"WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON?"

If their acquaintances had checked out the Heaven's Gate Website, they might have been somewhat less nonchalant. Through the teachings of their charismatic leaders, Applewhite and Nettles, who claimed to be extraterrestrial representatives of the "Kingdom Level Above Human," the cult members believed their bodies were mere vessels. By renouncing sex, drugs, alcohol, their birth names and all relationships with family and friends, disciples could become ready to ascend to space, shedding their "containers," or bodies, and entering God's Kingdom. "If you cling to this life, will you not lose it?" Do asks in the Heaven's Gate manifesto.

With a mixture of paranoia and passion, the teachings rail against Judaism and Christianity and complain of oppression by nonbelievers, evil "Luciferians," whom they say will be "plowed under" in the apocalypse. Only those vessels prepared to receive the word will be fortunate enough to ascend when the time comes. Indeed, while the group may have given outsiders an impression of Christianity, their version of Jesus was most certainly heterodox. Two thousand years ago, the Kingdom Level Above Human appointed a representative to preach the Kingdom of God to earthlings. This being inhabited the container called Jesus (also known as "the captain"), who was killed by forces that eventually turned his legacy into "watered-down Country Club religion." Ti and Do, however, were then appointed as the Kingdom Level's successor representatives to Jesus, in fact, the "two witnesses" prophesied in Revelation, who would appear at the time the world was coming to an end, to prepare the way for the Kingdom.

And the time of the end, apparently, was last week. A recently posted "Red Alert" announcement on the group's Website hailed the Hale-Bopp comet as the "marker" the members were waiting for. In this belief, at least, Heaven's Gate cultists were not alone. According to a popular theory circulating on the Internet, a spaceship is hidden behind the comet--whether inhabited by benign or evil aliens is unclear. Astronomers say the image behind the comet in some photographs is a mere star.

The cult represents more than an X-Files-meets-Revelation stew, however. The group plainly tailored its message in an attempt to be palatable to the broadest group of people possible. "Our dilemma was multifaceted: How do we present the information in a credible fashion, when to most, our Truth is definitely stranger than any fiction?" one Website posting wondered. "How do we avoid being seen as religious, in order not to 'turn off' those who rightfully despise the hypocrisy of what religions have become? At the same time, how do we acknowledge our past associations with this civilization which are primarily recorded in your Bible, so as to offer those who are waiting for prophecy to be fulfilled enough clues to put it together?" The mixture of philosophies, the author concludes, is like "speaking in tongues."

"WELCOME TO KNOW WHERE."

In the 1970s Montana sociologist Robert Balch infiltrated the group and traveled with them through California and Arizona for two months. During the 1970s, the cult suffered from a dramatic attrition rate, until Applewhite instituted what Balch describes as an "intense regimentation." Do had recruits follow detailed schedules--waking for prayer at precise times, taking vitamins at, say, 7:22 p.m., consuming yeast rolls and liquid protein--and had them do drills, mental and physical, to prepare the flock for outer space. According to a man named Michael, who was with the cult from 1975 to 1988, recruits experimented with their sleeping patterns and their diets, trying to break down their bodies so they would be "under control." The discipline, he said, was "shame based," and when Michael wanted to leave, he was told he was free to go. As TIME reported in August 1979, the group encamped in the Wyoming Rockies, moving to a ranch in northern Texas when it snowed. Paul Groll, who was a member, scoffed at comparisons with Jonestown, telling TIME in 1979, "Anyone can walk away. We just have to turn from a caterpillar into a butterfly, and then we'll be ready to leave."

For a time, at least, the regimen worked wonders on the dropout rate and also enhanced the group's isolation and secrecy. Balch kept tabs on the group until 1982; in 1994 nine cultists walked through his office door in Missoula, Montana, to tell him the 200 or so members that he knew existed in the 1970s had become a band of 24. Nettles, he learned, had died of cancer in 1985. They had also grown dramatically more apocalyptic in their beliefs.

Since then, casually dressed members of the group, identified only by their first names, have been traveling the country proselytizing, informing curious listeners that they were not seeking money, only recruits. Michael Upledger, a reporter for a Tampa, Florida, weekly newspaper, interviewed five cult members in 1994. "Their one vice was science fiction," he recalls. "They loved The X-Files, and they loved Star Trek: The Next Generation. It was the only time they really brightened up and came alive. They just lit up. We had a long conversation about which Star Trek was better, the old one or the new." As recently as 1994, members went on a recruiting drive in New Hampshire, warning audience members that the earth was going to be "recycled."

They also established their presence on the Internet, through both their glossy Heaven's Gate Website and energetic postings to various newsgroups. A disciple, Sister Francis Michael, recently chimed in to alt.religion.scientology, giving "a round of applause" to the Church of Scientology for its "courageous action against the Cult Awareness Network." During its most recent upsurge, according to one of the cult's Internet sites, membership "doubled," although from what to what remains unknown. People who have studied the cult estimate that at its peak, there were between 200 and 1,000 followers. And one person friendly with many of the victims insists there are more Heaven's Gaters still alive.