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00:00The name of this song is
00:27When You Know, Do You Go
00:28By The Clamps
00:30The Holy Spirit
00:44To Take Us Home
00:46Pray The Focus That's On Me
00:50Me, Oh Me, They Subtle Mine
00:55But this level will not be
00:59So we go accordingly
01:02To the level of love you have
01:07To the one followed I know
01:11And the screams of star
01:13To the one who is our older man
01:16And who will be
01:18Peace by soul
01:19May love my dear
01:52While I was in the group, we were in touch with a bulletin board service.
02:01Because of that, we were becoming informed about what the UFO community was talking about.
02:13In late 1996, the group began to orient itself towards departure.
02:18And 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.
02:32The most important name to think about here is Art Bell.
02:39Art Bell was a source of conspiratorial thinking.
02:43And you could tune in and you could listen to everything from beliefs about space aliens and UFOs to Bigfoot.
02:49Chuck Schrammett in Houston, Texas.
02:53Chuck, welcome to the program.
02:55Thanks, Art.
02:55A lot of people have felt something's going on with Hale-Bopp.
02:59Well, I have too.
03:00There's been a real lack of pictures from the Hubble Space Telescope or any big observatories.
03:07So that got me all the more curious.
03:09I can smell when they're...
03:10Why would they do that?
03:11Perhaps they saw something they felt might disturb people.
03:16You have just taken a photograph.
03:17When did you take it?
03:18Tonight?
03:19I took it at 6 o'clock this evening.
03:216 o'clock.
03:22All right.
03:23This thing appears to be several times larger than the Earth.
03:27And my heart starts going faster.
03:30The next day, Art Bell gets another call.
03:33And this call is from Courtney Brown, who's part of the Farsight Institute.
03:37He and his students claim there is a very large object following Hale-Bopp Comet.
03:45Professor, what the hell is that?
03:48This object is four times, approximately four times, the size of the planet Earth.
03:54And it's headed our way.
03:56Now, for members of Heaven's Gate, this is important for a couple of reasons.
03:59One is their idea of the next level spaceships they're going to go on to are really, really big.
04:03The other is they've been looking for a sign for the end for quite a while.
04:08The term they use is a marker.
04:10The Hale-Bopp Comet had something to do with the decision to do it now.
04:13Why now?
04:14Why not 1999?
04:16Yes, the Hale-Bopp Comet did have something to do with it because T and Dell, from the beginning,
04:21were very tuned in to the significance of celestial events and their synchronistic association with events on Earth.
04:27Within the past 24 hours, I have been clearly informed by my older member of how short the time is.
04:37They believed there was a spaceship behind the Hale-Bopp Comet that was T coming to get them.
04:44And so they went to town and they bought a very expensive telescope.
04:48Doe and the crew, they had a telescope and they were watching the heavens, recording anything
05:01they saw in the heavens that was unusual.
05:05And they looked up in the sky and they didn't see any bloody spaceship.
05:09So what did they do?
05:10They took the telescope back to the store and said, this telescope doesn't work.
05:15They didn't see what they thought they were going to see.
05:20They said they were looking for the companion.
05:22That's what they told me.
05:23I said companion and they said the companion, the companion of Hale-Bopp.
05:29Whitley, what do you make of the connection with the Hale-Bopp?
05:32Well, as you know, there was a lot of controversy about whether or not there was an object near
05:36the Hale-Bopp Comet.
05:38Myself and another radio host, Art Bell, eventually discovered this to be a fraud.
05:42Whether there was a companion object with Hale-Bopp or not was irrelevant.
05:49They recognized that Hale-Bopp was the spacecraft that they had been talking about coming in
05:54the 1970s.
05:56So that just informed them of the timing of their exit.
05:59The reason they just marched to exit was that that's when the comet was closest to Earth.
06:06And that's also coincided with Easter.
06:09The kingdom of heaven is in our midst.
06:12In other words, the door is open.
06:15You follow me, you believe in me, you do exactly as I say, and you'll get there.
