What exactly happened on 18 November 1978?
The full truth about what exactly happened in Jonestown, Guyana on 18 November 1978 is not known. Was it suicide? That is, did people voluntarily take poison? Certainly we cannot say that the children who died that day committed suicide, and thus must refer to the event at least as suicides/murders. Was it murder? Were people forced at gunpoint to drink the liquid? Or were people shot, and those victims undetected in the hasty disposal of the bodies? Some argue that Jonestown was a CIA mind-control experiment, and that Jim Jones was a rogue CIA agent. Others claim that the U.S. government could not tolerate an inter-racial and socialist group of ex-patriate Americans to survive, and hence murdered them. Still others believe that repeated suicide rehearsals had prepared the group to die. There are many theories, none of which have been adequately answered by any federal investigations. The generally accepted scenario follows. Temple members had practiced suicide drills for years. That i
