 After Nettles ' death , Applewhite also altered his view of ascension : previously , he had taught that the group would physically ascend from the Earth and that death caused reincarnation , but her death - which left behind an unchanged , <unk> body - forced him to say that the ascension could be spiritual . He then concluded that her spirit had traveled to a spaceship and received a new body and that he and his followers would do the same . In his view , the Biblical heaven was actually a planet on which highly evolved beings dwelt , and physical bodies were required to ascend there . Applewhite believed that once they reached the Next Level , they would facilitate evolution on other planets . He emphasized that Jesus , whom he believed was an extraterrestrial , came to Earth , was killed , and bodily rose from the dead before being transported onto a spaceship . According to Applewhite 's doctrine , Jesus was a gateway to heaven but had found humanity <unk> to ascend when he first came to the Earth . Applewhite then decided that there was an opportunity for humans to reach the Next Level " every two millennia " , and the early 1990s would therefore provide the first opportunity to reach the Kingdom of Heaven since the time of Jesus . Zeller notes that his beliefs were based on the Christian Bible but were interpreted through the lens of belief in alien contact with humanity . 