06:23You will not know death.
06:27This is like 20 years you're waiting for the ship to come.
06:30If you put yourself in their shoes for a minute, you can sort of see their sense of relief.
06:34Like, oh my God, we're finally going to get out of here.
06:38This is like 20 years you're waiting for the ship to come.
07:08Members of Heaven's Gate had their Christmas party in December, before the suicides.
07:25You see them baking cakes, 39 cakes, right?
07:28A member had left and come back, and you see them greeting the member and hugging the member.
07:40You see them reading out of books, sort of telling a story.
07:58It was Jumanji, actually.
08:00Jumanji, a jungle adventure game.
08:04You see them doing a talent show.
08:06Everything about this group, if you didn't know there was a suicide three months later,
08:23you wouldn't say, well, this is a group that was about to end their lives.
08:25For the group to lay down their vehicles, the suits of clothing that they were wearing,
08:36wasn't a big deal to them, because they believed all this already.
08:39And they not only believed it, but they had related with Joe enough, and they trusted him 100%.
08:45Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start.
09:00They all headed up to Gold Beach, Oregon, which is where Bonnie and Herford had their revelation.
09:26In a detailed ledger left behind by the cult, the weeks leading up to the mass suicide read like one big vacation.
09:37Trips to SeaWorld, San Diego's wild animal park.
09:46Mexico, and the Stratosphere Hotel in Las Vegas, where they gambled and won $20.
09:51That suicide was not something that they decided on a moment's notice they were going to do.
09:58They began the buildup, actually, in the end of 1996, in terms of uploading content to their website.
10:04They 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,
10:22so that in the event the government took down their American host, it could be hosted, and I believe it was Brazil and Poland.
10:27They also made efforts to have their intellectual property maintained by several ex-members with whom they had a positive and favorable relationship.
10:44And they actually thought that all the interest in Hale-Bopp Comet was an impetus for doing this.
10:50For members of Heaven State and for Doe, this was their chance.
11:05Are you filming this? No.
11:06This is March 19, 1997.
11:13I've been talking to my students that are sitting in front of me.
11:18And let me say that our mission here at this time is about to come to a close in the next few days.
11:26They were trying to get our attention because they thought we might follow them and we might save our souls effectively.
11:33They created several VHS tapes, which they sent to some former members.
11:45They planned it out really well.
11:46They were just asking that our information be distributed after we're gone.
11:51We're going to begin our interviews today with Sir Rody.
11:53How long have you been in this classroom circumstance?
11:57Since Valentine's Day, 21 years ago.
12:01I'd be happy just to get the suit of clothes off and put on a brand new, fresh set with new vibrations and be in a new atmosphere.
12:09I just wish people could understand how it was instant recognition for me when I met Tindo in Longport only 21 years ago.
12:19And there was never a doubt in my mind.
12:24I just wish that people out there could understand how much we feel and know this is real.
12:30This is not a fantasy.
12:32She has completely adopted the mindset as taught to her by her older member.
12:42You could see them taking on exactly the same emotional characteristics as their leader.
12:51When you watch the night before, they had a meeting with Doe, and whenever he talked about T, he choked up and got teary and would have to pause.
13:08This chair represents my partner, who I think I mentioned earlier was with me physically, had taken a body with me.
13:19And so the next day, when they're saying their goodbyes, and whenever they would refer to T, that they were going off to see T, they would do the same thing.
13:29They would choke up in exactly the same way.
13:31I wish I had the opportunity to meet T, but I know that I soon will, very shortly, and I can't wait.
13:40And we've all tried to prove to our older members that we're worthy of the effort and sacrifice they've made.
13:49We're very happy and proud to have been members of Tito's class, and couldn't be happier about what we're about to do.
14:05To me, that's one example of what we might call brainwashing.
14:09I can hardly wait, and I'm ready to go.
14:12So if you're sitting there, and you say, I'm going to do this, and you say it in front of everyone else,
14:20well, you're far less likely then to say, oh, no, I don't want to do it, and go running out in the street, right?
