President Donald Trump is set to deliver a major prime-time address to the nation at 9 p.m. ET on Thursday, delivering remarks on U.S. election integrity. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt

Researchers utilized 30 years of Landsat satellite imagery to analyze the color and spectral signatures of Adlie penguin guano across Antarctica, marking the first time space-based observations have captured food-web and population dynamics at a continental scale.

FHD ForensicsAfter extracting and sequencing his DNA, researchers were able to identify an unknown teenager killed at the Battle of Camden as John Pumphrey of Maryland.In 2022, archaeologists found the remains of a teenage soldier whod been buried alongside 14 of his compatriots after dying at the Battle of Camden, a bloody Revolutionary War engagement fought in South Carolina on August 16, 1780.Buried in an unmarked grave, the teenager had been known to researchers as Camden 9B until now. After extracting and sequencing the boys DNA, scientists figured out that these centuries-old remains belonged to Private John Pumphrey of Maryland.The Identification Of John Pumphrey 246 Years After He Was Killed In The Battle Of CamdenEven though almost 250 years had passed since Pumphreys death, researchers were able to extract DNA from his petrous bone, which sits at the base of the skull, behind the ear.Then, scientists at FHD Forensics needed to compare his DNA sample to the genomes of other potential relatives in order to create a family tree that could lead the team to their answer.It was an extremely intricate puzzle, Valerie Kemp, senior investigative genealogist at FHD Forensics, said to Maryland Matters.Wikimedia CommonsJohn Pumphrey died in the Battle of Camden on August 16, 1780.The DNA all pointed to John Pumphrey, who enlisted in the Seventh Maryland Regiment of the Continental Army in 1777. At the time, Pumphrey was only about 14 years old.Pumphrey served in several historic battles, including Brandywine, Germantown, and Monmouth, while also camping with George Washington during the brutal winter of 1778 at Valley Forge. According to historical records, he then re-enlisted in 1779 and received a $100 bonus.But in the wake of the Battle of Camden on August 16, 1780, he was listed as missing. Researchers determined that he was killed by a soft-tissue injury, possibly from a bayonet, but remain unsure of how exactly Pumphrey died.Researchers have, however, been able to use historical records to piece together much of the story of John Pumphreys early life. Pumphrey was a direct descendant of Walter Pumphrey, a Quaker who immigrated to New Jersey from England in 1678. The family moved to the Baltimore area in 1713, originally to open up a carpentry shop.The Pumphrey family became prominent in the Baltimore area, with extensive real estate holdings and business interests. His grandfather, Ebenezer Pumphrey, was a notable player in the states lumber and building industries.FHD ForensicsJohn Pumphrey re-enlisted in the Continental Army in 1779 and received a $100 bonus.The fact that John Pumphrey came from a family of high status left researchers baffled at first.We thought, what is a boy from these families doing going to war at 14? It just didnt make any sense, FHD President Allison Peacock told Maryland Matters.After more digging, the team discovered that Pumphreys father died in 1771, when the boy was only about 10 years old. In a strange occurrence, the land owned by Pumphreys father somehow got passed to his cousin instead of his several sons.Likely with no other prospects of land ownership, Pumphrey turned to another future for himself in the Continental Army. But three years later, he became one of the nearly 1,000 American casualties at the Battle of Camden, one of Britains biggest victories of the entire war.How Both Forensic Researchers And Pumphreys Descendants Have Responded To This Astounding NewsThe identification of John Pumphrey means a great deal for both forensic scientists and those with familial ties to people who were lost to history hundreds of years ago.The research team at FHD believes that the groundbreaking identification of John Pumphrey was the first of its kind, an important step forward into uncharted territory.Nobodys ever identified a 246-year-old John Doe before, Peacock told Maryland Matters. Indeed, the researchers are calling this a successful resolution to the oldest-known John Doe case in American history.FHD Forensics John Pumphrey received a reburial in 2023 with full military honors.Having been lying in an unmarked grave for nearly 250 years, Pumphrey finally received a reburial with military honors in 2023. Researchers also found approximately 20,000 DNA matches for Pumphreys living relatives. In June 2026, some of these relatives came together in a ceremony in Baltimore to celebrate his life.One of Pumphreys relatives that came to the event was Julie Pumphrey Strickland, who resides not far from the site of the Battle of Camden. She said this investigation was especially meaningful to her.I was born a Pumphrey. I was put up for adoption when I was 6 weeks old and later found both sides of my family. I started out without a name. He wound up without a name. And now we both know our name, she told WLTX.The researchers are now hoping to identify more of the soldiers whod been buried in unmarked graves. However, the process is complex and expensive, with