its practices. Gale was said to have fully abandoned his Scientology beliefs while at EarthLink. A close friend at EarthLink, Brian Ladner, said that "Leaving Scientology was a traumatic experience. He was brought up thinking it was the only way." Ladner says while they worked together, he introduced Gale to Church of the SubGenius, which specializes in debunking cults and has developed its own cult following. During that period, Ladner reported that Gale hung a poster of J. R. "Bob" Dobbs, SubGenius' fictional spiritual leader, on his office door. According to Ladner, the pair of young men had also done a lot of partying in Los Angeles, and worked for a time on a "pornographic Web site hosted by EarthLink". Shortly after Gale's death, speculation on campus, in the media, and on the Internet newsgroup alt.religion.scientology arose. Questions arose about the role his Scientology background may have played in his suicide, particularly because he died on the day that adherents celebrate founder L. Ron Hubbard's birthday. Gale had been in contact with a reporter for the Boston Herald and had been interviewed as part of a scathing 5-part series titled "Scientology Unmasked", published March 1 through 5, 1998, just days before his suicide by Joseph Mallia. Though Gale was not named in the special report for which he had been interviewed, Mallia also wrote an article about his death shortly thereafter. Matthew Munsey, an MIT student who witnessed Gale's suicide, created a website called "Who is Philip Gale?" in an effort to make sense of the incident. He stated "Since this tragedy, I have thought a great deal about Philip and what he was trying to say. These questions need to be answered. Meanwhile, I will collect information here." This site included some personal notes from friends and photos, until it was taken down; it can only be accessed by web archival machines. Others who spoke publicly dismissed the idea that Scientology was significant in his suicide. Lauren McLeod, a reporter with the Concord Journal and friend of Gale's, said that he had been struggling to deal with lasting grief following his father's sudden death from a heart attack in October 1995. His friend Eric Hu said that Gale had complained of being depressed and bored. Another friend from EarthLink had received an email expressing his discontent about a week before his death. In November 1999 a fellow MIT student,