On the morning of March 26, 1997, San Diego police were called to a rented mansion in the upscale community of Rancho Santa Fe, California. There they discovered the bodies of 39 members of the Heaven's Gate cult who had each apparently taken their own lives in an act of mass suicide. Why? Because they had been convinced by their leader that by doing so, their souls could hitch a ride on a spaceship they believed was hiding in the tale of the Comet Hale-Bopp, which would then spirit them away to an extraterrestrial heaven. In November 18, 1978, 918 men, women, and children took their lives at the behest of "Reverend" Jim Jones and his henchmen in the jungles of Guyana, all in an effort ...