By RON HARRIS
      SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Twenty-two years ago, Marshall Applewhite
held meetings in Oregon asking people to leave their belongings
behind, join him on a trek to the Colorado desert - and prepare for
a UFO trip to outer space.
      The pilgrimage by him and 25 followers fascinated the nation.
      Applewhite, who went on to persuade hundreds of people in
California, Colorado, New Mexico and Oregon to leave their families
for his group, was found dead Wednesday with 38 other suicide
victims near San Diego.
      His lifestyle was a far cry from his earlier years as a gifted
singer and likable music professor in the 1960s who had potential
for a career on stage.
      Everything seemed to change when he was hospitalized in the
early 1970s and suffered a ``near death'' experience, said his
69-year-old sister, Louise Winant.
      ``He had an illness in Houston and one of the nurses there told
him that he had a purpose, that God kept him alive,'' said Ms.
Winant, of Port Aransas, Texas. ``She sort of talked him into the
fact that this was the purpose - to lead these people - and he took
it from there.''
      The nurse, Bonnie Lu Trusdale Nettles, became his companion and
preached with him. As they recruited followers in 1975, they said
that sometime within the next 10 years, people from Earth would be
taken to another world and a better life. But anyone interested
would have to sell their property and discard their personal
relationships.
      Within months of departing from Oregon with immortal
expectations, many adherents drifted back.
      One of them, Robert Rubin, 48, said the group soon ran out of
money.
      ``We went all around the United States,'' he told The Oregonian
newspaper. ``We tested the (charitability of the local) churches.
We had nothing. We left everything behind, no money, no anything.''
Rubin now works at a store in Waldport, Ore.
      Calling themselves ``Bo'' and ``Peep,'' ``The Him and the Her,''
or ``The Two,'' Applewhite and Ms. Nettles described life as only a
transition to another.
      ``There were a lot of biblical references to what they did,''
Rubin recalled. ``Something out of Revelations. ... They said when
they did, a few days later they'd be taken off in spaceships.''
      Applewhite and Ms. Nettles called their expanding group Human
Individual Metamorphosis, or HIM. Eventually, media attention and
investigations by police forced the group underground. Ms. Nettles
died in 1985.
      ``We tried to talk him out of this,'' Ms. Winant said today on
ABC's ``Good Morning America.'' ``But he said `You don't know me.'
He was a sincere man and I'm sure he believed everything he talked
about.''
      Applewhite was born in Spur, Texas, the son of a Presbyterian
minister. He attended high school in Corpus Christi and studied
music at the University of Colorado, where he played the lead in
``South Pacific'' and ``Oklahoma.''
      He got married, and the couple went to New York so he could
become a professional singer. But they broke up after he didn't get
any major roles, retired professor Charles Byers of Mesa, Ariz.,
told The Denver Post.
      In 1966, Applewhite was hired as a music teacher at the
University of St. Thomas, a private Roman Catholic college in
Houston. He sang 15 roles with the Houston Grand Opera before
leaving in 1970, according to a New York Times Magazine profile.
      Ms. Winant said he never saw the family again after meeting Ms.
Nettles. He had two children from his previous marriage, and
grandchildren he never met.
      ``It's very, very hard on them,'' Ms. Winant said.
      She said she felt ``complete sadness'' when she heard ``that he
could talk that many people into something so far out'' as mass
suicide.
      In the 1980s, Applewhite's group was extremely secretive. But in
May 1993, under the name of Total Overcomers Anonymous, the group
ran a full-page advertisement in USA Today entitled ``UFO Cult
Resurfaces with Final Offer.''
      ``The earth's present `civilization' is about to be recycled -
`spaded under,'' the ad said. ``Its inhabitants are refusing to
evolve. The `weeds' have taken over the garden and disturbed its
usefulness beyond repair.''