Heaven's Gate

"Heavens Gate" examines and answers questions central to the 1997 mass suicide of 39 members of the Heavens Gate cult - the largest committed on U.S. soil. The cult began in the mid-1970s under Marshall Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles, who mixed Christian theology with a belief in UFOs and extraterrestrials. The hundreds of members who joined over the years abandoned their family, friends, and former lives in search of spiritual fulfillment. They believed they would achieve this on the so-called "Next Level." a physical heaven to which they would travel in a spaceship. National Geographic dissects how one cult succeeded in disconnecting its followers from the bonds of life on earth.