ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, March 28, 1997 TAG: 9703280085
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-10 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: SAN FRANCISCO
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
Programmers say cult members' talents at web design weren't much more sophisticated than their knowledge of space travel.
When word came down about the bodies in Rancho Sante Fe, the media raced to the scene. But as more facts became available, they found themselves scrambling in a different medium, as clues began to surface in the confusing realm of the Internet.
Web masters, programmers and stray staffers with Internet expertise were pulled in to try to find web sites linked to the computer-savvy cult members, while others consulted archives of Internet postings and tried - often in vain - to access the information.
The group made money with a web design firm called Higher Source and proselytized through a web site called Heaven's Gate.
The minute the Heaven's Gate Web address was read over the air on the ``Today'' show Thursday morning, the Minneapolis-based Internet service that hosted it nearly crashed.
``The general public was flooding our net with millions of hits and knocking off the rest of our customers. We pulled [the site] off temporarily. We'll put it back when the fanfare dies down,'' said Ed Deppe, chief operating officer of SpaceStar Communications.
According to programmers, the cult members' talents at web design weren't much more sophisticated than their knowledge of space travel.
``They're rather mediocre. ... Their art work is kind of amateurish. The layout and typesetting is not cutting-edge. It really looks like anything anyone could have done in their spare time,'' said Morgan Davis, operations director of CTS Network Service, one of San Diego's largest Internet providers.
The Heaven's Gate Web site reads: ``The joy is that our Older Member in the Evolutionary Level above human (the `Kingdom of Heaven') has made it clear to us that Hale-Bopp's approach is the `marker' we've been waiting for. ... We are happily prepared to leave `this world' and go with Ti's crew,'' the Heaven's Gate Web site reads.
The site included references to the sieges at Waco, Texas, Ruby Ridge, Idaho, and at the ancient fortress of Masada, where more than 900 Jewish zealots committed suicide in A.D. 73 rather than surrender to the Romans.
The Heaven's Gate Web site also contains an entry against suicide for people who are not part of the group, though it said suicide was an accepted way for cult members to ascend to a higher level of life.
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