14:27I 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.
14:38I think when I first saw it, I wanted to grab her through the camera lens.
14:48Tell her, no, you don't have to do this.
14:51This isn't a troubling circumstance.
15:01Don't take it as that.
15:02It's just a gateway, just a doorway.
15:05Okay, thank you.
15:06This was the last log that was used when they signed out before the suicides.
15:10And they wrote little comments, but when their ETR has no time of return, and say things like bye or never, question mark, hasta la vista, baby.
15:20We hope that we took advantage of the time that we had incarnate in these human vehicles, and we'll be of better service to the next level because of it.
15:32If you want information about us, and lower forces don't interfere, you can find it at our site on the internet, www.heavensgate.com.
15:43And one last thing we'd like to say is, 39 to beam up.
18:38And so he informed the police of that.
18:40That became what's known as the Heaven's Gate suicides.
18:48Police in San Diego County say they've discovered what appears to be a mass suicide
18:53at a multi-million dollar mansion in Rancho Santa Fe.
18:56That's about 20 miles north of San Diego.
19:00Rumors are rampant around here.
19:02Unconfirmed rumors that there may be as many as 30 or 40 people inside that house.
19:07We do know from neighbors, though, that a religious group did move in back in the fall
19:11and that they have been very, very quiet.
19:14I waved over the fence to some people. They never uttered a word.
19:18Around town, the cult next door was paying its bills in advance,
19:21picking up the mail, eating a sort of last supper of turkey pot pie.
19:26They all ordered the same drink and they all had the same dinner and dessert.
19:30And bidding a cryptic farewell to friends at the car wash.
19:33And he said, hey, Alex, we just stopped by to say goodbye.
19:38And he took off his pendant and handed it to me.
19:43We have just learned from a briefing by sheriff's deputies
19:46that apparently 39 bodies have been found, all of them apparently male.
19:51I knew they were thinking they were men, all men, because they all had short hair.
20:00And I knew the females had short hair.
20:02Now the coroner's officials have stopped in the street.
20:08We are talking to members of the media.
20:10Several dozen of them are now gathered outside the dam's door,
20:14trying to get word, any detail at all, on this story.
20:17The only way I can describe a piece.
20:21We don't know what the cause of death is at this point.
20:23What did the inside of the house look like?
20:25We have no idea.
20:27I heard a news report on the radio.
20:32A monastic group of men had been found dead.
20:42Chills went up and down my spine.
20:44I thought, they've finally done it.
20:48I knew it was then.
20:54Now police are saying that these bodies were found in different rooms of the house.
20:59They were found lying prone with their hands at their sides.
21:03And they are saying that there were no signs of trauma.
21:0621 women, 18 men, all dressed in similar outfits.
21:11Apparently they all thought they were headed to heaven in a spaceship.
21:15This room here was the actual computer room.
21:19And there were two bodies in there.
21:22Back in the far right-hand corner, there were four bodies back in there.
21:32They were dressed in black slacks, black Nike shoes.
21:37And most of them wore a wedding band on their left hand.
21:42Most of them had $5.75 in their pockets.
21:47The $5.75 has to do with the whole Mark Twain story.
21:54Mark Twain said that $5.75 was the cost to ride the tail of a comet to heaven.
22:03The bodies had been dead for varying periods of time.
22:08Some of them looked like 24 to 36 hours.
22:11Others looked like three days, three plus days.
22:14It appears they were in three groups.
22:17The first group went ahead with this plan.
22:19And the second group sort of assisted them, cleaned up after them,
22:22and covered them with this red cloth after they had died.
22:26And the third team helped the second team.
22:29And then they were finally down to two people who were not shrouded with these sheets.
22:34So we believe they were the last ones.
22:36And they did have plastic bags over their heads.
22:38Cause of death was asphyxia by plastic bag.
22:44And contributing factor was the alcohol and the phenobarbital.
22:51Of interest was that Marshall Applewhite was not the last one to die.
22:57He was in the second group.
