Marshall Herff Applewhite Jr., also known as Do, among other names, was an American religious leader who founded and led the Heaven's Gate new religious movement, and organized their mass suicide in 1997. The suicide is the largest mass suicide to occur inside the U.S.
Applewhite in an initiation video for Heaven's Gate in 1996
A depiction of a scene from the Book of Revelation, which Applewhite believed described interactions between humans and extraterrestrials
Comet Hale–Bopp over California in April 1997
Heaven's Gate (religious group)
Heaven's Gate was an American new religious movement known primarily for the mass suicides committed by its members in 1997. Commonly designated a cult, it was founded in 1974 and led by Bonnie Nettles (1927–1985) and Marshall Applewhite (1931–1997), known within the movement as Ti and Do, respectively. Nettles and Applewhite first met in 1972 and went on a journey of spiritual discovery, identifying themselves as the two witnesses of Revelation, attracting a following of several hundred people in the mid-1970s. In 1976, a core group of a few dozen members stopped recruiting and instituted a monastic lifestyle.
Flyer for a Heaven's Gate recruitment meeting, Berkeley, California, May, 1994
Rancho Santa Fe, where the group members of Heaven's Gate committed mass suicide in a rented mansion