each identification adding up to tens of thousands of dollars.This identification was funded by the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology and the South Carolina Battleground Preservation Trust, among other sponsors. For future investigations, the researchers are looking for additional funding.But though it may take a significant amount of time and money to make additional identifications, researchers are heartened by the fact that we now know definitively that fallen soldiers who died as far back as 250 years ago can still have their names and legacies restored.After reading about how researchers identified a teenage soldier who died 250 years ago, discover 12 Revolutionary War women most people havent heard of. Then, learn about Lepa Radi, the teenage freedom fighter who was executed by the Nazis at just 17.The post A Teenage Orphan Who Died In Battle During The Revolutionary War Once Had No Name But Forensic Scientists Just Identified Him appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Erogers148/Wikimedia CommonsA depiction of Martin Guerre and his wife, Bertrande de Rols.In 1560, a man with one leg entered the French city of Toulouse with an unbelievable claim: Someone had taken over his entire life. This included deceiving his family and having several children with his wife.While tales of impostors may be common in fiction, theyre incredibly rare in real life. Most of the time, theres enough suspicion that family and friends are able to eventually sniff them out.However, theres one case in history in which an impostor appears to have convinced a whole town that he was a missing man, only to be found out in one of the most dramatic ways possible. This is the story of Martin Guerre or, at least, the man many believed to be him.Who Was Martin Guerre?In a video with over 402,000 views, Avian Johnson (@aveovershares), a historian who goes on historical horror deep dives on TikTok, recounts a story from history that she says she became obsessed with in grad school and that has haunted me ever since.In the early 1500s, a boy in Artigat, France, named Martin Guerre married Bertrande de Rols. Both of them were children at the time, with some contemporaneous reports claiming that Guerre was just 14 and de Rols may have been as young as nine.Certainly not a love match, the marriage was more of a practical arrangement between two well-matched families, Johnson explains. Of course, we cant know the intimate details of the couples relationship, but in the eyes of the outside world, the marriage was far from a success.Google MapsMartin Guerre vanished from the small village of Artigat, France, in 1548.In practical terms, this meant that the pair had not borne any children, even after eight years of marriage. There were also rumors that the union was not consummated in the first place and that the couple was somehow cursed.To resolve this, the village performed a folk ritual to free the couple of their hex. Shortly after, they had a son. After this, Guerre was accused of stealing grain from his father. In response, Guerre promptly left and was not heard from again for eight years.This would have been a st thing to do in any period. But in 16th-century France, it was even sttier, Johnson explains. Canon law did not permit an abandoned wife to remarry, not without proof of her husbands death, at least.Unable to build any other life, Johnson continues, Bertrande was forced to maintain the legal and social fiction of a marriage to a man who had abandoned her, waiting for either her husband to return or for news of his death. Eight years later, Guerre unexpectedly returned. However, something about him didnt seem quite right.The Supposed Return Of Martin GuerreWhile eight years can significantly change a persons appearance, some people thought that the new Guerre looked remarkably different from the Guerre of yore. That said, others countered that this Guerre knew things that only the real Guerre could know.This man who insisted he was Martin Guerre knew the names of relatives, friends, virtually every single person in the community, Johnson summarizes. He knew the landscape of the village and even the layout of his old house. He knew intimate details of Martin and Bertrandes domestic life that no outsider should have had access to.European InternationalA 1982 film retold Martin Guerres incredible story.His knowledge was so formidable that, despite the doubt that surrounded his return, the town and Guerres wife soon accepted that he had indeed come home. Over the next four years, Guerre and de Rols would have two more children and were seemingly content in their marriage.However, doubts began to arise. For example, a soldier who came through town claimed that hed served with Guerre. When he saw the new Guerre, he proclaimed that this was not the man he knew as Guerre had lost a leg in battle.These suspicions came to a head when Guerre tried to claim part of his familys estate. Guerres uncle, Pierre, did a little research and alleged that the individual claiming to be Guerre was actually another man: Arnaud du Tilh. While de Rols initially refused to accept this, she later supported the accusation under pressure from Pierre, and the case went to trial.In court, things initially seemed to be going well for the new Guerre. While witnesses were split on whether he was genuine or an impostor, the man himself held incredible composure.Public