23:00Upstairs was the huge master bedroom.
23:03And he was there alone in the king size bed.
23:18For the families of the victims, news of these suicides in many cases,
23:21that was the first they had heard of their relatives in years.
23:24It was part of a Heaven's Gate credo.
23:27No contact with outside family members.
23:29When you heard about what happened north of San Diego,
23:32did you know immediately?
23:33No, I didn't.
23:34A friend of mine called me at work and started telling me,
23:37you're not going to believe what I'm seeing on TV.
23:39And she mentioned the term Father Doe,
23:41and she mentioned the UFO with the Hale-Bot Comet.
23:45Then you knew.
23:46And then I went, oh, man.
23:47So I started making some phone calls,
23:48and I found out they had shown my mom's picture and Herf's picture.
23:52Sad.
23:53It is. It really is.
23:55My mom was such a special lady,
23:57and she had such a genuine heart and so much compassion for people.
24:03And she would have never taken the group to the conclusion that it came to.
24:10Doe was so caught up in his own head and his own narcissistic beliefs.
24:16I know that the former members don't feel that way,
24:19and I try really hard to honor what they believe.
24:23But my own belief is that they might all still be with us
24:28had Doe gotten the mental assistance he needed.
24:31The moment I was dreaded, most of my life,
24:38that finally happened.
24:42Javoti was also out of the classroom for a while,
24:45and she knew that this was where life was,
24:48and she came back to life when she had an opportunity
24:51to return to the classroom.
24:53It leaves an awful big hole in your life.
24:56And it's been a big enough hole for three years,
24:59but now that hole is never going to heal because she's gone.
25:03I mean, the kids are supposed to bury the old folks,
25:05not the other way around.
25:07Every day you think about her, you know.
25:10What would she be like at 48?
25:12What we're about to do is certainly nothing to think negatively about.
25:20We're all choosing our own free will.
25:22Go to the next level with T and Doe.
25:25In an odd footnote, one of the dead has been identified
25:29as the brother of actress Nichelle Nichols,
25:31the actress who played Lieutenant Uhura
25:33in the Star Trek television series,
25:35much of it set on a spaceship.
25:37I respect my brother's wishes,
25:39and I respect him as a human being.
25:42I respect him as an intelligent human being.
25:46We all feel very emotional about the gift that we've been given.
25:52I'm the happiest person in the world.
25:56I think Sawyer is the one that actually first used this term.
26:02Doe always wanted to go out with a splash.
26:05And right from the beginning, the whole thing is,
26:09they're going to have this demonstration
26:11where they're going to be assassinated
26:13in front of thousands of people,
26:15and this is going to be worldwide news,
26:17and it's going to be on TV all around the world
26:20when the spacecraft comes down and picks them up.
26:24As the old saying goes, you know,
26:26the worst death of all is death by obscurity.
26:29So, by killing themselves,
26:31they ensured their immortality, in a sense.
26:40The public response to Heaven's Gate
26:42was dismissal of these people as idiots,
26:44as brainwashed, as fools, as a joke.
26:47You know who else tried to teach a bunch of dumbos to fly?
26:51The leader of the Heaven's Gate religious cult,
26:54who told his followers that they could all fly away
26:57from Earth on a spaceship by committing mass suicide.
27:01Whoo! Yay, religion!
27:02Okay, now, now.
27:04Hey!
27:06We made it! We made it!
27:10Yeah!
27:12Tell me, are there any regrets?
27:15Yeah, the castration thing.
27:19I was way off on that one, Ted.
27:22It turns out it had nothing to do with anything.
27:25In fact, when we got here,
27:27everyone just looked at me like,
27:29Apple White, you nutball.
27:31Yeah, but he's on nutball.
27:33He's on.
27:34Yeah!
27:35I was scared of going public,
27:36but I felt like I needed to...
27:39I knew that they weren't getting
27:41the most accurate reporting on them.
27:43Joining us now from Seattle is Andrew,
27:45a member of Heaven's Gate for 18 years,
27:47from 1975 to 1993.
