Falling Stars: The Belcher Island Murders
Explicit content warning
08/22/22 • 85 min
2 Listeners
Episode 233: During the harsh winter of 1941, as World War II raged elsewhere, closer to home, a tragedy occurred on the remote, ice-covered island archipelago in Hudson Bay called the Belcher Islands. After witnessing a dramatic meteor shower, a tribal group of Inuit people believed the world was ending. Inspired by a copy of the New Testament Bible translated into Inuit syllabics by Anglican missionaries, 27-year-old Charlie Ouyerack, self-professed shaman of the tribe, claimed he was the second coming of Jesus Christ. Charlie determined his friend, Peter Sala, a skilled hunter and navigator, to be God. Their cult, Charlie, Peter, Peter's sister Mina and their followers, labelled any deniers as satanic heretics, eventually leading to the brutal murders of nine people within the group.
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Episode 233: During the harsh winter of 1941, as World War II raged elsewhere, closer to home, a tragedy occurred on the remote, ice-covered island archipelago in Hudson Bay called the Belcher Islands. After witnessing a dramatic meteor shower, a tribal group of Inuit people believed the world was ending. Inspired by a copy of the New Testament Bible translated into Inuit syllabics by Anglican missionaries, 27-year-old Charlie Ouyerack, self-professed shaman of the tribe, claimed he was the second coming of Jesus Christ. Charlie determined his friend, Peter Sala, a skilled hunter and navigator, to be God. Their cult, Charlie, Peter, Peter's sister Mina and their followers, labelled any deniers as satanic heretics, eventually leading to the brutal murders of nine people within the group.
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Previous Episode
Washed Away: The 1929 Newfoundland Tsunami
Epidsode 232: The strongest earthquake ever recorded in eastern Canada, measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale, occurred at 5:02pm Newfoundland time on the 18 of November in 1929. It was felt as far west as Ottawa and as far south as New York City. The quake, centred around 250 km south of Newfoundland along the southern edge of the Grand Banks caused a massive sub-ocean landslide. Two and a half hours after the quake a series of tsunami waves smashed into Newfoundland’s isolated Burin Peninsula devastating property, upending the fishery and causing 28 deaths.
Sources:
The 1929 Magnitude 7.2 “Grand Banks” earthquake and tsunami
1883 Rossi-Forel Scale of Earthquake Intensity
90 years later, a tsunami in southern Newfoundland still brings vivid memories | CBC News
A disastrous tsunami’s lethal legacy in Newfoundland - Macleans.ca
1929 Grand Banks earthquake - Wikipedia
The Wake by Linden MacIntyre - Ebook | Scribd
Newfoundland Tsunami - Water - SOS! Canadian Disasters - Library and Archives Canada
CBC News Indepth: The South Shore disaster: Newfoundland’s Tsunami
GEOSCAN Search Results: Fastlink
Get prepared for an earthquake - Province of British Columbia
THE ASSESSMENT OF GEOLOGICAL HAZARDS AND DISASTERS IN NEWFOUNDLAND: AN UPDATE
Dominion of Newfoundland - Wikipedia
Newfoundland and Labrador - Wikipedia
Welcome to Newfoundland and Labrador - Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada
History of Nova Scotia, Jan 1920 - Dec 1939
Get prepared for an earthquake - Province of British Columbia
Surviving A Tsunami—Lessons from Chile, Hawaii, and Japan
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Next Episode
Heaven’s Gate — UFO Death Cult
Episode 234: On March 26, 1997, police found the bodies of 39 members of a religious UFO cult known as Heaven’s Gate in an 830 square-metre (9,000 square foot) home in Rancho Santa Fe, California, a San Diego suburb. All, including the group’s leader, Marshall Applewhite Jr., had died in a ritualistic act of mass suicide. The headline on the cult’s website, which remains online today, stated, “Hale-Bopp brings closure to Heaven’s Gate.” Over the following weeks, as investigators probed what happened in the home, the story of the Heaven’s Gate cult emerged, each detail weirder than the next.
I wrote about this story in my first book, Murder Madness and Mayhem. I have always wanted to cover this on Dark Poutine. I have expanded on what I wrote, especially toward the end of the story, I get into more detail about the victims. The medium of a podcast also allows for other content, including audio clips from individuals involved in the case and other details I was otherwise unable to convey in the book involving Canadian connections which includes one of the victims, Erika Ernst, 40, who was from Calgary, Alberta. That’s right, this is not an away game.
Sources:
Get Help | Talk Suicide Canada
Heaven’s Gate — How and When It May Be Entered
YouTube — Heaven’s Gate Cult Initiation Tape Part 1
Heaven’s Gate : Federal Bureau of Investigation — Internet Archive
Heaven’s Gate, 25 Years Later: Remembering Lives Lost in Cult
CNN - Some members of suicide cult castrated - Mar. 28, 1997
Heaven’s Gate Survivor Lost His Soulmate to Suicide Cult
Facilitating You! – You are the love you have been looking for.
Erika Ernst (1956-1997) - Find a Grave Memorial
Cult Test | Cult Escape | Are you In A Religious Cult?
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