Surviving Death (2021) s01e06 Episode Script

1
[woman 1] At the moment of death…
are we actually just dead,
or is something else going on?
[man 1] Whatever this consciousness is
that we have in this life,
it was also there in another life before.
[woman 2] It's not,
"Do we believe in ghosts?"
but the fact that we continue
to report them and see them.
[man 2] There are things
that science can't test,
but it doesn't mean they don't happen.
[woman 3] How good would it be to know…
there is life after death?
[birdsong]
[wind chimes clinking]
[woman chuckles]
[chuckles] You're so sweet.
-Mmm.
-Mm-hm.
[Erica] Some people said
that reincarnation isn't true.
But the very first time
Atlas spoke about a past life,
I knew it was actually something real.
[cicadas chirping]
[dog barking]
[Erica] When Atlas was one and a half…
he started having the night terrors.
His eyes would be open and he would be
screaming as if he was in pain…
for up to an hour at a time.
This happened for years.
I confided in his pediatrician.
You know, "What do we do?"
No one really…
had an answer for why he was doing that.
And then one day,
when he was five years old…
we were just coming home.
And he was staring out the window.
It was silent in the car.
He just said, out of nowhere…
"I miss when my mom
took me to the playground."
-[children's voices echoing]
-[play equipment creaking]
And I said, "Oh, you mean me.
When I took you to the playground."
And he said, "No.
My other mom with the really pretty hair."
[playground sounds echoing]
I thought he was just being silly,
and so I said, "Oh, okay. So, if you have
another family, what were their names?"
He said, "Well, my mom,
her name's Washington.
But my name was Jaylen Robinson."
And then he said,
"When I was this child…
someone killed me."
[chuckling] I didn't know
what to think at all. So…
I was really trying to think about,
"Where did he come up with this name?
Is this someone's name from school?
What is he talking about?"
And so I Googled them. Like, I…
I looked him up,
just to see, "Is this real?"
And then when I found the story
and the obituary,
I was really shocked
to find the exact names.
It really surprised me.
Jaylen died in 2005.
And Atlas was born in 2014.
I did not know
what to do with the information.
I didn't know if I should tell
some people. They might think…
that I'm crazy.
And that was when I…
Googled, like, "Have other kids
had this happen, and what do they do?"
And, I mean, one of the first few things
was Jim Tucker,
um, the University of Virginia.
And I ended up writing to him,
everything that Atlas had said.
[sighs]
[man] I've been studying reincarnation
for 20 years.
Children will typically start talking
about their past life at age two or three.
We focus on children
because they are the ones who are
most likely to have these memories.
And we can be pretty confident
that a two- or three-year-old
has not been exposed
to some obscure figure from history.
So here we've got pictures
of two playgrounds,
and this is the one
near where the boy lived,
and then this is a control one here.
And we'll see if he responds more to one
than the other one.
We hear from a lot of parents,
but often the children's statements
have no possibility of being verified,
because the… the names or places
are not included.
In this situation,
uh, the child gave a first and last name,
uh, that matched someone.
So it means, potentially,
his statements can be verified.
I start from a point of skepticism,
and I can doubt things at times,
like everyone else.
I look for anything
that is questionable or deceptive.
But the longer I've been in this field,
the more I've become convinced that there
is more than just the physical world.
That there is a larger reality.
So, before he started saying
these things, about a past life,
what were your beliefs
about reincarnation, if you had any?
-You know, I was raised as a Christian.
-Mm-hm.
But I question a lot of things.
I need to know something to know it,
-you know?
-Mm-hm.
And I have a very religious family,
and they haven't really…
They won't discuss it with me.
-Mm.
-They don't believe that.
Some said that maybe
he needs to go see a pastor.
-Or maybe it's demons…
-Ah.
…you know, type of thing,
which I don't believe.
[Jim] I'm sorry to hear
you've had to deal with
a family member
saying he needs to go to a priest.
-Just how it is. [laughs]
-Yeah.
So, Atlas, you mentioned going to a park.
Do you remember going to a park?
Yeah? Well, I…
happened to bring
pictures of a couple of playgrounds.
You remember either of these places?
What do you remember about it?
[Erica] Have you been there?
[Jim] And who did you go there with?
With my mom.
-This mom?
-No.
Which mom?
