Most of us struggle to remember what happened last week, yet some people have claimed to recall events from decades before they were born.
James Leininger
When James Leininger was only two, he started having these awful nightmares about a fiery plane crash. He recounted being an American pilot in WWII, shot from the sky by the Japanese.
He repeatedly referenced a ship named Natoma and a man named Jack Larsen. Through his account, his parents ultimately identified James Huston Jr., a pilot who died near Iwo Jima in 1945. Psychiatrist Jim Tucker analyzed the case and wrote about it in 2016.
Ryan Hammons
Ryan Hammons started speaking of a Hollywood life when he was a small child in Oklahoma. His family could not understand where their son was getting the information. He claimed to remember being an actor, living in a big house, and knowing celebrities.
He once recognized a man in an old film photograph as someone he used to be. Investigators tracked down the man’s identity to Marty Martyn, a former extra in Hollywood and talent agent who died in 1964. Investigators found matches between Martyn and Ryan’s family members, belongings and age of death, and the case gained national attention.
Swarnlata Mishra
Swarnlata Mishra was born in India in the 1940s and began talking about a family she said she had been a part of in a past life. She talked about a house in Katni where the family lived and gave names of relatives and information about their daily lives.
Her father wrote down some of her claims before investigators discovered a woman named Biya Pathak who had died and whose past life seemed to fit Swarnlata’s statements. When Swarnlata was brought to meet the family, she is said to have recognized several members of the family even when investigators tried to trick her. Psychiatrist Ian Stevenson visited and studied the case in 1961.
Dorothy Eady
British-born Dorothy Eady, later known as Omm Sety, insisted from childhood that she was from ancient Egypt. She eventually moved to Egypt, where she became a knowledgeable contributor to Egyptological studies. Eady maintained that she was the reincarnation of a temple priestess who lived during the time of Pharaoh Seti I.
She also claimed to know the location of a garden that had long since been destroyed, located near the temple at Abydos; when archaeologists excavated the spot she named, they found the remains of ancient trees. Some of her peers were impressed by her knowledge, but she never subjected her claims to critical analysis.
Gillian and Jennifer Pollock
Joanna and Jacqueline Pollock were twin sisters who died in 1957 in a road accident. The next year their mother gave birth to twin daughters, Gillian and Jennifer. When the girls were older, the parents claimed they identified toys, recalled locations in their old hometown, and discussed events from the lives of their sisters who had died before they were born. Jennifer also had birthmarks similar to marks on Jacqueline’s body.
Shanti Devi
In the 1930s, Shanti Devi claimed to remember living a previous life in Mathura as a married woman named Lugdi Devi. As a child, she described her former husband, children, and residence with apparently extraordinary detail. Mahatma Gandhi set up a committee to look into Devi’s claims.
Upon visiting Mathura, Devi supposedly recognized people associated with Lugdi’s relatives. Some involved with her case thought the matches were credible.
Cameron Macauley
As a child, Cameron Macauley told his mother multiple times that he had another family on a Scottish island named Barra. He spoke of a white house with a black-and-white dog and airplanes landing on the beach. In 2006, he traveled to Barra with a documentary crew and researcher Jim Tucker.
While there, some aspects matched a house where a family called Robertson once lived, such as floor plans and even a dog in one of their old photos. But investigators never found the father he spoke of or confirmed whose life he was remembering.
Toran Singh
Toran Singh (nicknamed Titu) was a boy in India who claimed to have previously owned a radio shop in the city of Agra. He named relatives, described his former house, and recounted being shot dead. Titu’s family determined a businessman, Suresh Verme, who owned a shop named Suresh Radio, had been killed in 1983.
When he stepped inside the shop, Titu seemed to recognize familiar faces and pointed out where the cash was kept. Antonia Mills, the researcher, delved into the case and pointed out apparent parallels, such as the marks on Titu’s head that looked like the bullet wounds he described.
Uttara Huddar
In the 1970s, Uttara Huddar, a 32-year-old Indian woman, began to undergo personality changes where she claimed to be Sharada, a 19th-century Bengali woman. She began to speak in an archaic dialect of Bengali (but with no known formal education in old Bengali) and described customs, places, and family relations of the past.
Psychiatrist Ian Stevenson looked into her case, though how she gained such knowledge through normal means is yet to be determined.
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.
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12 of history’s freakiest coincidences that are hard to explain
Some of history’s most bizarre coincidences seem almost too perfect to be real, yet they really happened, often involving people who had no idea what was coming.
12 of history’s freakiest coincidences that are hard to explain
