Web sites swamped amid rush for clues to suicides

March 28, 1997
Web posted at: 3:30 a.m. EST

(CNN) -- Answers are scarce in the mass suicide of a California cult, but investigators are finding clues to the bizarre deaths by logging onto the Internet.

What they're finding is a dark and confusing side of the Internet, a place where bizarre ideas are exchanged and gain currency.

"One of the intriguing aspects here, and it could be a first, is the connection to the computer world," Jerrold Post, a psychiatrist who has studied hate groups on the Internet, told CNN.

Police said they had gathered little information so far on the background of the group, known as Heaven's Gate. They operated a computer Web service called Higher Source, along with a Web site with the same name.

The Hale-Bopp connection

But the site known as Heaven's Gate -- How and When It May Be Entered, offers disturbing insight into the group. The site's home page makes apocalyptic references to the Hale-Bopp comet. "Red Alert ... HALE-BOPP Brings Closure," the site says in flashing red letters.

Heaven's Gate describes the comet as heralding a spacecraft coming to "take us home to 'Their World' -- in the literal 'Heavens." Hale-Bopp is the brightest comet visible from Earth in decades.

"We are happily prepared to leave 'this world' and go with Ti's crew," says the cryptic message on the Web site. The message does not explain who Ti is, but it is believed to be the name of one of the cult's founders.

"You may even find your 'boarding pass' to leave with us during this brief 'window.'" the site says.

Beverly Hills businessman Nick Matzorkis, who tipped police off to the deaths of the 39 men and women found Wednesday in Rancho Santa Fe near San Diego, said they killed themselves to rendezvous with a spacecraft they believed was hiding behind the comet.

Web sites swamped

Both the Higher Source and Heaven's Gate Web pages could be viewed on Thursday by anyone with a properly equipped computer and Internet access, although access became more difficult as news of the San Diego deaths spread.

Groups seeking more information called in their Web masters, programmers and staffers with Internet expertise to try to find Web sites linked to the computer-savvy cult members, while others consulted archives of Net postings and tried -- often in vain -- to access the information.

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.

Heaven's Gate Web site lists its mailing address as TELAH Services and a box at a PostNet store in northeast Phoenix. The owner said Thursday he wasn't aware of the group or who was renting the box.

And Deppe had no idea why Heaven's Gate, based in southern California, chose a Minneapolis company to provide an Internet connection.

The administrative contact for Heavens Gate is listed as Chris Knight. The site lists him at a Malibu, California, address and with a Los Angeles-area phone number that actually hooks up to a hotel.

Mediocre designers

The cult members' bodies were found in a computer-filled mansion in Rancho Santa Fe, alongside suitcases packed for their "journey."

And according to programmers, their talents at Web design weren't much more sophisticated than their knowledge of space travel.

"They weren't very good Web designers. I don't know what kind of money they were making. They have white outlines on the edges of the text that kind of mooshes it against the background," said Kevin Rardin, a technical communications expert in Mountain View, California.

Morgan Davis, operations director of CTS Network Service, one of San Diego's largest Internet providers, agreed.

"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."

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.