My…
-My old mom.
-Your old mom.
Do you remember your old home?
Yeah?
See if you remember either of those.
Yeah?
And tell me if you remember
either of these.
Yeah? What do you remember about it?
Uh, my dad taking me there.
Your dad took you here?
And I want to see
if you remember your old dad. All right?
Show me which one was your old dad.
Can you show me which one is your old mom?
You think you can do that?
Okay. Which one's your old mom?
All right.
And what do you remember about her?
Um…
Loves me.
She loves you.
You know, we like to do these tests
to see if kids respond,
and-- and he was five out of five on it.
That was great. It actually impresses me
-that he did that, you know?
-Right. Mm.
Yeah, he'd never said for sure.
-So, that's good.
-Yeah.
And he seemed pretty sure about it.
-Pretty matter-of-fact.
-Yes.
I have worked with children
my entire life,
-and kids can say all kinds of things.
-Mm-hm.
I have heard, you know,
kids say-- make up all kinds of stories.
And for him
to just be very matter-of-fact,
"This is my name, this happened."
And he's never changed the story.
So it makes me think about life
differently.
[Jim] When we can do these tests,
then we can look at, statistically,
how likely it is for the child to choose
five correct pictures by chance.
And, of course, that's pretty unlikely.
We always encourage the parents
to be open and listen to the child,
and it's probably best for the child
to let this stuff go and just get
completely involved in their current life,
which is typically what they do.
Sometimes, after visits like this,
it'll, kind of, stir stuff up.
So if Atlas starts talking more
and giving other details,
and certainly if you have other questions
that do come up,
-let me know.
-Okay.
The most impressive was…
the way Atlas did with the pictures.
Not only was he five out of five,
but the way
in which he picked the pictures,
he seemed completely confident about them.
As far as the concern that…
Mom's just making it up…
First of all, she and Atlas
certainly did not come across that way.
I mean, they certainly seem very genuine.
Uh, but in addition…
she can't control his behavior,
and he came across completely natural,
and also, again, was able to identify
the places from the previous life.
And-- and she could not have created
that behavior in him,
even if she was
trying to make somethin' up.
I recognize that this
is an unusual career path for me.
And when I was growing up, I certainly
had no belief in reincarnation.
But this question
of what happens to us after we die
is something that has intrigued humans
for as long as we've been around.
The Division of Perceptual Studies,
which we call DOPS for short,
has been around for over 50 years.
Here at DOPS, we are looking at phenomena
where people have perceptions
that seem to be anomalous.
Most people in our field, in psychiatry,
or medicine in general,
don't know anything about our work.
There are others
that find it to be a waste of time,
but they don't usually tell us that
to our face.
This work can seem… odd,
but we've maintained a very serious-minded
approach as we look at it.
And, with every case,
we're trying to study them
as objectively and scientifically
as we would any other phenomenon.
DOPS was founded in 1967
by Ian Stevenson.
He had an interest in parapsychology
and, in particular, got intrigued
by reports of young children
saying that they had
a memory of a past life.
[Ian] The assumption is that when
your brain dies, your mind perishes also.
That is so deeply believed
that scientists fail to understand
that it is, in the end,
an assumption only.
And, uh… there's no reason…
uh, why aspects of the mind
shouldn't survive the death of the brain.
[Jim] Stevenson found
that parents in different countries
have tendencies to respond differently
to the reports from the children.
[Ian] We do hear quite often
from the parents of Western children
that they wish
they'd known about this research
uh, when their little boy
was three years old,
because he was saying, "I used to be
a pilot and, uh… I was shot down,"
and we told him to stop telling fibs.
Some cases are definitely suppressed
in the West.
But they are much more readily found
in, uh… South Asia.
[Jim] A lot of these children would have
birthmarks, or even birth defects,
that match wounds on the body
of the previous person.
Stevenson started to go investigate
these cases, mostly in Asia and India.
Places with a belief in reincarnation,
they're easier to find,
because people talk about them more.
[woman] Indigenous cultures
and cultures that endorse reincarnation,
such as the Gitxsan First Nation,
see spirit as being a part of reality.
Their belief in reincarnation
is extremely strong,
and they take it very, very seriously.
Let's see what this is.
I began studying these cases in '84.
When I met Ian Stevenson,
he was asking for someone
to go and continue his work
with the Gitxsan First Nation.
