Marshall Herff Applewhite, Jr. was the founder and leader of Heaven's Gate, an UFO-based cult that performed mass suicidals in California coinciding with the visit of comet Hale-Bopp in 1997. It was suggested that the conflict between Applewhite's strict religious upbringing and his emerging homosexuality led to a mental breakdown and that he suffered from a schizophrenic episode at the time of his spiritual 'reawakening' in 1972. Nettles's influence helped reinforce his emerging delusions, but at the same time kept him from suffering further psychological deterioration. Applewhite along with Jim Jones were resurrected in 2025 by morally gray outerversal entities.