Evidence For Reincarnation This Kid Knows Things He Shouldn t - He Survived Death - Documentary

A Louisiana boy offers incredible evidence that should satisfy both sides of the soul debate. His case offers proof that the soul is real, that it can be reincarnated, and that science can study it. At the University of Virginia, a group of psychiatrists use science to unlock the secrets of reincarnation. Since the 1960s, the Division of Perceptual Studies has been collecting cases of children who claim past life memories. They now have files on 2,500 children. Well, I think what the research shows is that for people who are open to considering the possibility that there is evidence that consciousness at times can exist separately from a functioning brain. So, in the cases that these children report, if you look at the best cases, they provide evidence that at times there can be this carryover of memories and emotions that seem carried over from one life and then continue on in another. May 2000, Lafayette, Louisiana. A mother awakens to hear the screams of her two-year-old son. He was laying on his back and he was kicking his feet up like this and pounding his fists like this, just kicking and kicking and screaming at the top of his lungs. Andrea Leininger cannot soothe her baby James. Eventually, he falls back to sleep. She thinks the nightmare is over, but really it is just beginning. Then the next night he had another one and it was the exact same thing. The same exact kicking motion. And the more he had it, the more bizarre it became because it was so specific and so repetitive. This marked the start of one of the best documented cases of possible reincarnation in history. Today, James Leininger is 12. I play sports, baseball, soccer, go to Ascension Episcopal School. I have a lot of friends there. When they were younger, they'd say, I want to be a fireman. I want to be an astronaut. But I was always, I want to be a fighter pilot. I want to be in the Marines. Oh, you got your school pictures. Yeah. Oh, they came out nice. From the age of three, James' parents began to hear stories from their son that shocked them. That their son was recalling things that connected him to a Navy pilot who died in 1945. They were skeptical. Bruce is an HR manager in the oil industry. Andrea is a former ballerina turned instructor. As Christians, they never believed in reincarnation. But they began to piece together an amazing story. The first clue came from the terrifying nonstop nightmares that James began having at the age of two. He was saying, airplane crash on fire, little man can't get out. Airplane crash on fire, little man can't get out. That's when I was like, oh my God, is that what he's been dreaming this entire time? What he was saying wasn't registering as much on me as what he was doing. He was flailing around in bed. And I remember the very specific thought I had at that point. This looks like the exorcist. He was freaking out. I had this thought, he possessed, what is going on here? Within a year, the visions that greeted James in his nightmares began taking shape when he was wide awake. I was reading to James. And then he sat up and he goes, mama, the little man's going like this. And he laid down and he did the same thing he did in his dream. He was kicking his feet up and he goes, little man's going like this, ooh, ooh, ooh, can't get out, can't get out. And I sat him back up and I said, who's the little man? And he goes, me. It still makes my hair stand up. And Bruce said, what happened to your plane? And he said, it crashed on fire. And he said, why did your airplane crash? And he said, it got shot. Bruce said, who shot your plane? And he went, the Japanese. James then gave his parents the next uncanny clue. One that was very specific. The name of a ship from which he says his aircraft took off. So I said, well, did your boat have a name? And he said, Natoma. And I'd never heard the word before. And I went down the hall and got onto the computer and Googled it. And down around hit 300. All there was this thing, Natoma Bay, CVE-62. Clicked on it. And up comes this history of a World War II aircraft carrier. And so that was the beginning of what the heck is going on here. I was standing there staring at this picture of this little, it was like an aerial photo of this little aircraft carrier in the water. And I just stood there staring at it for a long time. I had no answers. How could he know this? How could he know a person? How could he know a ship? And what did all this mean? So that was where I really just said, I'm going to get to the bottom of this. I don't know how I'm going to do it. I don't know what I'm going to find. But I'm not going to stop looking until I get as many answers as I can get. This was enough to send Bruce on an investigation, doing his own research. Over the next two years, he learned about the men from the Natoma Bay, both living and dead. And James kept giving his parents additional, tantalizing, eerie clues. Well, I kept asking him, do you remember what your name was? Do you remember what your name was? And he always said, James. And I thought, well, he's two, he's confused. He thinks I'm asking him what his name is. Then, James started drawing. That was one of my mission things. The mission thing, you remember that? Yeah. That's one of my favorite ones. The same thing, over and over. Like a movie compressed all into one frame. An air battle. Flak. A plane on fire. And his signature, James 3. So one day I was in the kitchen, I was washing dishes, James had breakfast. And he had an airplane, he was just flying around like this. And he goes, 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. And I was just froze. It was such a bizarre thing to say. But it was just that matter of fact. There was no drama, there was no emotion to it. At three, James started pretending to be a pilot, with an attention to detail that astonished his father. One day he dragged a car seat into the closet in my office, and he set up