DomainIn 1560, Judge Jean de Coras documented his account of the Martin Guerre case.The accused was once more subjected to rigorous questioning about his past, and by all accounts, he performed flawlessly. His statements were checked and double-checked, and no contradictions were found, Johnson explains. The supposed Martin Guerre eloquently argued his case before the Toulouse judges, who seemed inclined to believe his version of the story.There was even a moment in the courtroom when the new Guerre challenged his wife to declare him to be an impostor. She would not do so.Then, an unexpected guest arrived at the trial: the real Martin Guerre. This Guerre was, in fact, missing a leg, and while he was unable to recite his own personal history to the level of the new Guerre, his family was almost immediately certain that this Martin Guerre was the real one.As it turned out, Pierres suspicions had been correct. The impostor was a man named Arnaud du Tilh. According to du Tilh, he had been mistaken for Guerre several times. Consequently, he decided to learn as many personal details as possible about him and, in a sense, become him. When it became clear that du Tilh had been found out, he confessed, asked for forgiveness, and refused to state that Guerres wife, Bertrande, knew he was an impostor. Du Tilh was eventually hanged for his crime.Did Bertrande De Rols Know The Truth?Over the course of this story, one question tends to stick with both historians and casual readers alike: How much did Bertrande de Rols know?At the time, the judges accepted that Bertrande had been deceived. However, some historians specifically, one scholar named Natalie Zemon Davis dispute this. Davis argues that Bertrande was complicit, that she knew not immediately, perhaps, but that at some point during those nearly four years, she recognized the man in her bed was not Martin Guerre, and she chose to say nothing chose, in fact, to participate, to build something like a life with a man who was in every practical sense a better husband than the one who had abandoned her: more attentive, more present, more interested in the management of the household, and the raising of their son, Johnson explains.Public DomainMartin Guerre returned to France in the midst of the trial against his impostor.The evidence Davis marshals is circumstantial but certainly not trivial, Johnson continues. The intimacy of the details Arnaud possessed argues for an inside source. Four years of apparent domestic contentment argue against sustained, undetected deception. And then there is the silence in the courtroom, the moment when Arnaud offered Bertrande an unambiguous way out, and she did not take it.It should be noted that this is not a historical consensus and that some dispute Davis recounting of events. In a criticism, author Robert Finlay accused Davis of not having enough evidence to support her claims and that her work relied on too many assumptions to come to valuable, verifiable conclusions. Davis later responded to Finlay, agreeing with some of the critique but claiming that he had misinterpreted her argument. Given the limited historical record, historians will likely never know what exactly happened here but the mystery will likely continue to enchant us for centuries. @aveovershares Definitely a quieter sort of historical horror, but this case still quietly wrecked my brain #darkhistory #historicalmystery #truecrime #france #weirdhistory original sound Avian Johnson All Thats Interesting reached out to Johnson via Instagram direct message.For more historical tales of impostors, learn about Princess Caraboo, a woman who managed to convince a city that she was the princess of a fictional island. Then, read about the strange disappearance of Walter Collins.The post An Impostor Fooled An Entire French Village For 4 Years. Then A Man With One Leg Appeared In Court appeared first on All That's Interesting.

FlickrChristopher Langan is known as the smartest man alive due to his reported 200 IQ, and hes spent his life developing a theory of everything.Imagine the worlds most intelligent person. Are they examining a test tube? Gazing at a chalkboard full of complex equations? Giving orders in a boardroom? None of these descriptions fit Christopher Langan, who some consider the worlds smartest person alive.Born into poverty, Chris Langan demonstrated high intelligence from a young age. In fact, he has one of the highest IQs ever recorded, somewhere between 190 and 210. But Langan doesnt spend his days teaching on Ivy League campuses or overseeing national laboratories. Instead, the smartest man in the world lives a quiet life as a horse rancher.Chris Langans Rough Childhood Before He Became The Smartest Man AliveBorn on March 25, 1952, Christopher Michael Langan showed signs of above-average intelligence from a young age. He could speak at six months and read at three years old. By the time hed turned five, Langan had even started wondering about the existence of God.Darien Long/Wikimedia CommonsChristopher Langan with his grandfather in the 1950s.It was simply recognized that I was some kind of kid genius, Langan said. My schoolmates saw me as the teachers pet, this little freak.But abuse permeated Chris Langans early years. His mothers boyfriend, Jack, regularly beat him and his two half-brothers, although he denies the abuse.Living with him was like ten years of boot camp, Langan recalled, only