♪ this is "nightline." tonight, heaven's gate. >> we're going to begin tonight with the strange suicide of the 39. >> uncovering a mysterious cult in never been seen videos. >> what in the hell happened here? who are these people? >> their leader with bizarre prophecies about ufos taking them to heaven. >> welcome to beyond human. >> he was deeply charismatic. you feel like he's speaking directly to you. >> families torn apart. children left behind. >> i just wish that she could have found something worth living for here. >> and those who got out of the extreme group before its calamitous end. diane sawyer reports on the cult next door. this special edition of

"nightline" will be right back. .

♪ thanks for joining us. tonight, it was a shocking mass suicide involving members of the heaven's gate cult. with so many of the disturbing details remaining a mystery until now.

diane sawyer brings us never been seen videos and personal stories told publicly for the first time. >> sheriff's department with a search warrant demanding entry. >> we're going to begin tonight with the strange suicide. >> march 26th, 1997. america reels with a bizarre story. >> one bed here, one bed there. >> four bodies, six bodies. now 38, grand total, 39. >> 39 people deceased. >> why were they wearing homemade spaceship uniforms, brand new nike sneakers? their pockets filled with their i.d. cards, spiral notebooks. >> the largest mass suicide on u.s. soil in this century. >> what in the hell happened here? who are these people? >> it's a cult. it's the cult of cults. it's the cult of truth. >> they call him do.

>> marshall applewhite, do, is basically their god. >> who is this man? he promises they'll be carried to the next level of existence in a ufo. a life of isolation, rituals, hoods blocking their faces, some even castrating themselves to curb sexual desire. >> your only chance to evacuate is to leave with us. >> before he was do, he was the son of a successful presbyterian preacher. >> was always on the honor roll. just a born leader. >> he was a wonderful person, at one time. be a beloved music professor, - have children. >> secretly he has got the gay affairs going on. >> when he is 33, a shadow moves

in. his wife goes back to the parents, the children go with her. >> we didn't even have the word homosexual when we were going to school. >> in the 50s. >> his old friends knew nothing of the reason he had to resign. >> in a different world in a different time with more acceptance of being diverse he might have been able to deal with it better. i don't know. >> applewhite is in new mexico, cast away from his childhood religion and tormented by voices and visions in his head. >> some terrible thing must have happened in his mind and emotions that we don't understand. makes me cry to think about it again. >> he says he was at a hospital visiting a friend. but was he a patient trying to

cope with voices, visions, panic attacks? >> he met this nurse who said she was sure god brought him back for a reason. >> the nurse is a married mother of four, dabbles in a stroll uf. and say the voices may be anointing him as a prophet of a new religion and changes her hair like his and says she will be with him, guiding him. >> and from that moment, my life changed. it changed very significantly. >> like they had a purpose which was immortalizing each other. >> and that is how two cracked people head out across america, gathering followers they will lead down a dark and a dangerous path. >> if you are comfortable coming closer, we would welcome you to

do so. >> he was -- you feel like he is speaking directly to you. >> he knows their message about a ufo coming to pick them up sounds crazy on the street. >> i am saying we should quickly be locked up. >> he says take a chance. come live under the stars. the way to get to heaven is to become pure enough, like angels. they can teach you how to do that. >> spacecraft can come in by the thousands, maybe in shifts. >> it was critical to understand that heaven's gate did not begin as a suicide group. their explicit draw was that you did not have to die to go to heaven. >> we began searching in the shadows for any seekers drawn to the meetings. former followers who might remember how young they once were. >> my name is lesley light.

>> a young girl at a crossroads and a little uncertain. >> i was like a hippie. i was struggling with what i believed and what i wanted to do. do i want to give everything up. i felt why shouldn't i check it out. >> people asked what type of person joins a cult. one common characteristic, idealism. >> nobody says i am going to go and give up my critical thinking and sell my soul to someone that is trying to manipulate me. >> she was 18 years old when she joined and would end up nearly two decades in heaven's gate. >> the carrot is do what was done in the time of jesus when he said to his disciples leave everything behind and follow me. >> she was just 16, and the

youngest recruit of heaven's gate, the child of a broken home. she thought she was surrounded by love and stability. >> everyone had kind, beautiful energy. if you took a group of people that all wanted to be the very, very finest, best people they could possibly be. >> dozens of promising young people now hiding with their leaders in the remote wyoming mountains. five years pass. no spaceship comes. all ties cut off to their families. complete isolation. the families, frantic about the loved ones. >> i hired a private detective. >> both of her parents were members of heaven's gate. in 1975 the mother that held her and sang you are my sunshine and her artist father announced to their child they have been selected to live as space angels. kelly, just ten years old.

