17 Disturbing Photos With Horrifying Backstories

5. Heaven's Gate Is Not Onboard A Spaceship

Heaven's Gate was a group of UFO-based religious Millenarians (read: nutjobs) founded in California in the 1970s. Led by head wacko Marshall Applewhite, the organization believed that Earth was about to be wiped clean and in order to survive they had to leave it immediately. Despite being against traditional suicide, their belief system held that suicide was to decline the offer of reaching "the next level". In order to evacuate Earth, they needed to reach the alien spaceship that they were convinced was traveling behind the Hale-Bopp comet.

In March of 1997, Applewhite convinced 38 of his loons to off themselves via a cocktail of poisons and self-induced asphyxiation, in order for their spirits to leave their bodies and be transported to the craft and another level of existence beyond human. The group was found in their rented mansion in the San Diego area, decomposing in the spring heat.

The bodies were all lying in their bunk beds, faces and bodies covered with a purple cloth, and each sporting $5.75 for "interplanetary toll fare". Additionally, they were all dressed in matching black shirts, sweats and Nike sneakers, and were believed to have died in three separate groups over the course of three days. The actress who played Uhura on Star Trek, Nichelle Nichols' brother was among the deceased.

The picture above is a photo of the grisly and unfathomable discovery and a sad study of the limitless bounds of stupidity.