The websites of religious groups that disappeared in the 1990s are still hosted as they were at that time.
The website of a religious group called 'Heaven's Gate', which disappeared after a mass suicide in the suburbs of San Diego, California, in 1997, is still hosted and accessible in 2022. The Body International, an online magazine about cults, summarizes how this site is maintained.
Left Alive And Unchanged: The Heaven's Gate Website
Heaven's Gate is a UFO religious group founded in the 1970s by Marshall Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles. Heaven's Gate gathered believers by stating that 'the earth will be recycled soon' and 'the only way to survive is to travel to space in response to the UFO's arrival.' Nettles predicted the date and place of the pick-up, and although he did activities such as camping all night, the pick-up did not appear and Nettles died of cancer in 1985.
Heaven's Gate maintained its membership by offering the property of its followers and limiting connections to the outside world, but a couple left after Nettles died. Having struggled to acquire new followers, Applewhite changed its doctrine to allow members to get regular jobs and donate their earnings. Heaven's Gate started a homepage production company 'Higher Source' when the value of programming increased in the 1990s because many members happened to have a lot of computer knowledge, and made a lot of profits. The profit was enough to buy a large house where 40 members could live.
While earning these profits, Applewhite has set a new goal of 'boarding the alien vehicle behind Mercury' when Comet Hale-Bopp is found to be approaching Earth in 1997. Heaven's Gate had time to prepare for the end, as this decision was made much earlier than it was executed. One of the preparations was the
In addition, Applewhite thought it important that his message remained even after the members of Heaven's Gate left the earth. So Applewhite contacted the person involved in creating the Heaven's Gate website and asked the cult members to maintain the site after they left for space.
Heaven's Gate committed mass suicide in 1997, killing 39 people. The reason why the website has been maintained for over 20 years has been a complete mystery, but a 2017 Daily Mirror study found that it was maintained by two former cult members. ..
According to a Daily Mirror article , it was the couple who left the cult after Nettles' death that maintained the domain. Even after leaving Heaven's Gate, he seems to have maintained a relationship with Applewhite until the time of mass suicide, and as of 2017, he is in his late 60s.
Related Posts:
in Note, Posted by log1d_ts