a little cockpit in there. He had a little play school console, and it was going to be a cockpit, and he's going back and forth. All of a sudden the door comes flying open, and he comes rolling out of it. I said, James, what happened to you? He says, I said, did you fall? He says, no, my plane got shot and I bailed out. The next breakthrough came when Bruce was invited to the Natoma Bay Veterans Reunion. He asked about the names of men killed in battle. And this led him to finally solving the mystery of James III. He called me on the phone and he said, you won't believe this, there's only one guy from the Natoma Bay who was killed during the battle for Iwo Jima, and his name was, it was James M. Houston Jr. And I said, wait, that would make our James, James III. I was so excited. I'm like, that's him. It's James M. Houston. His name is James, it's the James III. James Houston Jr., World War II veteran, and World War II Navy pilot. At age 21, on March 3, 1945, his plane was shot down over Chichijima. Now, the skeptical parents were sitting on compelling proof that their little boy really was reincarnated. This plane, the Wildcat, is the plane that James M. Houston crashed in. And he was a test pilot for the Corsair. And he would test fly those off of carriers. The F-18 is the plane I want to fly when I grow up. Since he was two, James showed an unusual fascination for military air shows, and an uncanny familiarity with vintage aircraft. His parents cautiously made contact with James Houston's only surviving relative, his sister, Anne. At first, she didn't know what to think about the little boy who claimed to be her brother reincarnated. But then, James asked her for a painting that only one person other than her knew existed. She sent this January 16, 2006. It says, Dear James, I do hope that this is the picture you asked for. It is the only one of me done by my mother. I am sorry to be so long sending it to you. These past few weeks have been very busy and hectic. I hope you like it. With my love, Anne. James believed then, as he does now, that it was the dead pilot's soul asking for that picture. I had asked her for a painting that my past mother had done for her and me. This was in her attic for 50 or so years. My parents and she thought it was crazy that I would know about something like this. Anne, too, became a believer. And there were other, more chilling connections. James had three G.I. Joes. He named Billy, Walter, and Leon. Names his parents thought were strange for a boy to choose. Bruce is like, Hey, James, what are you going to name your G.I. Joe? He's just playing. He goes, Walter. And so we were like, Walter? Bruce goes, How come you named your G.I. Joes Billy, Walter, and Leon? And he goes, Because that's who met me when I got to heaven. And it was one of those moments where the blood drained out of our face, and we just kind of walked backwards. Bruce went in the office. I went in the office. We closed the door. He's in there going through papers like this. I'm like, What are you looking for? What are you looking for? He finds this piece of paper, and he says, Billy Peeler, Walter Devlin, and Leon Connor were all in the same squadron as James Houston. I was like, When did they die? Did they die before? He's throwing papers around, pulls out another sheet, and he looked at the dates of death, and they all died before James Houston died. They all flew with him. Although James' dad remained skeptical that reincarnation might really be possible, what happened next was uncanny. So we're cleaning up the yard, and he's playing in the leaves. I said, I just love you to bits. And he goes, Well, I knew you'd be a good daddy when I picked you. And I said, What? And he said, Well, when I found you and Mommy, I knew you would be good parents. My head was shrinking to the size of a raisin. You know, my brain. And I said, What do you mean when you found us? He said, Well, I found you and Mommy in Hawaii. James told his father that he saw them in a pink hotel, which is where the Leiningers were staying when they decided to have James. Bruce and Andrea were cautious about asking doctors and psychiatrists for help. They decided to find their own solution to James' ordeal. And their solution was to go to Japan, to the very expansive ocean where the pilot, James Houston, Jr., died. The boat was right above where the wreckage of the plane was. And Bruce did this beautiful memorial service. So I thought that was a perfect moment for me to just say, you know, I sat down with him and I said, Jim Houston's been a part of your life for as long as we can remember. And he's always going to be an important part of who you are. But you have a life to live as James Leininger. And it's time for you to say goodbye to Jim Houston. And he just started bawling. He cried for about 20 minutes. It was the saddest thing I ever seen. He had everyone on the boat crying. It's time for you to say goodbye to James Houston. Good job. I salute you. Good boy. You're such a brave soul. Such a brave soul and spirit. It was weird when we got back to shore. It was something had changed. He left something there. He really did. It was palpable. You could see that he'd mourned that and everything that had happened and was ready to move on. And he really did at that point. That's kind of when everything really changed. I'm going to be the same thing that James M. Houston was. A pilot. The next picture that James Leininger drew was one of peace. The nightmares stopped. The memories started to fade. I don't want him to remember anything about his past life. He has a life. I don't want him to be bogged down or confused. He's our son. He's not Jim Houston. He's got a life to live. Today, James Leininger can remember nothing specific about the soul that used to torment him. The spirit that I used to have when I was 4, 5, 6 has gone away. I'm just James now. I still have James Houston in me, I think. But it's not so much the bad history. It's more of the peaceful history of his life.