The Ultimate Kicks
The Heaven’s Gate cult Nike sneakers can still sometimes be found on ebay
WHAT’S THE dress code for a mass suicide? The occasion calls for some level of formality, but one doesn’t want to overdress. Twenty years ago, the Heaven’s Gate UFO cult chose fitness-goth. When the bodies of 39 members were found in a suburban mansion in San Diego, on March 26, 1997, they were wearing matching outfits: bodies covered in purple shrouds, black shirts and sweatpants, patches reading “Heaven’s Gate away team” and black-and-white Nike Decade sneakers.
Nike quietly discontinued the Decade soon after the suicides, but occasionally a pair will show up on ebay. They’re expensive. One recent listing—no doubt pegged to the anniversary of the suicides—features an unworn pair (size 12) recovered from a storage locker in Arizona. It was priced at $6,660, an amount inflated, no doubt, because of the rarity of the shoe and the circumstances with which it became associated.
The bodies discovered that day weren’t really dead, according to cult doctrine. They had merely left their “vehicles” and traveled to the “next level,” or “the evolutionary level above human” (TELAH), escaping a soon-to-be “recycled” Earth. Journeying to TELAH was the long-term goal of the cult, which started in the ’70s, and in 1997 the members finally grabbed their chance. Their leader, Marshall Herff Applewhite (aka Do) claimed that behind the approaching Hale-bopp comet was a spaceship that would take their souls. All they had to do was hitchhike by suicide.
On March 24, 1997, members took turns eating pudding and applesauce laced with phenobarbital, all of it washed down with vodka. They then put plastic bags over their heads to asphyxiate themselves.
The suicides got a ton of coverage, including a cover story in this magazine, and generated numerous jokes on the late-night talk shows and a thousand hacky variations of the Nike slogan “Just do it.” All this provided some uncomfortable attention for Nike, which didn’t respond to a
Newsweek requests for comment on this article. The company’s only apparent public acknowledgment of the matter was in 1997, a few weeks after the discovery: “We’ve heard all the jokes,” company representative Jim Small told Adweek. “The Heaven’s Gate incident was a tragedy. It had nothing to do with Nike.”
True, but the brand is forever branded by that tragedy. Last year, it was referenced in the Frank Ocean song “Nikes.” In 2015, a Reddit post went viral and was aggregated by multiple blogs after a user reported meeting the man who sold the cult the shoes. “Oh, is this for a basketball team or something?” the salesman supposedly asked. “Something… like that,” Applewhite allegedly replied.
The post likely was a hoax. The website Sole Collector confirmed with the two survivors running the Heaven’s Gate email account that the shoes were purchased by two members in bulk (and not by Applewhite) for $548.45. “They turned out to be a look that Do and the Class liked,” the email explained. They were also “able to get a good deal on them.”