So then I set out and, in that one week…
learned about 34 strong cases,
and I've been doing it ever since.
The Gitxsan culture is based
on the concept of spirit being renewed.
The personality, the essence, the spirit
of the person who has passed on…
reanimates the baby who's born.
This is a genealogy of a particular house.
This is the--
the person who has come back,
and this shows
who they were in their previous life.
[Antonia] …in 2017,
and he just did that again.
Oh, I… I had no idea
anybody was involved with the--
[Antonia] Alex Stoney is recognized
by this clan as being Albert Tate,
who was, uh, head chief
at the time of his death.
Before he was born,
Alex's grandmother had a dream,
seeing Albert Tate comin' to her,
and saying, "I'm comin' back,
I'm comin' back."
Then, when the baby was born,
they look at the baby
and see striking similarities.
As a newborn baby, I would
hold my hands out in front of me…
and just marvel at my hands,
and my fingers specifically.
Albert Tate lost his fingers
in working accidents.
[laughing] I imagine havin' them back
would be a pretty big deal.
My grandma and my mom
saw that as Albert Tate coming back.
When I was a toddler,
I would meet people in the feast hall
and Albert Tate knew everybody's names
and where they sat in the feast hall,
and so I would lead those people
to their names, to their seats.
That's pretty remarkable
for a toddler to do.
Being reincarnated gives me more sense
of my culture and my heritage.
I definitely feel connected more
towards responsibilities to my community,
to my nation.
And I try my best
to fulfill those responsibilities.
[Jim] Reincarnation cases have been found
wherever anyone has looked for them.
And, in fact, on all the continents,
except Antarctica.
-Hello.
-Hello, Dr. Tucker.
[Jim] In the United States, most of
the families we hear from are Christian,
and the idea of reincarnation
can seem foreign to them.
-Great to see ya.
-And you.
Hello, sir.
In Ryan Hammons' case,
I've kept in contact with the family
to help them process the whole experience.
I first met Ryan when he was five.
We got a letter from his mother
describing his apparent memories
of a past life in Hollywood.
And he has the most verified statements
of any of the cases I've studied.
-That's a nice big thud right there.
-Yep! [sighs]
[Jim] Here's the original letter you sent.
I imagine you haven't looked at it
-in a while.
-Mm-hm.
It's been a lot of years.
"We brushed it off and thought it was
just evidence of a great imagination.
Anytime he sees the Hollywood sign,
he becomes excited
and talks about goin' home.
When other little boys
are playing with cars and trucks,
he's shouting, 'Action,'
and begins directing imaginary movies.
He even wanted people to start
addressing him as 'Hollywood Hammons.'
Ryan is embarrassed by his memories,
and he won't talk openly to anyone but me.
I would really like some help.
Ryan claims that he's startin' to forget
and it just makes him sad,
and he just wants to be Ryan."
And then he was asked in kindergarten
to draw a picture
of the people that lived in his house.
And, of course,
it's just Kevin and Ryan and I.
And he drew four people, and he--
and all his pictures that he'd bring in,
he would mark one out and he would say,
"That's the old me, because I'm not
allowed to talk about him."
I need to go outside for just a bit.
[sighs]
[Ryan sighing]
I think it can be easy for us to forget…
the emotional piece of this for…
for you guys and for Ryan, but…
It was like living
with somebody that was grieving.
-[Jim] Mm.
-He would start at night crying,
"Can I go home? Can I see my mom?
What happened to my children?"
It was very, very hard to go through that
with a small child.
[Jim] Mm-hm.
[Jim] What do you remember
about those early events?
Like, during the night, you would wake up,
and-- and-- with nightmares and all that.
I mean, you were four or five years old.
-Do you even remember anything?
-I…
Do I still have memories about…
You know, like actually vivid memories,
from my past life?
Mm-hm.
-Not very often.
-Mm.
I mean, I try to focus on other things.
I don't really like to talk about it,
you know?
[Jim] It's not just facts.
Emotions carry over, too.
Children can have intense trauma
from things that happened
for the previous people.
So it does seem as if this consciousness
that we have in this life
was also there in another life before.
[Cyndi] Ryan began
to have severe nightmares…
around four and a half, five years old.