27:49That's an assumed name, by the way.
27:51In New York is Sawyer, also an assumed name,
27:53and he was a member of Heaven's Gate.
27:55What do you make of this, Sawyer?
27:56Well, see, the group was looking
27:58to leave the planet,
27:59and they were going to do it
28:00in any way that they possibly could.
28:02Okay, so they were thinking,
28:03brainstorming constantly on how that might occur,
28:06so that they could then,
28:07their souls could then move into the next level.
28:10If you had stayed a few more years,
28:12would you have killed yourself with them?
28:14I doubt it.
28:17I mean...
28:18Sawyer?
28:19It was a shock to me.
28:20You left in 94.
28:21That's not too long ago.
28:22Would you have killed yourself with them, Sawyer?
28:25Well, surprisingly, as it may seem,
28:27I had...
28:29At the time, I thought I would, yes.
28:31The people who covered it in general
28:35weren't of a mind to dig deeper with it.
28:41This is a failed episode from Star Trek
28:49that Gene Roddenberry would put his thumbs down to.
28:52What we're talking about in this case
28:54is really mental illness disguised as religion.
28:58I just think it's something we've got to let people
29:00practice under the First Amendment.
29:02These people were adults, they did this freely,
29:05and from all we can gather, they're now happy.
29:08I think only a fraction of people would really fall
29:13for something so bizarre.
29:15There is an underlying desperation.
29:19When you hear the word cult used to describe this group,
29:23Will, how do you feel about it?
29:24Just 15 seconds, if you will.
29:26If you look up the definition of cult,
29:28the Republican Party is a cult.
29:30I mean, you know, there are so many...
29:33It's, you know, you attach a label to all this,
29:36and you read the labels, and you don't get behind
29:39and look at what's really going on deep.
29:41We've been compared to Jonestown, we've been compared to...
29:44Well, now you're going to be compared to Jonestown,
29:46and what do you mean we? You're not part of this anymore.
29:48In a sense, I am. I left, but when you see those people,
29:52you re-experience that. It will always be with you.
29:54This will always be with me. I don't disclaim it.
29:58I got a call from a producer who I had just interviewed,
30:01Dick Chocelyn, and said,
30:03We think he's going to kill himself. Can you help him?
30:09In all of my interventions,
30:12the goal isn't to get the person out
30:15or to force the person to agree with me.
30:18The goal is to empower them to think for themselves.
30:24Is that today's paper?
30:29No, that's a little older.
30:31Well, as I've discovered in my work,
30:34the vast number of people who get involved with groups
30:37walk out of them.
30:39But just because you physically leave
30:41doesn't mean the group gets out of your head.
30:44Right.
30:45I mean, I've been out of the group seven years,
30:47and I'm very aware that I haven't ever processed anything of it
30:52other than just my own in the middle of the night struggles.
30:55And I'm also aware that I'm just like, I feel dysfunctional.
30:59And that's why I'm here, Steve,
31:00because there are all these issues
31:02that make me feel like something is keeping me from readjusting
31:08and being a happy person and functional in the world.
31:10And I know that I've got stuff to give,
31:13and that process of the will emerging,
31:17and in spite of how solidly it's been put down,
31:23it still raises up.
31:25It's like a little plant breaking through concrete,
31:27that the power of the individual mind to say,
31:32I'm sorry, I just can't buy this anymore.
31:36And why did I do that?
31:38And why didn't my classmates,
31:40who were such richly gifted people?
31:48You were a very strong person.
31:50You saw through it.
31:51Thank God.
31:53And we're gonna sign off on, uh...
31:56See you next time.
31:57May 28th, 1997.
31:59See you next time.
32:09My frustration with the media is pretty universal,
32:13that they tend to want sensationalized elements
32:17without getting into the nitty-gritty
32:19of how this can happen to intelligent, educated people
32:22from good homes.
32:24So it's, again, this fundamental attribution error
32:29of, like, what's wrong with these people,
32:32instead of saying they were just programmed
32:35and influenced in a systematic way.
