The number 23 is a connection that may have caused the mass suicide of 39 people, including Marshall Applewhite (Leader of the Heavens Gate Suicide Mission) in 1997 and it is also associated with the newest form of UFO Religion called the Unicarious Cult.

The connection begins with the Number 23 being the sacred number of Eris, goddess of discord. Eris is known to be the smallest known dwarf planet in existence. It so happens that, “Eris had been adopted as the matron deity of the modern Discordian religion, which was begun in the late 1950s”.

In 1959, at 28 years old Marshall Applewhite had started writing about the galaxy, extra terrestrials, and the outer limits of space. Ironically this happened after the formation of the Discordian religion that had begun in the 1950’s.

In 1972, Marshall Applewhite met Bonnie Nettles at a psychiatric sanatorium, where he had hoped to be cured of homosexuality. At the time, both Applewhite and Nettles had both been previously married for 23 years.

By 1975, they had developed the “Total Overcomers Anonymous” which later became “Heaven’s Gate.” They originally recruited 21 people and when you add Nettles and Applewhite to the mix, that makes the number 23.

There is no reason to elaborate on the happenings of that day in 1997, as present day members are hoping and still maintaining the website in the hopes that more people will join in their journey towards a more transcendental ideal.


This leads me to the connection shared with the Unicarious Cult. There is little known information about this newfound religion. The members are mostly comprised of fallen Christians who believe their God had failed them, desperately seeking a new supernatural being.

They believe that there are two brothers that live under the layers of Mars that are more advanced in the subjects of Economics, Warfare, Family, and many other subjects.

They believe if the spacecraft comes, it comes. If it doesn’t, it was not meant to come at that time. They believe in past life experiences, attributing their ailments to former accidents that happened years ago during World War II or even the Civil War.

The Unicarious Cult is still characterized as a UFO cult, as was Heaven’s Gate. Both groups believed in a Utopian society in which everyone was assumed to be perfectly clean, perfectly equal, and free from streams of thought that interfered with meditation.“Stories of extraterrestrial civilizations and alien interventions in past lives form a significant part of the belief system of Scientology”.