Multiple times during the night,
he would wake up cryin',
grabbin' his chest,
sayin' he couldn't breathe.
And they were just
violent, violent nightmares.
Then the stories began.
The first story that Ryan ever told,
he said, "Mom,
I think I need to tell you somethin'.
I think I used to be somebody else."
It kind of shocked me.
He started talkin' about livin' in a house
that had a big swimmin' pool
and it was full of children.
[children laughing]
A song could come on and he'd start doin'
a whole tap dance session
in the middle of the floor,
and start talking about,
"When I danced on Broadway…"
And any time we were watching a TV show
and the Hollywood sign came on,
he'd say, "There, Mama, there,
that's home. I wanna go home."
It was like living with an old person
that was experiencin' dementia…
mixed with grieving.
[voices and laughter echoing]
I'd marked a story
in one of Dr. Tucker's books.
I said, "Kevin, I need you to read this,"
and he read it.
And I said…
"I'm… pretty sure
that's what's goin' on with Ryan,"
and he threw the book at me
from the bathroom.
He threw it and it hit the bed
and he said, "Ugh, Cyndi,
I don't wanna hear any of this bullshit.
We don't have a reincarnated kid."
Kevin grew up the son of a preacher…
in a Christian family.
I didn't wanna have to tell Kevin
that I thought my child was reincarnated.
But I want my child
to sleep through the night.
I want him to feel safe.
I want him to be a happy little boy
and not be crying about people
that have probably been dead for 40 years.
[Kevin] I didn't know
how to take it at first,
but, um… I'm in law enforcement
in the state of Oklahoma.
So I told her…
"Write everything down.
Write everything down he tells you.
That way, you don't forget."
[Jim] Cyndi had…
heard that if the child
could see the old place or the old people,
then it would help
process this emotionally.
So she went to the public library
and checked out some books on Hollywood.
They came across this photo
from the old movie Night After Night
that, uh… showed several men
gathered around,
and Ryan pointed to one of them
and said…
[Cyndi] "Mama, that's George.
We did a picture together."
[Jim] And then he pointed to another one
off to the side and said…
"And that's me."
[Jim] When his parents would ask him
what his name was, Ryan didn't know.
And there was very little information
about the movie Night After Night
on the internet.
So it was a real challenge to find out
who this unnamed background extra was.
Eventually, an archivist went
to the library of the Academy
of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
and found a picture
that identified the actor as Marty Martyn.
It probably wasn't a month later,
Dr. Tucker's sitting
at my dining room table.
Do you know who I am yet?
Dr. Tucker told Ryan…
He said, "I'm gonna lay out…
a series of photos, and I want you
to choose one if it looks familiar."
-This one. Remember it. Familiar.
-Yeah?
Ryan said, "That's it,"
and he picked Marty Martyn.
And then Dr. Tucker laid out four women
and Ryan immediately went,
without even hesitating…
That one.
And I seen Dr. Tucker
just break into this huge smile.
And I said, "Dr. Tucker, who is she?"
And he said, "That was his last wife."
Ryan had talked a lot
about this guy he called Senator Five,
who he said was from New York.
That's Senator Five.
We were able to verify that, while there
wasn't a Senator Five from New York,
there was a Senator Ives from New York
and that Marty Martyn did,
in fact, know him.
Ryan made a lot of statements
about the past life. Over 200 of them.
But a lot of them were little, personal
things that were impossible to check.
At the time, there was nothing
about Marty Martyn on the internet.
So I reached out
to Marty Martyn's daughter,
to try to see how many
of Ryan's statements I could verify.
[woman laughing]
Have you ever received a call…
that a six-year-old was your dad?
I've never heard of anything like that.
Dr. Tucker contacted me,
and he was showing me all the details
that Ryan had about my father.
And I was saying yay or nay
to all the details.
And, um, the ones that struck me were
that he was an agent
and he ran an agency, which is true.
And that it was… agency
changed people's names, which they did.
And he had mentioned that he lived
on a street that had "rocks" in it.
And the name of his street
was Roxbury Drive.
That he had a large swimming pool
and his mother had curly hair.
He also claimed my father had a green car.
I didn't know that.
And I said no, and it turns out
that he did have a green car.
And that my father, Marty, had many wives,
which is true.
That he tap danced. Correct.
And that the stage was in New York City.