32:41Dick Jocelyn says that he is aware
32:43of at least a half-dozen members
32:45who plan to do the same thing in the future.
32:47Wow, he said that just today?
32:49Yeah, Jess, we just got this on the wire this morning.
32:51Yes.
32:52Well, that doesn't surprise me either,
32:53and I wouldn't be surprised if there were more.
33:06When I think of my brother,
33:07I think of him with sad brown eyes.
33:10And although this is in black and white,
33:12this is very typical of him.
33:18I was watching TV one night,
33:20and I saw pictures of the 39 people.
33:23They were showing tennis shoes with purple shrouds over them.
33:27And so I got a hold of my aunt.
33:30You know, I said,
33:31did you see the mass suicide today?
33:35And she's like, oh, yeah, those people are crazy.
33:37And I said, that's the cult Jimmy was in.
33:44Five weeks after the mass suicide,
33:46I got a call from my aunt, and she was crying.
33:49He had sent her a letter saying,
33:51by the time you get this, I should be dead.
33:54And she sent my cousin's husband over,
34:03and when he knocked on the door,
34:05he heard the gun go off.
34:13He left his farewell,
34:16and then he left pictures that he had cut out
34:19of a magazine of all of his former cult members.
34:23of all of his former class members.
34:26And he had tagged them underneath
34:28with their Odie names.
34:34And he drew an image
34:36of the 39 of them being lifted up.
34:40Wayne Cook, a Heaven's Gate dropout who still believed,
34:49appeared on 60 Minutes in March to explain why his wife
34:53and 38 other classmates committed suicide.
34:59The only reason I was on 60 Minutes is I accompanied my father
35:03to these things.
35:04Your mother was one of the 39 who committed suicide
35:09with that group.
35:11Now they think that she's up in a spacecraft.
35:14Do you believe that?
35:16This will be very difficult for people to understand.
35:19This is something she worked all of her life to accomplish.
35:23This, she graduated.
35:26You wish you had gone with them?
35:28I wish I had the strength to have remained,
35:31to have gained the kind of control
35:33through Do's help, D's help,
35:36to have stuck it out
35:38and continue to be a part of that crew.
35:40Yes.
35:41I was just pleading with him to live this life with,
35:48with me in this world, you know,
35:51not, not to abandon it.
35:56He was living in Vegas then with Chuck.
36:04I just could tell it was going to happen.
36:07After the suicides, we interviewed Chuck Humphrey
36:12and he gave me this T-shirt.
36:14And true to his own beliefs, it says,
36:17Heaven's Gate, what if they're right?
36:23Hi, my name is Rick Cody.
36:25By the time that you see this tape,
36:28I'll be gone.
36:30I'd been up all night, doorbell rang,
36:34and it was a FedEx package.
36:36I opened it up and it was a video.
36:38I'm happy.
36:39And I, uh, want very much to follow my classmates
36:44and, and my teachers, T and Do.
36:49It took about three hours
36:51for San Diego County Sheriff Detectives
36:53to zero in on this Encinitas Hotel
36:55and this particular hotel room, room 222.
36:58This is where two people tried to commit suicide.
37:02I got a call.
37:03Someone was alive.
37:05Still.
37:08I don't think I've ever experienced
37:10such a confusing emotion to have.
37:14You know, maybe my father's alive,
37:16but is that good?
37:17I don't know.
37:18You know.
37:19You know.
37:22I mean, it went back and forth a couple times,
37:24like being on a roller coaster for several hours.
37:27No sleep.
37:29Just insane.
37:31This is where two people tried to commit suicide.
37:34One of them, former Heaven's Gate member,
37:3655-year-old Wayne Cook, died here
37:38and his body was removed late this afternoon.
37:41His partner, 57-year-old Charles Humphrey,
37:43was found on the floor, barely alive.
37:46Chuck reflexively pulled the plastic bag
37:50and the drugs didn't kill him.
37:53This does sound morbid, but I felt bad.