at boot camp you dont get the s**t beaten out of you every day with a garrison belt, and in boot camp, youre not living in abject poverty.Chris Langans family was incredibly poor, leaving him and his brother to fend for themselves in many cases.FlickrWith a reported IQ between 195 and 210, Chris Langan might be the smartest person in the world despite being a college dropout who works as a rancher.To this day, I have not met anyone who suffered in their childhood from poverty like my family suffered. We didnt have a pair of equal socks, but holes in the shoes. And in the pants. We always wore the same clothes. I remember with my brothers washing our only clothes in the bathtub: we did it naked because we had nothing else to wear, Langan stated.His Astonishing Intelligence Begins To Shine ThroughDespite such adversity, Chris Langan continued to excel academically. By the time he was 12, he had learned all his public school could teach him and started spending time in independent study. Even then, he was showing signs that he might one day become the smartest person in the world.Taught myself advanced math, physics, philosophy, Latin and Greek, all that, Langan, who could learn a language by simply skimming through a textbook, recalled. He even got a perfect score on the SAT, even though hed fallen asleep during the test.He also started working out. And when Jack tried to attack him one morning when he was 14, Langan fought back effectively throwing Jack out of the house for good.Soon, Christopher Langan prepared to go to college. But hed soon find that intelligence didnt always translate into real-world success for the alleged smartest person in the world.Christopher Langan Drops Out Of College And Starts Taking Odd JobsWikimedia CommonsChris Langan and his wife, Gina, in 2017.Christopher Langan went to Reed College hoping to study math and philosophy. But when his mother failed to sign a form securing him a full scholarship, he dropped out.He next went to Montana State, but only briefly. Langan later said that hed clashed with a math professor and had car troubles that made it impossible to get to class.There I was, paying my own money, taking classes from people who were obviously my intellectual inferiors. I just figured, Hey, I need this like a moose needs a hat rack! Langa said, according to an Esquire interview. I could literally teach these people more than they could teach me to this day, I have no respect for academics. I call them acadummies.Instead, he drifted east. Christopher Langan worked as a cowboy, a construction worker, a forest service firefighter, a fitness trainer, and a bouncer. By the time he was in his 40s, he was making just $6,000 a year.On one side, youre a regular guy, he stated to Esquire. You go to work, you do your job, you exchange pleasantries. On the other side, you come home and you begin doing equations in your head. You kind of retreat into your own worldyou make it work for you the best you can.Chris Langan, the smartest man alive, used his brawn and not his brains as a bouncer.But the mind of the smartest person in the world kept on working. In his free time, Christopher Langan tried to untangle the secrets of the universe by developing a theory of everything. He calls it the Cognition-Theoretic Model of the Universe, or CTMU for short.It includes physics and the natural sciences, but it also goes to a level above. A level on which you can talk about the entirety of science, Langan explained, noting that CTMU could prove the existence of God.However, the smartest man in the world doubts itll ever be read, published, or taken seriously. He thinks his lack of academic credentials will continue to hinder him.Christopher Langans Life As The Worlds Smartest Person AliveKTVO-Louis FinleyChris Langan and his wife, Gina.Though a 20/20 investigation found that Christopher Langan had an IQ between 195 and 210 (the average IQ is around 100), which would give him one of the highest IQs in the world, the smartest man in the world continued to live a quiet life.Today, he and his wife spend their days on a horse ranch in Mercer, Missouri. Nobody knows anything about my IQ because I dont tell them, Langan explained.YouTubeChristopher Langan, the smartest man in the world, in Mercer, Missouri.But he has kept his mind and the minds of others active. Christopher Langan and his wife founded the Mega Foundation in 1999, a nonprofit for people with high IQs to share ideas outside of academia.Hes also courted some controversy. Langan is a 9/11 truther (he thinks the attacks were staged to distract from CTMU) and he believes in white replacement theory. An article in the Baffler called him Alex Jones with a thesaurus.As for Christopher Langan himself? How does he see his own, immense intelligence? For him, its like anything in life we all have good luck and bad, and the smartest person in the world just happened to be endowed with a great mind.Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like to be ordinary, he admitted. Not that Id trade. I just wonder sometimes.After reading about Christopher Langan, the smartest person in the world, learn about William James Sidis and Marilyn vos Savant, who recorded even higher IQs. Or, see how Albert Einsteins brain was stolen after his death.The post Chris Langan: The Bouncer, Rancher, And Conspiracy Theorist Who Might Be The Worlds Smartest Man appeared first on All That's Interesting.

