What this is. An audio recording made at Jonestown, Guyana, on the afternoon and evening of November 18, 1978, as more than nine hundred people died. It was recovered by United States authorities and catalogued by the FBI as tape Q042. It is the only contemporaneous record of the deaths.
What this text is. The transcription below was prepared by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Justice, Washington DC. It is filed at RYMUR 89-4286-2303 pages 11 to 42, and appears again at RYMUR 89-4286-2375 and 89-4286-2481. Because it is a work of the United States federal government it carries no copyright, which is the same footing as the FBI interviews with Israel Keyes and Samuel Little already in this archive. The copy used here was taken from the Jonestown Institute’s digital archive at San Diego State University, which publishes the FBI transcription alongside two others.
What it is not. It is not complete and it is not certain. The tape itself is damaged and overlaid, the room was full of people, and the transcriber marked a great many passages inaudible or unintelligible. Those marks are left exactly as the FBI made them. Speakers other than Jones and Christine Miller are mostly identified only as an unidentified man or woman, because that is all the tape supports. Other transcriptions of Q042 exist and differ from this one in places, including one prepared by Fielding M. McGehee III for the Jonestown Institute and a 2025 reconstruction by the November 18 Project. The differences are described by the archive as minimal, but they exist.
What has not been verified by this archive. The audio has not been listened to. The transcription is the FBI’s work and has not been checked against the recording.
A contested question, marked as contested. Some researchers have argued that the tape was edited, or assembled from recordings of earlier rehearsals which the community called White Nights. That argument is not settled and nothing here should be read as resolving it.
Why it is published here. It is a primary document, it is public, it is uncopyrighted, and it is the record of what was said while people were dying. It is also extremely hard to read. The children heard crying and screaming in the background of this transcript were killed. Readers should know that before they begin.
One note on the man himself. Jim Jones was a cult leader responsible for a mass death, not a serial killer, and he sits in this archive as a document rather than as an entry.
Transcript prepared by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Justice, Washington DC. RYMUR 89-4286-2303, pages 11 to 42.
Jones: I have loved you, how very much I have tried my best to give you the good life. In spite of all that I’ve tried, a handful of our people, with their lies, have made our life impossible. There’s no way to detach ourselves from what’s happened today. Not only – We’re in a compound situation, not only are there those who have left and committed the betrayal of the century, some have stolen children from others and then seek right now to kill them because they stole their children, and we are sitting here waiting on a powder keg. I don’t think it is what we want to do with our babies. I don’t think that’s what we had in mind to do with our babies. It was said by the greatest of prophets, from time immemorial, "No man takes my life from me, I lay my life down."
Crowd: Yeah!
Jones: So, to sit here and wait for the catastrophe that’s going to happen on that airplane (it’s gonna be a catastrophe) … Almost happened here, almost happened, the congressman was nearly killed here … But you can’t steal people’s children. You can’t take off with people’s children without expecting a violent reaction. And, that’s not so unfamiliar to us, either, even if we were Judeo-Christian, even if we weren’t Communists. The worldly kingdom suffers violence and the violence is triggered by force. If we can’t live in peace then we must die in peace.
Crowd: Applause
Jones: We’ve been so betrayed, we have been so terribly betrayed, but we’ve tried, and as Jack Beam often said (and I don’t know where he’s at right this moment, poor Jack), he says if it’s only worked one day, it was worthwhile …
Crowd: Cheers
Jones: Of what’s going to happen here in a matter of a few minutes, is that one of the few on that plane is gonna shoot the pilot. I know that. I didn’t plan it, but I know it’s gonna happen. They’re gonna shoot that pilot, and down comes that plane into the jungle and we had better not have any of our children left when it’s over, ’cause they’ll parachute in here on us. I’m telling you just as plain as I know how to tell you, I’ve never lied to you … I never have lied to you. I know that’s what’s gonna happen, that’s what he intends to do and he will do it. He’ll do it. What’s there being so bewildered with many, many pressures on my brain, seeing all these people behave so treasonous, it is just too much for me to put together, but, I now know what he was telling me and it’ll happen. If the plane gets in the air even. So my opinion is that we be kind to children and be kind to seniors and take the potion like they used to take in ancient Greece, and step over quietly because we are not committing suicide. It’s a revolutionary act. We can’t go back. They won’t leave us alone. They’re now going back to tell more lies which means more congressmen. And there’s no way, no way we can survive. Anybody … Anyone that has any dissenting opinion, please speak … Yes … You can have opportunity, but if their children are left we’re gonna have them butchered. We can make a strike but we’ll be striking against people that we don’t want to strike against. And what we’d like to get is the people who caused this stuff and some, there’s some people here are prepared to know how to do that … go in town and get Timothy Stoen, but there’s no plane, there’s no plane, you can’t catch a plane in time. He’s responsible for it. He brought these people to us. He and Deanna Myrtle. But people in San Francisco will not, not be idle over this. And not take our death in vain, you know … Yes, Christine …
Christine Miller: Is it too late for Russia?