37:55I was like, I knew he wanted to go.
37:57And then he wakes up chained to a hospital bed,
38:00you know, and he's like,
38:01this doesn't look anything like a spacecraft.
38:05Our objective was to leave the vehicles
38:07and catch up with the class
38:08and catch up with our older member.
38:10I tried my best to do it at this time and failed.
38:13Mr. Humphrey, would you ever attempt suicide again?
38:16I don't know.
38:17You don't know?
38:18I can't answer that question.
38:21Chuck emailed me, and he's like,
38:23I'm going out to this spot.
38:25I'll see you upstairs, essentially.
38:29I knew exactly where he was going.
38:31It was a spot we'd camped at.
38:33He knew I was the only person
38:35who wouldn't freak out and try to stop him.
38:44I mean, he was always adamant
38:45that he was 100% supportive of what they did,
38:48and obviously he tried to follow in their footsteps
38:50not once but twice.
38:51In their minds, T and Doe were the second coming,
38:56just a different form.
39:01So how do you tell them
39:04that the second coming is wrong?
39:06Shortly after the suicides happened,
39:21there was this woman, Leanne Wolf.
39:23She called me up,
39:25and she identified herself as an ex-member
39:27and told me that she was just living up
39:29on Flathead Lake here
39:31and kind of put me in touch with a lot of other people.
39:36And we have the reunion in 1998.
39:41In 1998, out in Montana,
39:43there was a Heaven Skate reunion.
39:45Rob flew me out there
39:46and a bunch of other people, ex-Heaven Skaters.
39:50People getting along,
39:52Lorraine remaining 100% true believer.
39:55It is a very difficult trip.
40:01It's a very difficult thing to do,
40:04but it has such wonderful, beautiful endings
40:08that it is all very much worthwhile.
40:14I believe that T Doe know my mind.
40:19And her daughter, Sharon,
40:21was the very first follower.
40:23At the beginning, they were sort of humble.
40:26You know, two people out there in the wilderness
40:28trying to figure out what they're supposed to do.
40:31And you must understand that
40:33Marshall Herff Applewhite has a complex,
40:37and it's called the Messiah Complex.
40:39Regardless of how they left here,
40:41it doesn't matter.
40:44To me, they're on a higher level of understanding.
40:47Absolutely convinced that all of her classmates
40:50were out in the next level.
40:52Dick Jocelyn, at this point,
40:54was convinced that he had been brainwashed,
40:56but here they are,
40:57hanging out on very good terms.
41:01It was very cathartic for most people,
41:04I think, who went there.
41:09But then Terri Nettles had brought copies
41:11of these letters that her mom had written her.
41:15So Terri read excerpts from these letters
41:20to these people in the group,
41:23and they were, all of them, absolutely dumbfounded
41:27when they heard that while they're being told,
41:32you've got to give up your family,
41:35and you're never going to see them again,
41:37and you can't have any human attachments,
41:39and all of that.
41:41And meanwhile, T has been writing home
41:44and signing letters like,
41:46love mom, love always,
41:48and giving advice about how her daughter
41:51should conform to the ways of the world.
41:54The date on here was August 13, 1982.
42:01She says, be good, strive for goodness,
42:04and by all means conform to society
42:07so that you will have peace of mind.
42:09I'm sorry, that was not their MO.
42:11They didn't believe in causing violence
42:13or anything like that,
42:15but by all means conform to society?
42:18That was not what they were doing.
42:23That was code.
42:24I look back on that, that was code,
42:26but I didn't know it at the time,
42:27but I just feel like she wanted out of the group.
42:32When Sherri read those passages,
42:35I was really shocked,
42:37and all the members absolutely across the board,
42:40they were just like, not just flabbergasted,
42:43but a couple of them were just like pissed off.
42:47During that whole time,
42:48T was writing letters to her daughter back in Texas
42:51and telling her to like do the right thing,
42:54go to college, you know,
42:55and so you think, okay,
42:57if this lady really believed what she's saying,
43:00to me that is the most duplicitous example
43:03of sort of the con.
