San Diego, California. The Heaven’s Gate sect, founded in 1974 and led by Marshall Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles, upon hearing the news of the arrival of the Hale-Bopp comet, recognizes the signal and believes it is being followed by an extraterrestrial spacecraft. Thirty-nine of them commit ritual suicide. On their website, they leave the following message: “Hale-Bopp brings closure to Heaven’s Gate… Our 22 years of classroom experience here on planet Earth is finally coming to a conclusion—graduation from the Human Evolutionary Level. We are happily prepared to leave this world and go with Ti’s crew.”