Jones: Here’s why it’s too late for Russia. They killed. They started to kill. That’s why it makes it too late for Russia. Otherwise I’d said, "Russia, you bet your life." But it’s too late. I can’t control these people. They’re out there. They’ve gone with the guns and it’s too late. And once we kill anybody, at least … that’s the way I’ve always … I’ve always put my lot with you. And when one of my people do something, it’s me. … Understand, I don’t have to take the blame for this, but I don’t live that way.
Crowd: No! No!
Unidentified Man: Is there any way if I go, that it’ll help?
Jones: No, you’re not going. You’re not going.
Crowd: No! No!
Jones: Not going. I can’t live that way. I cannot live that way. I’ve lived for all and I’ve died for all. …
Crowd: Applause
Jones: I’ve been living on a hope for a long time, Christine, and I appreciate – You’ve always been a very good agitator. I like agitation because you have to see two sides of one issue, two sides of the question. What’s those people gonna get done once they get through? They make our life worse than hell, they’ll make the Russians not accept us. When they get through lying … They told so many lies between there and that truck that we are, we are done in as far as any other alternative.
Christine: Well, I say let’s make an airlift to Russia, that’s what I say. I don’t think nothing is impossible, if you believe it.
Jones: But how we gonna air … How’re you going to airlift to Russia?
Christine: Why, I thought they said if we got in an emergency, they gave you a code to let them know.
Jones: No, they didn’t. They gave us the code that they’d let us know of an issue, not us create an issue for them. They said if we … if they saw the country coming down, they’d agreed they’d give us the code, they’d give us a code. You can check on there and see if it’s on the code. Check with Russia to see if they’ll take us in immediately. Otherwise we die. I don’t know what else you say to these people. But to me death is not … death is not a fearful thing, it’s living that’s treacherous …
Crowd: Applause
Jones: I have never, never, never, never seen anything like this before in my life. I’ve never seen people take the law … and do … in their own hands, and provoke us and try to purposely agitate and murder of children. There’s no use, Christine, it’s just not worth living like this … not worth living like this.
Christine: I think that there were too few who left for twelve hundred people to give them their lives, for those people that left.
Jones: Do you know how many left?
Christine: Oooh, twenty odd … that’s, that’s small …
Jones: … twenty-odd, twenty-odd …
Christine: Compared to what’s here.
Jones: … twenty-odd. But what’s gonna happen when they don’t leave. I hope that they could leave … but what’s gonna happen when they don’t leave?
Christine: You mean the people here?
Jones: Yeah, what’s gonna happen to us when they don’t leave? When they get on the plane and the plane goes down?
Christine: I don’t think it’ll go down.
Jones: You don’t think it’ll go down?
Crowd: Yes it will …
Jones: I wish I could tell you you were right, but I’m right. There’s one man there, who blames, and rightfully so, Eddie Blakey, for the murder, for the murder of his mother and he’ll sh … he’ll stop that pilot by any means necessary. He’ll do it. That plane will come out of the air. There’s no way you can fly a plane without a pilot.
Christine: I wasn’t speaking about that plane. I was speaking about the plane for us to go to Russia.
Jones: How do … To Russia? Do you think Russia’s gonna want … no they’re not gonna … Do you think Russia’s gonna want us with all this stigma? We had really had some value … but now we don’t have any value.
Christine: Well, I don’t see it like that. I mean, I feel like as long as there’s life, there’s hope. That’s my faith.
Jones: Well, someday we’re gonna die, someplace that hope runs out. ’Cause everybody dies.
Crowd: Right, right.
