The Heaven's Gate Website and the Couple that Runs It

[Cleopatra7]

I had known that the Heaven's Gate Website was still up in all its late 1990s tackiness, but I had always assumed that it was just another relic of the Geocities age:

http://www.heavensgate.com/

However, as it turns out, the website is very much alive, and if you send emails, you can get replies, and you can buy Heaven's Gate books and VHS tapes:

http://gizmodo.com/the-online-legacy-of-a-suicide-cult-and-the-webmasters-1617403237

Quote

Today, only a few Heaven's Gate believers remain. Two of them sit on the other end of the website's sole contact email address, and will promptly respond to your inquiries. Which seems odd for a group whose members are all widely believed to be dead.

The people who respond to HeavensGate.com queries refer to themselves simply as "Telah" and "we." They'll answer questions if you ask—that's part of the gig—but they've wearied of the rubberneckers that have passed through ever since their fellow active members committed suicide in 1997. Which is perhaps to be expected when you're the only official contact point for one of the largest, most bizarre mass suicides in human history...

Even though the Kings—who married after leaving the group—were no longer direct members of Heaven's Gate, they still played crucial roles. Under the guise of the TELAH Foundation (a name they still go by, and an acronym for the ever-aspired-to "The Evolutionary Level Above Human"), Mark and Sarah supposedly acted as a "communication and clearing house" for the group's various public appearances and interactions, which became increasingly more prominent towards the end of their time on Earth. In 1993, for instance, they placed a full-page ad in USA Today costing upwards of $30,000.

It's interesting that the Kings haven't updated the aesthetics of the website or migrated the files from 3.5 floppy discs. I guess they want to honor the intentions of their "classmates" by keeping everything in the format they originally received it.

[PennySycamore]

 

@@Cleopatra7, they have VHS tapes?     How many people have VHS players anymore?

[Cleopatra7]

19 minutes ago, PennySycamore said:

 

@@Cleopatra7, they have VHS tapes?     How many people have VHS players anymore?

I have a couple of VCRs and a number of VHS tapes. VHS tapes may not be state of the art, but they are a very durable medium and you can get them dirt cheap. I've gotten some really good deals on yoga tapes and older anime on VHS. If you're a broke girl like I am, VHS is awesome. I don't see myself adding Heaven's Gates tapes to my collection, however, but I'm sure there have to be UFO enthusiasts who are buying them.

[docmom]

1 hour ago, PennySycamore said:

 

@@Cleopatra7, they have VHS tapes?     How many people have VHS players anymore?

My dad has a Betamax...

[acheronbeach]

I actually find it quite poignant that for seventeen years, they've kept a promise they made to long-dead colleagues.

[Loveday]

9 hours ago, docmom said:

My dad has a Betamax...

 We still had one up to about five years ago. I finally put my foot down and said it had to go. It hadn't worked in years, and we didn't have anything to play on it anyway except Gone With The Wind.

We do still have a VHS machine, though. Mainly for all the videos we took of our kids when they were small. We really need to get them transferred to DVDs, though.

[PennySycamore]

We still have quite a few videotapes: some were movies we bought and some things we'd recorded off TV.  The one thing we no longer have is a copy of my ultrasound with my last baby.  We taped a program over that.  

[Howl]

That they still have a Web presence is beyond bizarre.

IIRC, Marshall Applewhite's father was our Presbyterian minister when I was in high school.  He (the dad) was a wonderful minister and a remarkably dear man.  I have no memory of the son; he was out on his own by that time. 

An in-law's close relative was a Heaven's Gate member who committed suicide. 

 

[mstee]

Maybe this is a dumb question but why didn't these people-that are running the website- die with the rest of the group? 

[Cleopatra7]

1 hour ago, mstee said:

Maybe this is a dumb question but why didn't these people-that are running the website- die with the rest of the group? 

The article explains that the couple left the group but still believed in its teachings. They believe that their purpose is to keep the Heaven's Gate message alive and spread its teachings, while their "classmates'" mission had already been completed by "shedding their vehicles."

[LadyBlue]

On 2016-05-12 at 10:18 AM, docmom said:

My dad has a Betamax...

We still have one too. My husband uses it as a computer stand, though.

 

We also have a VHS and a ton of tapes, but our VHS is part of VHS to DVD converter and I'd really like to unload the several boxes of tapes of movies we either have on DVD or don't care about.

[Hane]

The son of the former CEO of my company died in the Heaven's Gate suicide. We were all shocked; his father was a kind and down-to-earth man, so we never knew what might have driven the son to such an act.