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On March 26th 1997 authorities found 39 people dead in a rented mansion in Rancho Santa Fe, California. Matching outfits. Nike sneakers. Purple shrouds. Five dollars and three quarters in each pocket — travel money for a journey they believed was real.

Heaven's Gate took 25 years to build. Marshall Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles created a theology that was genuinely original — the God of the Bible was an extraterrestrial, Jesus was an alien, and Heaven was a literal physical realm in outer space called the Next Level.

When Nettles died in 1985 Applewhite reframed her death as the graduation ceremony. Twelve years later the Hale-Bopp comet appeared. They believed a spacecraft was hiding behind it. They were waiting for a sign.

They found one. It was not what they thought it was.

The Heaven's Gate website is still live today.

Neal, Andrew, and Lemon cover the UFO cult that ended at a comet — and the question underneath all of it.

Is this a Mostly True Alien Story?

New episodes every Wednesday. Subscribe wherever you listen. 🛸