A man who told followers he was an extraterrestrial persuaded members of his group to move to North Carolina, where they believed they would survive a coming apocalypse and eventually be picked up by an alien spacecraft.
Frederick von Mierers, the leader of the New Age group Eternal Values, is now the focus of a new HBO documentary series that revisits how he built a devoted following in 1980s New York and how some members remained tied to the group even after his death in 1990 from AIDS-related complications.
As reported by People, the story of von Mierers and Eternal Values is explored in the three-part documentary Bring Me the Beauties: A Model Cult, which premiered on HBO on 1 June 2026 and is available now.
The series centres heavily on former member Hoyt Richards, who went on to become one of the best-known male models of the late 1980s and 1990s, and examines how his modelling income helped fund the group while his ties to family and friends were gradually cut back.
His shift into the belief system began after a near-death experience, which led him to read the 1967 book A Search for the Truth by ex-journalist and psychic Ruth Montgomery.
There, he came across the idea of “Alien-walk-ins” — beings from other worlds whose souls enter human bodies — and came to believe that description applied to him.
“This is when the new Frederick walked into the body of the old Frederick,” former member Kim Wong says in the docuseries.
“So he would technically have memories of the old Frederick but was a whole new being.”
Von Mierers said he came from the star Arcturus and claimed his purpose on Earth was to locate other Arcturians.
According to Wong, his recruiting style was especially persuasive.
“He would say, ‘You’re one of the people I’ve been looking for. You all are the leaders of the new age,'” Wong recalls.
His profile grew further after meeting Montgomery in person, and she later mentioned him in her 1985 book, Aliens Among Us.
Wong says that endorsement “Caputled him into this New Age superstardom.”
Eternal Values operated out of von Mierers’ apartment in New York City and later a Brooklyn loft, drawing in followers with a mix of spiritual messaging, status, beauty culture and luxury-minded appeal that stood out during the city’s New Age boom.
One of those followers was Hoyt Richards, who became one of the biggest male models of the 1980s and 1990s.
“There was so much materialism going on in New York at the time, but Frederick and his friends found a way to balance it somehow,” he said.
Richards described him as different from other spiritual figures of that era, calling him ‘the Brooks Brothers’ version.
Von Mierers also had his own television program, and the group’s image was polished enough to attract ambitious young people moving through fashion, nightlife and media circles.
But Eternal Values had been attracting scrutiny long before the new series. Vanity Fair first exposed the group in 1990 in Marie Brenner’s article East Side Alien, which reported on investigators looking into claims that von Mierers had sold mystical gems with inflated or false appraisals while presenting himself as a spiritually gifted guide.
“It was so obvious to me that he was just being improvisational and just kind of bulls—ing,” he tells People.
“I just had this new lens of going, ‘Wow. That’s not what I remember experiencing.'”
A key part of von Mierers’ teachings was a prophecy that the world would be destroyed before the end of the century.
He taught that only certain places in the US would remain safe, including the Smoky Mountains and the Blue Ridge region, and that Eternal Values needed to be based there.
The group later bought property in Lake Lure, North Carolina, where followers believed they were preparing for survival after civilisation collapsed.
Von Mierers is said to have pointed out a “perfect spot to build the platforms where the spaceships will land.”
He told followers that aliens would arrive, take the group aboard, place them in “rejuvenation chambers,” and keep them there until Earth was safe to return to.
“They would drop us back down, and we would lead in the new age,” former member Dar Dixon recalls.
According to accounts revisited in the documentary, the story did not simply end with von Mierers’ death. Some members stayed on in North Carolina for years afterward, showing how deeply the belief system had taken hold and how difficult it was for former followers to separate manipulation from spirituality, community and personal identity.
Today, Richards has said he works with other cult survivors and serves on the board of Living Cult Free, an organisation that supports people leaving coercive groups and controlling relationships.
Bring Me the Beauties: A Model Cult is streaming now on HBO.