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The cult-leader’s name was Asahara Shoko, a fat guy with a whispy beard who gradually went blind; he would sometimes say he could float or fly.

Aum is a weird blend between Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism; paradise on earth involves helping Armageddon along, somehow, probably in a really scary way (which did play out, though they had tried unsuccessfully several times earlier).

The average believer was just a credulous dupe, but as with the Branch Davidians you had some really accomplished people going in for it, also.

They’d empty your bank account, cut off your contact with all your outside relatives, then the brain-washing would begin.

A lot of their people walked around with what looked like water-polo caps, numerous wires thereto affixed, the better to “pipe the Great Ones teachings directly through your skull, even when sleeping”.

Oh yeah, they also sometimes drank his bath water and PEE.

Get your engine revving yet..? Yeah, blechhhhhh...!

Japanese society is pretty rule-bound so sometimes if you’re a brainy, creative type that can’t hang with the whole straightjacket-society thing, then a kooky outfit like Aum can sometimes prove Just The Ticket.

Aum even had chemists from Tokyo University (Harvard of Japan), so when experts contended there was NO WAY Aum could home formulate SARIN, people were scared.

Their leader’s teachings had a scary penchant for mentioning VX, Sarin, Tabun and other agents, and there are rumors they made those, too.

They had carried out several tests in open-air, hoping to cause casualties but the effectiveness of such agents are highly subject to wind, etc., that is why they finally chose the closed airspace of the Tokyo subway system for another attack (which sent something like 10,000 panicky people to the hospital).

The agents were suspended in ~ 1 liter sealed liquid bags placed on subway car floors, then pierced with umbrella tips, the perps then making good their escape.

People above are saying an Aum nuke would be impossible but as long as they could get ahold of the HEU, I’m not totally sure I could agree.

There is an outside chance the story heard in the Ukraine might be true.