Re: its Fairfax ready for 12-21-12
Posted by:
Mothership
()
Date: December 03, 2012 05:13PM
On March 19–20, 1997, Marshall Applewhite taped himself speaking of mass suicide and asserted "it was the only way to evacuate this Earth". The Heaven's Gate group was against suicide, but they believed they had no choice but to leave Earth as quickly as possible.
After claiming that a space craft was trailing the comet Hale–Bopp, Applewhite convinced 38 followers to commit suicide so that their souls could board the supposed craft. Applewhite believed that after their deaths, a UFO would take their souls to another "level of existence above human", which he described as being both physical and spiritual. This and other UFO-related beliefs held by the group have led some observers to characterize the group as a type of UFO religion. In October 1996, the group purchased alien abduction insurance to cover up to 50 members at a cost of $10,000.[13]