Heaven’s Gate was a religious sect led by Marshall Herff Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles that combined apocalyptic Christian beliefs with UFO themes.  On 26 March 1997, police discovered 39 members of the Heaven’s Gate cult had committed mass suicide in their rented California mansion.

The first incarnation of Heaven’s Gate started in the early 1970s when Marshall Applewhite was recovering from a heart attack.  He claimed to have had a near death experience that led him to believe that he and his nurse, Bonnie Nettles, were “The Two”  witnesses…