Jones: I haven’t seen anybody yet that didn’t die. And I’d like to choose my own kind of death for a change. I’m tired of being tormented to hell, that’s what I’m tired of.
Crowd: Right, right.
Jones: Tired of it.
Crowd: Applause
Jones: Tired of people’s lives in my hands and I certainly don’t want your life in my hands and I’m going to tell you, Christine, without me, life has no meaning. … I’m the best friend you’ll ever have. And once, once I have to pay, I’m standing with those people. They’re part of me. I could detach myself … my attorney says detach myself … no, no, no, no, no, no … I’d never detach myself from any of your troubles. I’ve always taken your troubles right on my shoulders and I’m not gonna change that now. It’s too late. I’ve been running too long. Not gonna change now. … Maybe the next time you’ll get to go to Russia … the next time ’round … This is, what I’m talking about to now is in the dispensation of judgment. This is the revolutionary … this is revolutionary suicide council, I’m not talking about self, self-destruction. I’m talking about what, we have no other road. I will take your call. We will put it to the Russians, and I can tell you the answer now, because I’m a prophet. Call the Russians and tell them and see if they’ll take us.
Christine: Not that I’m afraid to die …
Jones: I don’t think you are …
Christine: By no means …
Jones: I don’t think you are …
Christine: But I look at all the babies and I think they deserve to live …
Jones: I agree …
Christine: You know …
Jones: But also they deserve … what’s more they deserve peace.
Christine: We all came here for peace …
Jones: And we, have we had it?
Christine and crowd: No …
Jones: I tried to give it to you. I’ve laid down my life, practically, I’ve practically died every day to give you peace … and you still not have any peace.
Christine: When you, when you, when we destroy ourselves, we’re defeated … you are saying, "Let the enemy defeat us."
Jones: Did you see, did you see "I Will Fight No More Forever"?
Christine: Yes, I saw that.
Jones: Did you not have some sense of pride and victory in that man, that he would not subject himself to the will and whim of people who tell that they are gonna come in whenever they please, push into our house, come when they please, take who they want to, talk to who they want to … does this let living … that’s not living to me. That’s not freedom. That’s not the kind of freedom I sought.
Christine: But I think where they made their mistake is when they stopped to rest. If they had gone on, they would have made it. But they stopped to rest …
Unidentified Man: It’s over, sister, it’s over … we’ve made that day … we made a beautiful day and let’s make it a beautiful day … that’s what I say.
Jones: We win, we win when we go down. Tim Stoen has nobody else to hate … He has nobody else to hate. Then he’ll destroy himself. I’m speaking here not as the administrator, I’m speaking as a prophet today … I wouldn’t sit up in this seat and talk so serious if I did not know what I was talking about. Is there any way to call back … the immense amount of damage that’s going to be done? But I cannot separate myself from the pain of my people. And you can’t either, Christine, if you stop to think of it. You can’t separate yourself. We’ve walked too long together.
Christine: I know that. But I still think, as an individual, I have a right to …
Jones: You do, I’m listening …
Christine: I think, what I feel, and I think we all have the right to our own destiny as individuals.
Jones: Right …
Christine: And I think I have the right to choose mine and everybody else has the right to choose theirs.
Jones: Mm-hmm …
Christine: You know …
Jones: Mm-hmmm. I’m not criticizing, I’m not governing … What’s that?
Unidentified Woman (in background): She talks like she wants to leave us, well, she can go ahead … they’re our individual lives, that’s what you’re saying.
Christine: That’s right.
Jones: That’s today, that’s what twenty people said today with their lives.
Christine: I think that I still have the right to my own opinion.
Jones: I’m not taking it from you. I’m not taking it from you.
Unidentified Man: Christine, you’re only standing here because he was here in the first place. So I don’t know what you’re talking about having an individual life. Your life has been extended to the day that you’re standing there because of him.
Jones: Despite this, she has as much right to speak as anybody else, too. … Well, you will regret that this very day if you don’t die. You’ll regret it if you don’t … that you don’t die. You’ll regret it.
Christine: (few words inaudible) … A man who saved so many people?
Jones: I saved them, I saved them but I made my example. I made my confession. I made my manifestation and the world was ready … not ready for me. Paul said, "I was a man born out of due season." I’ve been born out of due season. Just like all we are and the best testimony we can make is to leave this God-damn world. …
Crowd: Cheers
Unidentified Woman: She must be scared to die.
