ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, March 28, 1997 TAG: 9703280078
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: SAN DIEGO
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
But they planned a rendezvous with a spaceship hiding behind Comet Hale-Bopp.
Self-styled monks in hip black shirts. Buzz-cut computer nerds cashing in on the Internet craze. A doomsday cult fixated on the approach of comet Hale-Bopp.
The religious group Heaven's Gate, whose members died in a mass suicide, apparently combined business savvy and religious passion.
``They presented themselves as being part of a monastery and saw themselves as being monks. Their behavior was not really all that unusual,'' said Nick Matzorkis, a Beverly Hills Internet businessman who employs a former member of Heaven's Gate known as Rio.
``They were kind of Christian-based, but they were also involved with the universe,'' said Greg Hohertz, a former Matzorkis employee who knows Rio and met other cult members, who ran their computer business under the name Higher Source.
Hohertz described them as quiet and kind, savvy at the computer but a little spacy away from it.
But nobody expected the way the 39 men and women chose to end their lives.
``I couldn't see them doing this, actually,'' he said, characterizing the group as ``very peaceful, kind of laid-back. None of them were depressed or upset or anything. They were always very happy.''
Two videotapes purportedly sent to a former member suggest the group planned to ``shed their containers,'' possibly to rendezvous with a UFO they believed was traveling behind comet Hale-Bopp. The word ``containers'' presumably meant their bodies.
Matzorkis said one of the female members had mentioned the comet several months ago.
``She told me they believed that there was a UFO following behind this comet, using the comet to shield them from Earth,'' Matzorkis said. ``They felt that the ship was coming to pick them up.''
``To me, they seemed like a group of Trekkie-type individuals,'' he said.
``There have been people all along who have been attaching apocalyptic significance to Hale-Bopp,'' said Alan Hale of the Southwest Institute for Space Research in Cloudcroft, N.M., who, with amateur astronomer Thomas Bopp, discovered the comet in 1995.
``Clearly, there seem to have been at least 39 people who believed something,'' Hale said.
Several visitors to the house used by the cult have said the inhabitants treated the nine-bedroom mansion as a temple, requiring outsiders to replace their shoes with booties when they entered. They called each other ``brother'' and ``sister'' and their apparent leader ``Father John.''
Other aspects of the case point to a strain of Christianity in their beliefs: The suicides took place during or just before Holy Week; the bodies were draped with purple shrouds, a color symbolic of the death and resurrection of Christ.
Hohertz said the group all had buzz cuts or very short hair and lived a life of rules - when to wake up, what to eat, how to cook.
``For instance, when they eat, they follow specific guidelines,'' he said. ``For preparation, they'd follow the recipe exactly, no deviation.''
But although their convictions were strong, they weren't bent on proselytizing. ``You kind of had to bug 'em about it'' to get the details, Hohertz said.
Members of Higher Source were serious about making money on the Internet.
Real estate agent Bob Dyson said a salesman from his office who took clients through the $1.3 million dollar estate a week and a half ago saw 18 to 20 men and women working on computers. The group's Web site lists several clients for whom they've created Web sites and touts a wide array of computer services for sale.
Tom Goodspeed said he hired Higher Source to build a Web site for the San Diego Polo Club, which he directed. Though he looked askance at their image, ``They did a fantastic job for us.''
LENGTH: Medium: 77 linesby CNB