>> they both explained i could not come. i could not believe they were going to do this. it was shocking. >> the sun goes down. sometimes at night secretly, silently packed cars pull up to new houses, often big ones. >> there might be 20 to 30 people that would move into the house and the neighbors would be none the wiser. >> nobody knew. my guess is that three quarters of the people never set foot out of the door. i was one of them. >> followers were in hiding, moving to dozens of houses, mansions in the southwest. 48 people sealed inside. inside, the leaders are now saying they are stuck here on earth and the ufos won't come until the followers are pure enough to it be taken to the next level meaning purging themselves of personal opinions. >> we had to have a structure.

the structure immediately became an infringement on doing what i want to the do when i want to do it. >> literally, everything that you do throughout the day every day is prescribed down to the minute. >> there were about 40 of us. three people shared a bed. >> they had rules about dressing, talking, sex. they had rules about how big to make the pancake. it was rules upon rules upon rules. >> the most egregious offense, a sexual thought of any kind. >> we can buy shirts that have double pockets. it helps take the emphasis off of shape, particularly like a female vehicle. >> former ph.d. candidates, powerful businessmen said the next level wants them to be pure like children. >> if you can infantalize someone, you make them more

dependant on you. >> as if they are kindergarten children, the former music director teaches them a song. and now at heaven's gate things will change dramatically. change into something much darker. the co-founder of the cult passes away. >> breaks my heart. up next, what hell the leader do now since bonnie nettles did not fly off in a cloud of light. >> a ufo did not pick her up and that is when they began not being about you going up in the body but about you might have to leave the body behind.

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♪ >> inside a home with the curtain's draw young men are battling their craving for human touch and sexuality and the conversation turns to castration. seven followers get surgery, one of them the youngest, 25. and so does marshall applewhite who said he suffered painful

complications. >> welcome to beyond human. >> by the 1990, do suggests he is the second coming of christ and the outside world is a corrupt conspiracy. >> the kingpin is the same old guy, lucifer, satan. >> he says the millennium coming means the apocalypse. >> your only chance to evacuate is to leave with us. >> there were a lot of apocalyptic groups, the waco, oklahoma city bombings saying the world is going to end or has to come to an end. >> do said how would all of you feel if you could just drink some pleasant tasting liquid, lie down and wake up at the next level. >> i think they were tired. they were waiting 20 some years for the damn ufo to come.

>> a giant comet is blazing past earth. this is a real photo of the huge comet. >> brightest comet to come along in years. >> conspiracy radio shows keep insisting there is a ufo behind it. >> they took it to mean that it was bonnie nettles in a ufo behind the comet to come and get them. >> the followers research and order drugs, order matching nike shoes, sew the matching space uniforms with patches invoking "star trek." >> says heaven's gate awaiting. >> back at the mansion they cancelled the garbage pick up, lawn service and followers prepare video good-byes. >> why am i here?

what is the meaning of life. since i have been in the class i learned the answers to all of those. >> i couldn't be happy about what we are about to do. >> and then they sign out on the daily log as they always do. but this will be the last time. >> the estimated time of return, etr. some of them wrote slashes or nothing or question marks. bye. so long. a few wrote never. a mysterious call from a pay phone in suburban san >> i need to report an anonymouy

tip. >> rick was lead detective on the investigation. >> inside here are two sets of bunk beds with four bodies. we have a body on a mattress on the floor. another bedroom. there are four more here. black uniforms. they all have the purple shroud. we found these red drinking cups. there were containers with chocolate pudding and apple sauce. >> an identical bag, mysterious some members have fortunes from fortune cookies, lip balm, three quarters in case they need them for pay phones and ids with their real names, a computer lab with a flashing screen. nearby a piece of paper. a list of meticulous instructions and three groups of

names. >> people from group ii and group i and group ii would assist people from group ii and they would consume this death cocktail. >> sedatives and alcohol. a check mark when they swallowed them and another mark when they were confirmed dead. estimated their deaths happened over the course of three days. >> master bedroom. one person on the bed. >> we walked in. made a semi circle around. we are all looking at the guy and thinking that this is the guy who is responsible for all of the people being dead. >> so many loved ones, all grappling for an explanation in the insupportable pain. kelly would become an orphan. her mother died with the 39. then her father became one of four former members who would take their own lives too.

kelly says that she chose not to have children. >> i felt like there was a trail of pain that i would bring to a child somehow. i am a strong person. but it was a bit of sadness in me. some people laugh at all kinds of things. they have a core of joy. not me. i don't have that. >> did they have a real choice? >> no. they have a bounded choice. they live in this bounded reality. they live in a closed world. >> devastating to this very day. >> i just wished that she could have found something worth living for here. >> coming up, an update on the survivors of heaven's gate. the survivors of heaven's gate.

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every day there is something we are called on to believe in faith. you have to decide what am i going to believe and not going to believe. mostly happy days all of the time? >> i love my life. >> you can watch all of the cult next door streaming now on hulu. thanks for staying with us.