He ate in Chinatown a lot
and he had a favorite restaurant there.
Well, there was a favorite restaurant
of his called Ah Fong's
that was in Beverley Hills,
we went to quite often.
And he also claimed that Marty had
a younger sister, which I didn't know.
Which I said was wrong and which--
he turned out to be correct.
Oh, and then he-- that he bought
his daughter, which was me,
a dog when she was about six.
And it's true I did not like the dog.
[laughs]
[Jim] Ryan said he was 61 when he died.
Now, Marty Martyn's death certificate
said that he was 59.
I looked into it
and found three census records,
two marriage listings and a passenger list
that all gave ages that meant
Marty Martyn was 61 when he died.
So Ryan was correct.
He did die when he was 61,
so he was correct on that.
-[interviewer] That's a lot.
-Yes.
-[interviewer] Do you find it surprising?
-I do find it surprising and kinda spooky,
and… 'cause it's…
[laughs] …it's unusual.
[Jim] Between records
that we could obtain,
we were eventually able to verify
over 50 of Ryan's statements
fit with Marty Martyn's life.
[Kevin] Dr. Tucker being able to verify
a lot of the statements that Ryan made
really started bringing this more together
for me.
There's too many things in there
that this child should not have known.
Before you opened up here, I was gettin'
all the business in this block.
Since you moved in,
trade's been pretty slow.
Oh, I see. You…
[Ryan] I like to watch older movies
from the '40s, '50s,
and my music tastes
have always been different.
I don't know what genre you'd call it,
but like the easy listening, jazz.
The stuff like Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby.
I listen to that.
I don't remember
really connecting to it as Marty.
[Cyndi] Ryan doesn't have
all the memories now.
You can show him pictures,
and sometimes, things will trigger.
But we don't talk about it.
He has progressed where,
every once in a while,
he might say something
that you know he's referring
to the previous personality.
But it's very, very rare.
[Jim] What can be challenging
for the parents
is the children stop talking
about their past lives
by the time they're six or seven,
which is when most children
lose their memories of early childhood.
[Cyndi] I still have these broken pieces
of this puzzle.
I still know the memories and I still have
the pieces that nobody fit together.
[Jim] Parents can struggle
to make sense of these experiences.
So sometimes, they will visit
the family of the deceased person
to try to confirm the child's memories.
[Cyndi] Ryan and I are in Los Angeles
to meet Marty Martyn's
one biological child, Marisa.
I'm hoping that this
is a healing process for us.
I want closure for us.
[Ryan] You know,
when we're driving through here…
I know I'm in Los Angeles, California,
not Oklahoma.
But it just feels like home.
[birdsong]
My father died when I was eight,
and I was very close to my dad.
He was very kind and giving and sweet
and I spent a lot of time with him.
When he died suddenly,
you know, my whole world collapsed.
Risa really wanted me to come
and to be with her
and to help her emotionally with this.
Also, I'm skeptical too.
I'm the only one alive
that knew Marty as an adult.
And I'd like to find out
what Ryan really knows about his past.
-Hello. Hi.
-[Ryan] Hi.
-Hi, Cyndi. So nice to see you.
-You too.
Hi, Ryan. Nice to see you.
There's quite a few pictures here
that you might recognize.
Anything that rings a bell?
[Cyndi whispers] It's okay.
-Are you okay?
-It's fine.
-[Cyndi] Okay. It's okay.
-Beautiful.
Well, would you like me
to point some out to you or…
Sure, just, whatever…
-Oh, okay. Well, let's see.
-It doesn't--
This is, um… Marty,
My father, when he married my mother.
This is my mom.
And, let's see, this is a dance group…
that my father had.
-[Cyndi] We've seen this picture before.
-[Ryan] Yeah, I have.
-[Marisa] Here it is. Perfect.
-[Cyndi] Thank you.
Excuse me, Ryan.
I noticed all the Eiffel Towers.
-Yes.
-Ryan has always been fascinated by Paris.
It's always been a big thing.
Paris is a big thing.
Yeah, I spent a lot of time in Paris
with my father.
-[Cyndi] That's really…
-And, um… lived there for a while,
and he just loved Paris, so…
And he, um… has a thing for, um…
monogrammed towels.
-[Marisa chuckles]
-And he used to say
that you could buy the most beautiful
monogrammed towels in Paris.
