HEAVEN'S GATE, a small American UFO cult, achieved worldwide notoriety in March 1997 when the leader and his thirty-eight followers committed mass suicide in Rancho Santa Fe, California. The bodies, dressed in black uniforms and covered with purple shrouds, were found lying on bunk beds and mattresses throughout the group's seven-bedroom mansion. The suicides had been carefully planned, and law enforcement investigators found no evidence of violence or coercion. After ingesting barbiturates and alcohol to induce drowsiness, the members had pulled plastic bags over their heads and suffocated as they fell asleep. Once free of their human "containers," they expected their souls to be lifted up to a spacecraft that would take them to a physical heaven, the Level above Human. There they would be given new androgynous bodies and assume the task of guiding the evolution of life on other planets throughout...