Just as the debate in Germany was coming to a climax, in March 1997, thirty-nine members of a group calling itself Heaven’s Gate committed suicide in a San Diego mansion. They apparently had hoped to time their deaths in order to ascend to a spacecraft that they believed was following Comet Hale-Bopp. Marshall Applewhite, their leader, a former choirmaster, represented himself as a reincarnated Jesus who was receiving guidance from the television show Star Trek.