Everything my dad had was monogrammed.
-I… I noticed that.
-His boxes, his… cigar ashtray,
his underwear, his shirts--
-Are you serious?
-Everything.
Yeah.
-[clears throat]
-I would like to ask a question.
Maybe trigger some memories for you, Ryan.
You didn't mention
your childhood much at all.
But what about your grandmother?
Is there anything memorable
about your grandmother that you remember?
-Anything?
-Not right now.
His grandmother lived with him.
He never spoke about grandparents.
Okay.
You were in Paris when Lindbergh landed.
Do you have any recollection
of Lindbergh landing when you were there?
Uh, no, I don't.
That doesn't trigger
anything special to you?
No.
I'm very sorry if I can't answer
-any of your questions--
-[Toni] No, it's okay.
-Don't worry about it. It's fine.
-Yeah.
You're being honest, Ryan.
-[Marisa] Right. We all are.
-I'd rather you say, "I don't remember."
-Yeah, that's fine.
-[Ryan] Just…
It's-- it's weird.
You know, it doesn't, like,
come up, like, "Oh,"
like if you were remembering something.
It more comes up
kind of like dreams, in a way.
-Uh-huh.
-You know, like, if I was, like, dr--
daydreaming somewhere,
or if I was just, like…
like, an actual, like,
you know, falling asleep dream.
-I don't have all the memories.
-Mm-hm.
And that's something
that I don't know if I…
It could just be one big coincidence.
I don't know.
You know? I'm not saying,
100% sure it's reincarnation,
-[Toni] Right.
-But I don-- I  just don't know.
[Marisa] It was very surreal and…
I'm, I'd say, uncomfortable, to think
that Ryan has been reincarnated…
and used to be my father, Marty.
Um… That's not an everyday event.
[laughing] You know? So…
Um, it's just
an interesting experience, so…
[Toni] I was…
surprised that Ryan
had so very little to say.
And when I questioned him…
uh, about his memories, he had none.
And I'm really sorry
I didn't get to meet him when he was young
and we could have discussed
some of these things.
But, uh, life is as it is. [chuckles]
[birdsong]
[Jim] There's still so much mystery
surrounding these past-life memories.
And while many memories will fade…
that in no way diminishes the strength
of a child's original experience.
[Ryan] Phew.
-[Cyndi] Are you okay?
-[Ryan] Yeah, I'm fine.
Just a little surreal, I guess.
-You okay?
-Yeah.
It's okay. It's okay.
[Cyndi] It just kinda seems odd
to see it actually in stone.
-Hey, it's okay.
-[Cyndi laughs]
I'm supposed to be huggin' you. Love you.
[Cyndi sighs]
-It's okay, it's okay.
-We're finished.
[Kevin] Do I believe my son?
Yes, without a doubt.
Does it change my religious beliefs? No.
'Cause if you believe in the Bible…
you believe in the soul.
So, to me, there's a possibility
that you could return…
to live another life.
[Jim] How much of that early experience…
-Yeah.
-You know, the James Huston memories.
-Yeah.
-How much of that do you still remember?
Mostly the thing that I remember
is the-- the actual…
like, the plane crashing.
Um, I can recall that, if I want to.
It's almost like going back and, uh,
re-experiencing the…
the emotions and feelings, uh,
that were happening during that.
That must be quite difficult, to, uh,
experience something that horrific.
[Jim] We connect with adults who we
originally studied when they were kids.
With some of the cases,
we find that there are things
that continue to spark traumatic memories.
[James] I would try to not think about it
as much as possible.
Um… and then thinking about it
would make me emotional,
and I've built up a metaphorical wall.
But I can remember it,
and I can remember the feelings
and emotions and, um…
Just kind of that… dread
of knowing you were about to die.
[woman] The story with James
began with nightmares.
He would wake up in the night,
screaming, crying.
It wasn't like your typical nightmare
that you would think,
your baby's crying in bed.
-[plane engine screaming]
-[explosions echoing]
He would be laying on his back, like…
kicking his feet and his fists
at the ceiling.
Like he was in a box…
trying to get out of it.
This went on for, like,
three, four months, something like that,
and then, one night,
he had another night terror
and, all of a sudden,
I heard what he was saying.