When legendary Chicago mob boss Al Capone was imprisoned on income tax charges, he hand-picked his first cousin, Frank Nitti, as the new gangland boss. Already Capones most ruthless enforcer, Nitti would go on to survive at least one attempt on his life and extort millions from Hollywood movie studios but was forever haunted by the prospect of a prison cell.Bettmann/GettyA 1943 photo of Chicago gangster Frank Nitti.And while Billy Drago memorably portrayed the infamous mobster in Brian DePalmas The Untouchables, the film depicted Nitti as a sadistic eccentric. The real Nitti always made sure that his fingers were never on the trigger, no matter how many killings he ordered. And the real Nitti was not killed by Prohibition agent Eliot Ness, as seen in the film. Instead, he took his own life in a painful fashion.This is the true story of gangster Frank Nitti.How Frank Nitti Started His Criminal CareerFlickrFrank Nitti in 1930, just before his rise to power in the Chicago Outfit.Born Francesco Raffaele Nitto in Angri, Italy on January 27, 1888, Nitti emigrated to the United States at age 12 and took on the Americanized name Frank Nitto. The media would always refer to him as Nitti, but he preferred Nitto. His family settled in Brooklyn, and the family of his cousins Al and Frank Capone lived nearby.He moved to Chicago around 1913, and worked as a barber but soon got into the side business of jewel thefts, fencing stolen goods, and liquor smuggling. Johnny Torrio was the crime boss overseeing Chicago, the underworld of which was in its infancy at the time. However, with the onset of Prohibition, the U.S. government had inadvertently birthed a lucrative new criminal revenue stream.Competing bootlegging gangs fought for control, and criminal loyalties between gangs were shifting and fluid. Torrio had previously brought a new soldier to Chicago from Brooklyn, Al Capone. It was Torrio and Capone who plotted the ambush and murder of the previous Chicago boss, Big Jim Colosimo.The bootlegging rivalries were heating up. In January 1925, Capone escaped an attempted hit unscathed. A few days later Torrio was shot several times outside his home in the company of his wife. He survived but threw in the towel and handed his organization over to Capone.Capone started to trust his cousin Frank Nitti with his life. Organized and financially astute, Nitti was placed in charge of cash flow for Capone, and soon was given the nickname The Enforcer. Nitti shone by arranging gangland murders and making sure they could never be pinned on him.Frank Nittis Rise To PowerFlickrAl Capones mugshot, taken in Miami, Florida.Following his 18-month stint for tax evasion, Nitti was placed into the leadership role by Capone while the boss waited out his sentence. A trusted lieutenant of Capones, Nitti managed the distribution of liquor from Canada to Chicago speakeasies, earning the gang hundreds of millions of dollars. With the repeal of Prohibition around the corner, the old Capone gang was evolving into the Chicago Outfit.Frank Nitti had an all-star team of criminals supporting him. Paul The Waiter Ricca, a future Outfit boss, was shrewd and strategic, but a little inexperienced in the early 1930s to oversee the entire operation.Ricca had served as acting boss while Nitti himself served a shorter sentence, also for tax evasion. Riccas protg, the young Anthony Accardo, was another up-and-comer who would ultimately become the Outfits all-powerful Godfather. Accardos leadership potential was evident, and Ricca would go on to say, Accardo had more brains for breakfast than Capone had in a lifetime.On Dec. 19, 1932, the new boss of the Outfit, was in his office at 221 North La Salle Street in Chicago. Suddenly, a number of police officers, led by Detective Sergeants Harry Lang and Harry Miller, burst into his office. The newly elected Mayor, Anton Cermak, had ordered the raid. Entering the office Lang fired immediately, hitting Nitti three times in his back and neck. Lang then shot himself, ensuring it was only a minor flesh wound, and claimed he was acting in self-defense.Nitti survived but was subsequently arrested for the attempted murder of the police officer. In February 1933 Nitti was acquitted after court testimony revealed Chicago Mayor Cermak ordered the hit. He wasnt happy with Nittis lack of obedience and wanted him removed from the scene in favor of more subservient gangsters.During the trial, Detective Sergeant Miller testified that his colleague, Lang, had received $15,000 to kill Nitti during the raid.A uniformed officer present testified that Nitti had been unarmed. The pretense of law and order was hinted at when both Lang and Miller were fired from the police force. But by then, Lang had been elected business agent of the Hebrew butchers union.It was business as usual in Prohibition-era Chicago, but Prohibition was about to end and the Outfit was about to expand its horizons.Extorting The Hollywood StudiosFlickrHollywoodland in the late 1920s.By 1935, according to the Chicago Tribune, Frank Nittis own finances were a mess. His illegal income was substantial, but he blew vast amounts of it on gambling. So he decided to extort the Hollywood motion picture industry.With the help of the New York crime families, Nitti installed a front man, George Brown, to be elected