Before we even get into the Chen Tao UFO cult, as it is affectionately known, I would like to express my concerns about upstate New York. This writer has driven through the area a few times and has done getaways into the Adirondacks; upstate New York is beautiful. But for some reason the area has an incredibly robust history of cults.
Generally speaking, cults revolve around a small group of leaders finding ways to have sex with as many people as they possibly can. For example, you have the Oneida cult (which was in Oneida, NY) and the NXIVM cult (in Clifton Park, NY). And while there are more extreme examples like the Children of God/the Family cult (which was not in New York but was also gross enough that I don’t feel good about linking it), the rural areas of New York have also played host to other bizarre religious groups like Falun Gong or the Word of Life Church, the latter of which was in the news in 2015 when a husband and wife (both members) beat their son to death for considering leaving the church.
Suffice it to say, upstate New York cults could be their own entry on this site, and they probably will at some point.
And Then There’s the Chen Tao UFO Cult
But today is for a non-violent cult. Chen Tao started in Taiwan in the 1950s. It morphed into a few other forms, typically intertwining Buddhism, UFOs, and a few pieces of other religions. However, Asia in the late 20th century didn’t seem like a great place for a cult, so the leader, Hon-ming Chen, did what anyone in his position might do, and moved the cult to the USA in 1997. They landed on Garland, Texas, reportedly because “Garland” sounds a bit like “God land.” This is not a joke.
The group was made up of about 160 members, and they more or less took hold of a subdivision in the Garland area. They bought 20 houses and moved in, and they all wore cowboy hats with white clothes, and they allegedly drove fancy cars.
As for their beliefs, there were some real head-scratchers. One of the big ones was that the Earth had gone through “tribulations” over the eons and humans were alive for each one, only they escaped Earth by way of God in a UFO rescuing them. Presumably God would then bring them back to repopulate the planet and try again, only to be tested by the next tribulation. Also Chen believed that the solar system was formed by a nuclear war.
But let’s get to the good part.
Once in Texas, Chen made it known that God was going to visit Earth. Except only kind of visit Earth. What God would do is show up on every TV in North America at 12:01 a.m. on March 31, 1998. It allegedly didn’t matter what channel you were tuned into; God would make sure it switched to his broadcast.
It’s unclear what God’s message would be during this broadcast, and there’s no sure way of knowing in retrospect because, well, it didn’t happen. I know, I was shocked too. But the magic hour came and went without so much as a peep from the divine.
To Chen’s credit, instead of saying something like, “Oh. I must’ve put an eight instead of a three – the paper smudged” and pretending that there was a new date that this would happen, he more or less accepted his fate. He announced that he must’ve misunderstood the message and just… sorry, everybody. He reportedly felt so bad about it that he offered to be stoned or crucified for the mistake, but the cult members didn’t deem that necessary.
To tie it all together, the group’s numbers dwindled after the failed prophecy, but they did not drop to zero just yet. The remaining members did what they should’ve done from day one: they moved to Lockport, New York! Lockport may not quite be “upstate” as it’s not far from Buffalo, but it’s not suburban NYC nor is it close to the Pennsylvania border, so I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt. Surely this relocation would save the cult and prove that they were right all along!
The new set of beliefs that came to NY was that a Chinese/Taiwanese war would result in a nuclear holocaust, and that God would come save them (the members) in his “God Plane” at some point in 1999. As of the December 26, 1999 issue of The Daily Courier (an Arizona newspaper running an Associated Press report on the matter), spokesman Richard Liu acknowledged that it probably wouldn’t happen in 1999 after all, and that it would happen “in the next year. We have no specific date.”
As you may recall, 2000 came and went without a Taiwan/China nuclear war ending with God rescuing a small group of people out of rural New York in his God Plane.
They may have been unreasonable, but the Chen Tao people had to draw the line somewhere. Nobody has heard from the religion since late in 2000, and they are assumed to be defunct.
On the one hand, it’s quite a bizarre history and doesn’t paint the members in the most flattering light possible. On the other hand, it’s a cult that had a multi-year run (decades, if you count the Taiwanese portion) in which nobody was convicted of – nor accused of – a sex crime. Good for you, Chen Tao.