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All 39 members of the Heaven's Gate cult killed themselves while wearing the same Nike sneakers with a big swoosh. They believed in something and sacrificed everything. They just did it.

Michael Cimino, who won Oscars as director and a producer of "The Deer Hunter" before "Heaven's Gate" destroyed his career and sped up the demise of 60-year-old United Artists, has died. He was believed to be 77.

  Are you in a cult?  Nobody ever answers that question “yes”. Yes, I am a follower of Zorg who tells me what to think, and instructs me on life from the time I awake each day, until he summons me to bed each night.  I live to do what Zorg desires because Zorg loves me and knows best.  Zorg is from the planet Org, and he hears their psychic transmissions.  The Orgians are coming to get us soon, and we’ll all have one cosmic Orgy.Dude, you’re in a cult.No!  Zorg told us you’d say that!  When the Orgians come...

"Some UFOs are intelligently controlled extraterrestrial spacecraft, and this is the biggest story of the millennium." These words are not the rantings of a deranged individual looking for attention or a comfortable straitjacket. Stanton Friedman is a maverick of sorts. Employed for 14 years as a nuclear physicist for companies like General Electric, General Motors, Westinghouse and Aerojet General Nucleonics, he worked on highly classified programs involving nuclear aircraft, fission and fusion rockets. In 1958, UFOs caught his attention, and Friedman has since lectured about this subject at more than 700 colleges and professional groups in all 50 states and...

ABC News' Kate Snow Reports: As news of Sen. Barack Obama's, D-Ill., triumph in the Democratic nomination battle travels across the nation, camp Clinton isn't hearing any of it. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., is holding her election night event at New York Baruch College Athletic & Recreation Center in New York -- the first time the candidate has not been in a contested or about to be contested state during the entire primary process. Other than the fact that we are 2 stories below ground in a cinderblock no-frills gym on Manhattan's Lower East Side, there are also NO televisions....

Marshall Applegate, leader of the Heavens Gate cult and John Edwards, follower of the Demomcraptic cult. Separated at birth? You be the judge.

Ten years ago next week, one of the strangest events in county history exploded into the public's consciousness. For several days, it was the biggest news story in the world. It began unfolding the afternoon of Wednesday, March 26, 1997, during a period when the Hale-Bopp comet could be seen in the night sky. Inside a mansion in Rancho Santa Fe, 39 members of the Heaven's Gate cult lay dead. Convinced that a spaceship was traveling behind the comet and that they would be transported to the vessel to begin a new life “beyond human,” they had poisoned themselves. Twenty-one...

The controversial belief system that counts movie stars Tom Cruise and John Travolta as devotees is winning support from a Liberal member of Parliament. Toronto-area MP Derek Lee appears in a recruiting video used by the Church of Scientology to attract new members in the United States. Some critics have denounced Scientology as a brainwashing cult that harasses its opponents and exploits the vulnerable for financial gain. But Mr. Lee says he supports some of the group's programs and is particularly impressed by its approach to rehabilitating drug addicts. "I'm way past the point of viewing them as just a...

<p>Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger filled out a big chunk of his senior staff today with a selection of conservative, liberal and bipartisan figures – a pattern that we can probably expect to see a lot of from this point forward. The most eye-popping appointment was Bonnie Reiss as senior adviser to the governor. Reiss is a friend and associate of Schwarzenegger for nearly 25 years. She is also a Democrat who first came into the Schwarzenegger orbit while working for Teddy Kennedy in the late 1970s, when the new governor and his future wife, Maria Shriver, were dating. Reiss, a former entertainment lawyer, was an environmental activist who formed a group to encourage Hollywood stars to promote environmental causes through their television shows. She later ran Schwarzenegger's private charity focused on inner-city after-school programs. Officially, Reiss will focus on retaining California’s entertainment industry and on children’s issues. But she will also be a sounding board for Schwarzenegger, an anchor from his former life as he enters a world filled with advisers and associates with whom he has little history and about whom he knows little. She was a key figure in the campaign and has been at his side throughout the transition.</p>

This isn’t the first time in our history that we’ve had the possibility of dangerous weapons in the hands of a leader we didn’t trust, and this won’t be the first time we’ve responded to this possible threat with a military assault. In 1992, the U.S. federal government conducted a military siege at Ruby Ridge, ultimately killing Randy Weaver's dog, son and wife. Mr. Weaver was suspected of being a cult leader, hording weapons and ammunition for anti-government purposes. The government was never able to prove their allegations, but ends-justify-the-means justice was the explanation for the loss of life. Did...