president of the national union overseeing the movie business. Nitti associate Willie Bioff was appointed Browns special representative. Bioff had already experienced success shaking down Chicago movie theater projectionists. Nitti sent Bioff out to Hollywood. The studios could not afford union strikes leading to expensive production stoppages.In less than three months, Bioff scored $250,000 in cash for the Outfit from studio bosses at Warner Bros, 20th Century Fox, and Paramount. They happily paid off Nitti and the Outfit via Bioff to avoid union wage increases.Eventually, a federal grand jury was convened and heard testimony from studio head Harry Warner. On May 23, 1941, indictments for extortion and tax evasion were issued for Nitti, Bioff, and the Outfit administration, including Paul Ricca. Bioff immediately cooperated with the U.S. attorney. He revealed the entire scheme in return for immunity from prosecution and retention of his payoffs over the last decade. And more indictments were on the way for Nitti and Ricca. The Lonely Death Of Frank NittiOn March 18, 1943, the law was closing in on Frank Nitti and the Outfit. Ricca and other underbosses drove to Nittis house in the Chicago suburb of Riverside. In a telling indication of the balance of power within the Outfit, Ricca insisted that Nitti plead guilty to the charges to limit the Outfits exposure.The indictments had jeopardized the entire organization and Nitti was expected to take the fall.FlickrFrank Nittis final resting place in Mount Carmel cemetery.The following morning, March 19, Nitti received a call from his lawyer: New York indictments had been issued. Nitti asked his wife to attend church for the Novena prayer, then drank himself into a stupor from the liquor cabinet and left the house with his revolver.Witnesses on that day reported Nitti drunkenly weaving around a railyard near his home before he eventually sat down, using the gun to take his own life.And although Frank Nitti wished for a painless death, thats not how it unfolded. The Outfit boss had to shoot himself twice, with the final shot going through his jaw and out the top of his head, leaving a smoking hole in his fedora.Now that youve read about Chicago Outfit enforcer Frank Nitti, learn about Prohibition agent Eliot Ness, who squared off against Al Capone. Then, learn the harrowing story of Al Capones death.The post The Story Of Frank Nitti, Al Capones Right-Hand Man Who Took Over The Chicago Outfit appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Funny and charismatic, an overachiever who was on the honor roll. Thats how Louise Winant remembered her brother, Marshall Applewhite, who would go on to become the Heavens Gate cult leader.None of Applewhites loved ones could understand how the man they knew a friendly jester, a devout Christian, a devoted husband and father of two could walk away from everything to found a cult. And not just any cult. Heavens Gate was considered bizarre even among the other New Age beliefs cropping up in the 1970s.Heavens Gate was curiously techy. It had a website before most traditional businesses did, and its beliefs were like something out of Star Trek, involving aliens, UFOs, and talk of ascension to the next level.YouTubeMarshall Applewhite, the leader of the Heavens Gate cult, in a recruitment video.But it also had strains of the familiar. It clearly borrowed from Christianity, as Applewhite claimed to be able to save his followers from Lucifer. It was a combination that provoked laughter and ridicule more often than conversion but somehow, it did attract dozens of followers.And in the end, nobody was laughing when 39 cult members turned up dead in a 1997 mass suicide that stunned America. Bursting through the national consciousness, Heavens Gate instantly became infamous.Most recently explored in the HBO Max docuseries Heavens Gate: The Cult of Cults, theres no question that the cults story remains just as tragic and bizarre today as it was decades ago.How Did The Heavens Gate Cult Start?Getty ImagesMarshall Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles, the two cofounders of Heavens Gate. August 28, 1974.The earliest incarnation of Heavens Gate, as the cult would eventually come to be known, began in the 1970s under the leadership of Marshall Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles.Marshall Applewhite was born in 1931 in Texas and by most accounts had a relatively normal life. Known for his musical talents, he once attempted to become an actor. When that didnt pan out, he pursued music-focused careers at universities which appeared to be going well.But in 1970, he was allegedly fired from his job as a music professor at Houstons University of St. Thomas because he was having a relationship with one of his male students.Though Applewhite and his wife were already divorced by that point, he struggled with the loss of his job and may have even had a nervous breakdown. A couple of years later, he met Bonnie Nettles, a nurse with a strong interest in the Bible as well as a few obscure spiritual beliefs.A trailer for the HBO Max docuseries Heavens Gate: The Cult of Cults.While the true story of how Applewhite met Nettles remains murky, Applewhites sister maintains that he entered a Houston hospital with heart trouble and that Nettles was one