43:10People were angry,
43:12and I just kind of wanted to slither out of there.
43:16They weren't angry at me,
43:18and I knew that.
43:20It looks to me like T really wanted to go home,
43:24but at the same time,
43:26she's probably thinking,
43:27here I am in this group,
43:28I have this comfortable life,
43:30or I go home,
43:31and I'm constantly barraged by,
43:33why did you run away?
43:34Why did you abandon your kids?
43:36Hmm.
43:37I think it's gonna be easier for me to stay here
43:40and die in this group
43:42than it is to go home
43:43and deal with all of that.
43:46She had gotten so deep into it
43:48that she wasn't able to turn around.
43:51When I left the class,
43:53left the group,
43:55and tried to navigate my life as a citizen at large,
44:01I didn't really know who I was.
44:15I'm finally at a point where I can say,
44:30I want to be free.
44:34I want to travel the country.
44:36I want to roam free.
44:39So I got a van.
44:42I'm gonna be on the road,
44:45and I will be learning to have fun
44:49like I haven't allowed myself to.
44:55I used to have these intense dreams
44:59in which Erica was present,
45:03and it would happen maybe once a month.
45:12But 2015, I had one last dream of her.
45:24We were on a beach,
45:28and she said,
45:33I have to go.
45:41She walked out into the ocean underwater,
45:48and she was gone.
45:55And I never dreamed of her again.
45:58She was the love of my life.
46:06Do you think you'll see her again?
46:07I'm sure I will.
46:10I worked with Frank a number of times.
46:22His name in the group was Andody, A-N-D-O-D-Y.
46:25And Erica's name in the group was Cechody, C-H-K-O-D-Y.
46:30And she got that name by taking the name Cech.
46:35Like Cech partner.
46:36They're both beautiful souls.
46:38I feel like Sawyer is, is stuck.
46:55He's stopped growing.
46:59Maybe it's guilt.
47:00Maybe it's guilt.
47:01He is such a staunch representative of Cech-Do,
47:09and he's stuck in the past.
47:13I don't feel guilt.
47:23I feel like I flunked a test.
47:26I flunked my tests.
47:28And that I could have graduated with them.
47:30I had the capacity to do that.
47:32I believe that 100%.
47:38And Don left the door open.
47:40And so there's nobody that can close it.
47:42Only he can close it.
47:44When he decides that it's time.
47:50And then we won't be talking about this anymore.
48:02I think there are two lessons of the Heaven's Gate story.
48:07One is to not be judgmental.
48:11You know, everybody wants to think,
48:12Oh, those are those crazy people.
48:13That's, I would never do that.
48:15Hmm, not so fast.
48:19But I suppose the more important lesson is to be careful.
48:24We tend to look for these easy answers.
48:27And I think it's important to remember
48:29that nobody has all the answers.
48:32And once you turn that over to someone,
48:36you put yourself at great risk.
48:41Save me.
48:44Come on.
48:46Save me.
48:49It's an ongoing puzzle in my life.
48:52I'm always going to wonder,
48:54was there something that I could have done?
48:59I knew they loved me.
49:00I just didn't trust that they knew how to love me.
49:03They could never love anyone.
49:05I don't know if you ever get over it, really.
49:09Some people are probably still upset
49:10by losing the people that they lost.
49:13The only thing I can say is that they really, truly are in a better place.
49:17It's true.
49:18You know what it's like.
49:23Say that we're a hoax.
49:26Say that we're just two misguided, insane creatures.
49:33And that these poor misguided individuals and others like them are endeavoring to do this thing.
49:41They're stronger now.
49:44They have rid themselves more of the garbage they have collected.
49:49If we even turned out to not be what we were.
49:53They are ten times what they have ever been.
49:56And they know it.
49:57Why don't you save me?
50:18Save me
50:36Come on and save me
50:43From the rains of the freeze
50:47I suspect they could never love anyone
50:51Except the freaks who could never love anyone
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