Christine: I’m not talking to her. Will you let her or let me talk?
Jones: You talk.
Christine: Would you make her sit down and let me talk while I’m on the floor or let her talk?
Jones: … proper to tell your leader what to do. It really isn’t. I’ve listened to you. You asked me about Russia. I’m right now making a call to Russia. What more do you suggest? I’m listening to you. If Russia gives me one slight bit of encouragement, I just now instructed her to go there and do that.
Unidentified Man: All right, now everybody hold it, we didn’t come … hold it, hold it, hold it, hold it …
Jones: … much longer to maintain.
Crowd: That’s right.
Jones: To lay down your burdens, I’m gonna lay down my burdens, down by the riverside, should we lay them down here … inside of Guyana. What’s the difference? No man didn’t take our lives, right now, he hadn’t taken it, but when they start parachuting out of the air, they’ll shoot some of our innocent babies. I’m not … I don’t want to see this, Christine. They gotta shoot me to get through to some of these people.
Unidentified Man: Quit talking, the Congressman has been murdered …
(Singing and music)
Unknown voice in background: It’s all over …
Jones: It’s all over, all over … what a legacy, what a legacy. They invaded our privacy, they came into our home, they followed us 6,000 miles away … the Congressman’s dead … please get us some medication. It’s simple, it’s simple, there’s no convulsions with it, it’s just simple, just please get it before it’s too late.
Voice in background: No, no, no, no …
Jones: Don’t be afraid to die … if these people land out here, they’ll torture some of our children here. They’ll torture our people, they’ll torture our seniors. We cannot have this.
Crowd: Right, right.
Jones: Are you gonna separate yourself from whoever shot the Congressman? I don’t know who shot him …
Crowd: No, no, no, hell no.
Unidentified Man: Patty Parks is dead.
Jones: Patty Parks is dead?
Jones: I don’t know how in the world they’re ever gonna write about us. It’s just too late, it’s too late. The congress is dead, the congress lays dead, many of our traitors are dead, they’re all laying out there dead.
Crowd: Good, good.
Jones: I didn’t but, but my people did. My people did. They’re my people …
Crowd: Right, right.
Jones: … and they’ve been provoked too much … What’s happened here’s been too … it’s been an act of provocation …
Unidentified Woman: They did it themselves … they did it …
Jones: Please, please. Can we hasten, can we hasten with that medication. You don’t know what you’ve done … I’ve tried.
Unidentified Woman: Hurry up!
Jones: Marsha, we got 40 minutes.
Unidentified Woman: You have to move and the people that are standing there in the aisle go stand the (unintelligible words), so everybody get behind the table and back this way, O.K.? There’s nothing to worry about, so everybody keep calm and try and keep your children calm. And the oldest children can help love the little children and reassure them. They’re not crying from pain. It’s just a little bitter tasting but, they’re not crying out of any pain.
Jones: When you accept it … you can do but step that way, it’s the only way to step.
(Sound of babies crying in the background. Music.)
Jones: Be assured in that choice is not ours now. It’s out of our hands.
(Babies crying in background.)
Voice in the background: Calm the children … something to give them a little rest, a little rest. Calm the children.
Jones: And I do hope that those attorneys will stay where they belong and don’t come up here … why they did?
Unidentified Man: What happened?
Jones: What is it? … Did what? … Hard. It’s hard, it’s hard … only first, only at first is it hard. It’s hard only at first. Living, you, you’re looking at death. It only looks … living is much, much more difficult. Raising up every morning, and not knowing what’s going to be the night’s bringing. It’s much more difficult.
Unidentified Woman: I just want to say something to everyone that I see that is standing around and are crying. This is nothing to cry about. This is something we should all rejoice about.
Unidentified Woman: … I’d just like to thank Dad ’cause he was the only one that stood up for me when I needed him and thank you, Dad.
Jones: Please … for God’s sake, let’s get on with it. We’ve lived as no other people have lived and loved. We’ve had as much of this world that you’re gonna get. Let’s just be done with it. Let’s be done with the agony of it … This is a revolutionary suicide. This is not a self-destructive suicide. So they’ll pay for this. They brought this upon us and they’ll pay for that. I leave that destiny to them.