of the nurses who treated him. According to Applewhites sister, Nettles convinced Applewhite that he had a purpose and that God had saved him for a reason.As for Applewhite himself, he would say that he was simply visiting a friend in the hospital when he encountered Nettles.But no matter how they met, one thing was clear: They felt an instant connection and began to discuss their beliefs. By 1973, they were convinced that they were the two witnesses described in the Christian Book of Revelation and they would prepare the way for the kingdom of heaven.Its unclear when they added UFOs and other elements of science fiction to their belief system but this would ultimately become a huge part of what they stood for. Marshall Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles began to call themselves Bo and Peep, Him and Her, and Do and Ti. Sometimes they even went by Winnie and Pooh or Tiddly and Wink. They shared a platonic, sexless partnership in keeping with the ascetic life they would come to encourage among their followers.How The Heavens Gate Cult Recruited FollowersAnne Fishbein/Sygma via Getty ImagesMembers of Heavens Gate pose with a manifesto in 1994.Once they put together their belief system, Applewhite and Nettles wasted no time advertising their new cult. Preparing presentations for potential followers all over the country, Applewhite and Nettles would distribute posters that promoted a mixture of conspiracy theories, science fiction, and proselytization. And yet, these invitations were undeniably eye-catching. The word UFOs would often appear in big letters at the top, with a disclaimer at the bottom: Not a discussion of UFO sightings or phenomena.The posters usually claimed, Two individuals say they were sent from the level above human, and will return to that level in a space ship (UFO) within the next few months.In 1975, Applewhite and Nettles received national attention after they gave a particularly successful presentation in Oregon. In this presentation, Applewhite and Nettles promoted Heavens Gate then called Human Individual Metamorphosis or Total Overcomers Anonymous with the promise that a spaceship would whisk their followers away to salvation.But first, they had to renounce sex, drugs, and all their earthly possessions. And in most cases, they also needed to abandon their own families. Only then could they be elevated to a new world and a better life known as TELAH, The Evolutionary Level Above Human.An estimated 150 people attended the event in Oregon. While many locals thought it was a joke at first, at least a couple dozen people were interested enough to join the cult and say goodbye to their loved ones.Heavens Gate WebsiteA depiction of a being from The Evolutionary Level Above Human (TELAH).Through this grassroots approach, the founders of the Heavens Gate cult were able to convince more people to leave behind everything they knew to follow them and travel with them for about two decades. It was a radical move, but for some, the choice encompassed the spirit of the decade many were giving up the conventional lives they had started and seeking new spiritual answers to old questions.But before long, some followers began to feel restricted by the cults rules. As if abandoning their families wasnt enough, members were also expected to follow strict guidelines including no sex, no human-level relationships, no socializing. A few members including Applewhite took this rule to the extreme by undergoing castration.The followers were also expected to dress largely alike and conform to incredibly specific rules about the most mundane things. Everything was designed to be an exact duplicate, survivor Michael Conyers explained. You were not to come up with, Well Im going to make the pancakes this big. There was a mixture, a size, how long you cooked it one side, how much the burner was on, how many a person got, how the syrup was poured on it. Everything.So how did a group like this once attract up to 200 members? According to former followers, Heavens Gate was appealing because of its blend of asceticism, mysticism, science fiction, and Christianity.Michael Conyers, an early recruit, said that the cults message was appealing because they were talking to my Christian heritage, but in a modern updated way. For example, Heavens Gate apparently taught that the Virgin Mary was impregnated after she was taken up in a spacecraft.Now as unbelievable as that sounds, that was an answer that was better than just plain virgin birth, Conyers said. It was technical, it had physicality to it.But before long, the cults belief system became progressively wackier which would eventually lead to disaster.From UFOs To The End Of The WorldHeavens Gate WebsiteThe homepage of the Heavens Gate website, which is still active today.One of the cults major problems was that it was operating on a clock. Followers believed that if they stayed on Earth long enough, they would face recycling the destruction of the Earth as the planet was wiped clean.At first, Nettles and Applewhite were convinced it wouldnt come to that. After all, a spaceship run by TELAH beings was supposed to arrive for them long before the apocalypse happened.Fate, however, threw a wrench in their plans when Nettles died from cancer in 1985. Her death was a severe blow to Applewhite