.
I'm gonna be on the road,
and I'll be learning to have fun...
like I haven't allowed myself to.
She was the love of my life.
I'm sure I will.
SAWYER: I worked with Frank a number of times.
His name in the group was ANDODY, A-N-D-O-D-Y.
And Erika's name in the group was CHKODY, C-H-K-O-D-Y.
And she got that name by taking the name "Check,"
like "check partner."
They're both beautiful souls.
I... I feel like Sawyer is...
is stuck.
SAWYER: I don't feel guilt. I feel like
I flunked a test, I flunked my test,
and that I could have graduated with them.
I had the capacity to do that.
I believe that 100%.
Do left the door open,
and so there's nobody that can close it.
Only he can close it,
when he decides that it's time.
And then we won't be talking about this anymore.
[Aimee Mann, "Save Me"]
JANJA: I think there are two lessons
of the Heaven's Gate story.
One is to not be judgmental.
You know, everybody wants to think,
"Oh, those are those crazy people.
That's-- I would never do that."
Mm, not so fast.
But I suppose the most important lesson
is to be careful.
We tend to look for these easy answers,
and I think it's important to remember
that nobody has all the answers.
And once you turn that over to someone,
you put yourself at great risk.
♪ Save me ♪
♪ Come on and ♪
♪ Save Me ♪
DEB: It's an ongoing puzzle in my life,
where I'm always going to wonder,
was there something that I could have done?
KELLY: I knew they loved me.
I just didn't trust that they knew how to love me.
♪ They could never love anyone ♪
I don't know if you ever get over it, really.
JASON: Some people are probably still upset
by losing the people that they lost.
And the only thing I can say is that
they really, truly are in a better place.
It's true.
♪ You know what it's like ♪
DO: They say that we're a hoax,
say that we're just two misguided,
insane creatures,
and that these poor misguided individuals
and others like them are-- are endeavoring
to do this thing.
They're stronger now.
They have rid themselves more
of the garbage they have collected.
If we even turned out to not be what we were,
they are ten times what they have ever been,
and they know it.
[song continues]
♪ Come on and ♪
♪ Save me ♪
♪ Why don't you ♪
♪ Save me ♪
♪ Come on and ♪
♪ Save me ♪
♪ From the ranks of the freaks ♪
♪ Who suspect they could never love anyone ♪
♪ Except the freaks ♪
♪ Who could never love anyone ♪♪