It-- it suddenly…
I'm not sure what happened, but it clicked
in my head and he was saying,
"Airplane crash, on fire,
little man can't get out."
[gasps]
Still gives me goosebumps.
I went and I got Bruce up. I didn't care.
I was like, "You gotta come hear.
You gotta hear what he's saying."
Bruce got up and it clicked with him.
And we're standing in the hallway,
just kind of looking at each other,
-going… "Where did that come from?"
-[Bruce] Oh.
[Andrea] When I'd wake him up
from his dream, get him settled down,
I said, "You-- you keep
dreaming about… a little man.
Who's the little man?" And he said, "Me."
And I'm like,
"What was the little man's name?"
And he said, "James."
So I'm like, "Well, your name is James."
It's just… He's two. He's not processing
what I'm really trying to get at.
So I said, "The little man have
any friends or anything else?"
And he went…
"Jack. Jack Larson."
[Bruce] I'm goin'…
"How could he give me a specific name?
Where-- where could this come from?"
[Andrea] Right around the time
James was three,
-he started doing the drawings.
-[bomb falling]
-They were just this repetitive…
-[machine-gun fire]
…aircraft battle scene
with a plane in the air.
[machine-gun fire]
[bomb falling]
He never drew anything else.
One time I said,
"Maybe you can draw a picture of, like,
a flower or a tree or something?"
[laughing] So he made this battle scene,
he put a flower in it.
-[machine-gun fire]
-[Andrea laughs] "Why, thanks, James!"
I loved planes, in the sense
that I couldn't get enough of them.
I loved knowing about them.
I could go to an air museum
and name off every plane that was there
and all the specifics
about every single one.
I knew stuff about planes that my parents
didn't when I was five or six.
I don't know
where else I'd get the knowledge,
other than first-hand experience.
Uh, just knowing about them inherently.
It almost was like two people
living inside of me. [chuckles]
He had a little airplane.
He was flying it around like this.
And he was just so nonchalant.
Just like,
"Mama, before I was born, I was a pilot,
and my airplane got shot in the engine
and crashed in the water
and that's how I died."
[bomb falling]
[explosions and gunfire]
[Jim] It seemed to be a real repeated
theme in his drawings and in his play.
He had toy airplanes,
and he was always saying,
"Airplane crashed on fire," and he would
slam them into the family's coffee table.
So you look at the drawings and the play
and the nightmares.
James really looked
like a traumatized child,
Uh, but he hadn't been through any trauma,
at least as far as we know, in this life.
The other thing he did that was weird
is he almost spontaneously knew
how to spell his name.
He would sign them, "James 3."
I was like, "How come
you're signing your name 'James 3?'"
He said, "'Cause I'm the third James."
Talked to my mom about it,
'cause every day I'd be like,
"Mom, this is what he's saying.
This is what he's doing."
She said,
"Maybe he's remembering a past life."
And I said…
"Well, that's one thing
I didn't take into consideration."
I talked to Bruce and I… I said,
"Hey, I was talking to my mom and… uh…
she said maybe James is, like,
remembering a past life."
And he was like,
-"I'm not happy."
-"I don't know what it is…
but that's not it."
It was just absolutely, "No. No way.
Not happenin' here.
Huh? That's bullshit. Time-out."
[Bruce] As he was getting older, he…
was better able to articulate words,
so things became much more understandable.
Just out of curiosity, I said, "Well…
Were-- Who shot your plane down?"
He said, "The Japanese."
I said, "How did you know
it was the Japanese?"
He said, "The big red sun."
So I paused and…
Um… still… still get goosebumps.
I said, "Well… [sighs]
Where did your plane come from?"
He said, "A boat."
So I said, "Did your boat have a name?"
And he said, "Natoma."
I said, "That sounds Japanese to me,"
and he looked at me…
like I had no brain.
He said, "No, it's an American."
And he was upset.
Now, you had two items.
Natoma and Jack Larson,
So I had two pieces of information.
The third thing was I'd bought a book
about the Battle of Iwo Jima.
One day, open up to a page
of the… a map of Iwo Jima,
and a picture of the island,
and he just spontaneously
pointed to it, says,
-"That's when my plane got shot down."
-[explosion]
I went into my office and I went
onto the internet and started to search.
There's a Natoma… California.
There's a Natoma Hotel.