not only emotionally, but also philosophically. Nettles death had the potential to call into question a number of the cults teachings. Perhaps, most pressingly, why did she die before the TELAH beings came to pick the followers up?It was then that Applewhite began to rely very heavily on one particular tenet of the cults beliefs: Human bodies were merely vessels, or vehicles, that were carrying them on their journey, and these vehicles could be abandoned when humans were ready to ascend to the next level.According to Applewhite, Nettles had merely exited her vehicle and entered her new home among the TELAH beings. But Applewhite apparently still had work to do on this plane of existence, so he would guide his followers in the hopes that they would be reunited with Nettles once again.It was a subtle but important shift in the cults ideology and it would have far-reaching and dangerous consequences.The Mass Suicide Of The Heavens Gate CultPhilipp Salzgeber/Wikimedia CommonsThe Hale-Bopp Comet as it crossed the evening sky on March 29, 1997.Members of Heavens Gate believed that suicide was wrong but their definition of suicide was far different from the traditional one. They believed that the true meaning of suicide was turning against the next level when it was offered to them. Tragically, this fatal offer was made in March 1997.Its not clear exactly where Applewhite got the idea that there was a UFO trailing behind HaleBopp, the brilliant comet that was about to make an appearance during that time. But he couldnt let this idea go.Some blame Art Bell, the conspiracy theorist and radio host behind the popular program Coast to Coast AM, for publicizing the delusion. But its hard to see how Bell could have anticipated what an increasingly worn and frazzled Applewhite would do with this idea.For some reason, Applewhite saw it as a sign. According to him, it was the only way to evacuate this Earth. The spaceship behind HaleBopp was apparently the flight that the Heavens Gate members had been waiting for all along. It was coming to take them to the higher place they were seeking.And it was coming just in time. If they waited any longer, Applewhite was convinced that the Earth was going to be recycled while they were still on it.The 39 active Heavens Gate cult members had already used the money they made from designing web pages the cults primary source of income to rent a mansion near San Diego. And so they decided this mansion would be the place where they left their vehicles.Starting on about March 22 or March 23, the 39 cult members ate applesauce or pudding that had been laced with a heavy dose of barbiturates. Some washed it down with vodka.Footage of the ritual layout of bodies in the mansion where Heavens Gate members killed themselves.They did it group by group, placing bags over their heads to ensure asphyxiation, and then they waited for death. This was believed to have happened over the course of a few days. Those later in the lineup cleaned up any mess made by the first groups and laid the bodies out neatly, covering them with purple shrouds.Applewhite was the 37th to die, leaving behind two others to prepare his corpse and alone in a house full of bodies take their own lives.After the authorities were alerted via an anonymous tip on March 26, they found 39 bodies lying neatly in bunk beds and other resting places, dressed in identical black tracksuits and Nike sneakers and covered in purple shrouds. Their matching armbands read Heavens Gate Away Team. The anonymous tipster was later revealed to be a former member whod left the group just a few weeks beforehand and received a disturbing package of videotaped farewells from the group and a map to the mansion.Of course, the aftermath of the discovery was chaotic. Reporters swarmed the scene, clamoring for details about the suicide cult. Family members of the victims demanded that their bodies be tested for HIV (all of them were negative). And Marshall Applewhites image was plastered on countless magazines his wide-eyed facial expressions living on in infamy.But after the initial uproar died down, those left behind had to cope with their loss. Former member Frank Lyford lost his closest friends, his cousin, and the love of his life in the mass suicide. Luckily, Lyford was able to find some semblance of grace despite the traumatic experience. We all have a connection to the divine within us, we all have that radio transmitter built in we dont need anyone to translate that for us, he said. That was the big mistake that we all made, in my mind it was believing we needed someone else to tell us what our best path should be.But eerily enough, Heavens Gate still has four living followers who survived only because they were instructed to run the groups website in the mid-1990s and have been doing so ever since. They still believe in the cults teachings and they claim to be in contact with the 39 members who died.After learning about the Heavens Gate cult, take a look at the Jonestown Massacre, another cults tragic end. Then, find out what life was like in the worlds most infamous cults according to people who got out.The post The Twisted Story Of The Heavens Gate Cult And Their Tragic Mass Suicide appeared first on All That's Interesting.

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