E1333 - The Heaven's Gate 'Ascendancy'

The mass suicide of 39 members of the Heaven's Gate cult in San Diego County was discovered on 26th March, 1997. The tragedy came to light after a former member alerted authorities, having received a farewell videotape recorded by the group. 

Leader Marshall Applewhite had preached that a spacecraft travelling in the wake of the Comet Hale–Bopp would carry their souls to a higher level of existence. In preparation, they dressed uniformly and consumed a lethal mixture of phenobarbital and alcohol in a carefully planned sequence over several days.

That belief system had developed over decades. App...