There was another Natoma ship,
the geodetic ship.
Down around hit 400,
I pulled up this report
on USS Natoma Bay CVE-62.
Read the report,
the ship had been at Iwo Jima.
And I freaked.
I want to a website and this was
the first picture I saw of the ship.
I was just in shock.
Just the hairs went up on my neck.
Because my son had…
an hour earlier, gave me
the name of this ship out of the ether.
I said, "Oh, man, what the hell
is happening? How can he know this?"
Then I found this.
This is a copy of these logbooks,
which is where I learned that Jack Larson
had been the assistant armaments officer
aboard Natoma Bay.
It's Jack Larson.
As we started to get more and more detail
and I realized that, uh…
we were into something larger
than we were, or are…
I started to keep a timeline to track it.
Here's where James…
Another thing he knew.
He-- he described
how they made napalm bombs.
When he was… uh, six.
Uh…
How do you know that? What?
[laughs]
We're talking about the early 2000s
when Bruce is trying to do this research.
So he was going on forums and asking
for veterans from the USS Natoma Bay.
You know, he's trying to get information
from libraries or wherever.
Eventually,
he went to a Natoma Bay reunion
and that's where he learned that there was
one, and only one, pilot from the ship
who was killed
during the Iwo Jima operation.
[Bruce] I called Andrea and I said,
"Well, there was only one man killed
during the Battle of Iwo Jima
from this-- from this ship
and from this particular squadron.
And his name was James M. Huston Jr."
I said, "That would make James
the third James!"
I really wanted to find
James Huston's family.
So I was able to find Anne Barron,
who was his sister…
and I contacted her.
Knowing my name and my sister's name.
Things that my brother did
when he was a kid, and…
It's too amazing
to describe how he would feel…
[Andrea] I went through the whole thing.
She sat there for a minute
and she goes, "You know what?
I-- I completely believe it."
And it was such a huge sigh of relief
for both of us.
[Bruce] This is one of the cutest things.
Here's James when we were at dinner
in-- in San Antonio with Annie.
And he was so gentle with her.
He was so, uh…
He acted like a little gentleman
around her.
[James] It was like seeing someone
you haven't seen in a long time.
There was excitement.
And it was-- it was really weird, though,
because we'd never met each other before,
but it was like we knew each other.
You know? And she--
We-- we greeted each other like
we were, you know, long-lost relatives.
[Annie] He considers me his sister.
I think it's probably a…
reincarnation of my brother.
[Bruce] September 4th, 2006.
Futamiko, Chichi Jima.
The site of the loss
of James M. Huston Jr.
March 3rd, 1945.
A memorial service
is not an admission that one is dead.
But rather,
it is an admission that we know
and believe there is life hereafter.
[Bruce] We decided to go to Japan.
We sailed to Chichi Jima,
which is the island
where James Huston's plane was shot down.
We sailed into Futamiko Harbor.
Passed Welcome Rock…
which is 150 yards away
from where the plane crashed.
We probably sailed over the plane
on the way in.
[James] Closure is the one word
I can really use to describe it.
My mom said, "It's time to say goodbye
to James Huston."
And I just…
Just released something.
And then, as soon as we got back on--
on shore, it just…
I stopped crying.
See that beautiful smiling face.
-[Andrea] You doing okay, buddy?
-Yeah, he's doing great.
He's doing great, Mama.
I don't know if it was stress,
but it just relieved a weight
that had been looming over me
for my-- for the entirety of my youth
up until that point.
[birdsong]
But, you know, there are a lot of things
that still affect me from it.
Memories like the plane going down.
Just the fear and dread and…
-[explosion]
-You can just…
You know you're there, and you can--
you can see it and you can feel it
and you can feel the emotions
that were going through you.
Which is why it's hard not to get
emotional about it, 'cause it's like…
you're thinking about dying.
[engine roaring]
I think the soul…
I think whatever's there carries on.
I think,
especially with James Huston's case,
I think that there was something
that he hadn't accomplished.
There was something that he was
meant to do that he hadn't-- hadn't done,
and this was…
the second chance
for his legacy to live on.
[Jim] While we may never fully solve
the greatest of all mysteries,
what happens after death…
the evidence is starting to suggest that
we might be part of a grander existence
that we can't fully fathom,
and our journeys might continue
long after we die.