(Children crying in background.)
Jones: … who wants to go with their child has a right to go with their child. I think it’s humane. I wanna go … I want to see you go, though. They can take me and do with me whatever they want to do. I wanta see you go. I don’t wanna see you go through this hell no more. No more, no more, no more.
(Babies crying in background.)
Jones: … We’re trying. If everybody will relax. The best thing you do to relax and you will have no problems. You’ll have no problems with this thing if you just relax.
Jones: It’s not to be feared. It is not to be feared. It’s a friend, it’s a friend. You’re sitting there. Show your love for one another … let’s get calm, let’s get calm, let’s get calm.
(Babies screaming in background.)
Jones: … we had nothing we could do, we can’t, we can’t separate ourselves from our own people. … They’ve robbed us of our land, and they’ve taken us and driven us until we tried to find ourselves … we tried to find a new beginning, but it’s too late. You can’t separate yourself from your brother and your sister. No way I’m gonna do it. I refuse. I don’t know who fired the shot, I don’t know who killed the Congressman. But as far as I’m concerned, I killed him. You understand what I’m saying? I killed him. He had no business coming. I told him not to come. … die with respect, die with a degree of dignity. Lay down your life with dignity. Don’t lay down with tears and agony. It’s nothing to death … It’s just stepping over into another plane. Don’t, don’t be this way. Stop this hysterics. This is not the way for people who are socialistic Communists to die … no way for us to die. We must die with some dignity.
Unidentified Man: That’s right.
Jones: … soon we’ll have no choice. Now we have some choice. … But children, it’s just something to put you to rest … Oh, God …
(Babies crying in background.)
Jones: … mother, mother, mother, mother, mother, please, mother, please, please, please, don’t, don’t do this, don’t do this … lay down your life with your child, but don’t do this …
Jones: Free at last.
Crowd: Clapping
Jones: … please, keep your emotions down, keep your emotions down … children, it will not hurt if you will be, if you’ll be quiet, if you’ll be quiet.
(Children crying in background, humming, music, pause.)
Jones: It’s never been done before you say? It’s been done by every tribe in history, every tribe facing annihilation. … So be patient, be patient … death is … I tell you I don’t care how many screams you hear, I don’t care how many anguished cries … death is a million times preferable to ten more days of this life.
Jones: If you’ll quit telling them they’re dying, if you adults will stop some of this nonsense … Adults, adults, adults, I call on you to stop this nonsense. I call on you to quit exciting your children when all they’re doing is going to a quiet rest. I call on you to stop this now. If you have any respect at all … Are we black, proud and Socialist, or what are we? Now stop this nonsense, don’t carry this on any more, you’re exciting your children.
Crowd: Right, right.
Jones: All over and it’s good. No, no sorrow that it’s all over. I’m glad it’s over … Hurry, hurry my children, hurry. All I say, let’s not fall in the hands of the enemy. Hurry, my children. Hurry … there are seniors out here that I’m concerned about. Hurry, I don’t want to leave my seniors to this mess. Quickly, quickly, quickly, quickly, quickly … sisters, good knowing you … no more pain now … no more pain I said, Al, no more pain.
Jones: … All we’re doing is laying down our life. We’re not letting them take our life. We’re laying down our lives … not taking their lives. We just want peace.
Unidentified Man: All I’d like to say is that my so-called parents are filled with so much hate.
Background voice: O.K., stop this, stop this, stop this, children, stop this crying, all of you.
Unidentified Man: … all I can say is that I thank Dad for making me strong to stand with it all and make me ready for it. Thank you.
Jones: All that’s, let me – All they’re doing is taking a drink, that takes, to go to sleep … That’s what death is, sleep … I know, but I’m tired of it all.
Jones: Where’s the vat, the vat, the vat? Where’s the vat with the green C thing? CN.
Jones: The vat, with the green CN please. Bring it here so the adults can begin … beg you, don’t, don’t fail to follow my advice, you’ll be sorry … you’ll be sorry … that we’ll do it than that they do it.
Voices in the background: That’s right, that’s right.
Jones: … take our life from us, we laid it down, we got tired. We didn’t commit suicide. We committed an act of revolutionary suicide protesting the conditions of an inhumane world.
(End of Jones talk, music playing, and then silence.)