Latest / Crime and Horror / Moment between LIFE and DEATH caught on camera... - MrBallen
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Have you ever wondered what happens when you die? Well,
- 0:03Speaker 1: today I'm going to tell you three stories that all
- 0:06Speaker 1: give insights into what might actually happen. And these are
- 0:09Speaker 1: not hokey stories. These are stories with like evidence, photographic
- 0:13Speaker 1: evidence in some cases. These are deep, unsettling stories. But
- 0:18Speaker 1: before we get into those stories, if you're a fan
- 0:20Speaker 1: of the strange, dark, and mysterious Deliberated Story format, then
- 0:24Speaker 1: you've come to the right place because that's all we
- 0:25Speaker 1: do and we upload once a week. So if that's
- 0:28Speaker 1: of interest to you, please sneak into the Like Button's
- 0:31Speaker 1: house and flip all of their wall-mounted TVs upside down. Also,
- 0:35Speaker 1: please subscribe to our channel and turn on all notifications
- 0:38Speaker 1: so you don't miss any of our weekly uploads. Okay,
- 0:41Speaker 1: let's get into today's stories. On the evening of December 27th, 1984,
- 1:02Speaker 1: a 16-year-old boy named John Boulware sat in the passenger
- 1:05Speaker 1: seat of his best friend's Jeep as they drove down
- 1:08Speaker 1: a residential road in St. Paul, Minnesota. John's best friend
- 1:11Speaker 1: was driving and two more of their friends from school
- 1:14Speaker 1: were in the back seat. They were all talking and
- 1:16Speaker 1: laughing and singing along to the radio. It was dark
- 1:18Speaker 1: outside and it was rainy and kind of an awful night,
- 1:22Speaker 1: but John didn't care. He was way too excited because
- 1:26Speaker 1: that night he and his buddies were were on their
- 1:28Speaker 1: way to see the megastar musician Prince perform live. So
- 1:32Speaker 1: Prince was obviously a massive, massive star at the time,
- 1:37Speaker 1: and anyone at the time would have been pretty excited
- 1:39Speaker 1: to go see him perform live. But this was a
- 1:42Speaker 1: particularly big deal for John and his friends, because Prince
- 1:45Speaker 1: was actually from Minneapolis, Minnesota, which was just 20 minutes
- 1:49Speaker 1: away from St. Paul, where they were from. So it
- 1:51Speaker 1: was kind of like they were going to see their
- 1:53Speaker 1: hometown hero. Now, John and his friends didn't expect to become,
- 1:56Speaker 1: you know, huge rock star gods like Prince, but there
- 2:00Speaker 1: was just something about seeing, you know, this hometown guy
- 2:03Speaker 1: achieve his dreams on an international scale. It was just
- 2:07Speaker 1: really inspiring. And so again, John and his friends are
- 2:10Speaker 1: just so stoked about this concert, like they can't wait
- 2:13Speaker 1: to get there. And so John, you know, with all
- 2:15Speaker 1: this excitement, he turns around to talk to his friends
- 2:19Speaker 1: in the backseat about this concert and how great it's
- 2:21Speaker 1: going to be. Right as he turns around, He hears
- 2:24Speaker 1: a loud screeching sound and he whips his head back
- 2:27Speaker 1: around just in time to see the headlights of the
- 2:30Speaker 1: car aimed at this tree that they're careening straight towards.
- 2:34Speaker 1: He screams, he hears his friends screaming. They smash into
- 2:37Speaker 1: the tree and everything goes dark. A few minutes later,
- 2:40Speaker 1: a St. Paul police officer named Brian Coyle and his
- 2:44Speaker 1: patrol partner pulled up behind the now wrecked Jeep. They'd
- 2:47Speaker 1: been on their regular patrol when they'd gotten a call
- 2:49Speaker 1: about the car crash. Now, the call hadn't come from
- 2:51Speaker 1: anybody in the crash, So they really didn't know what
- 2:54Speaker 1: to expect. Now, when Coyle stepped out of his own
- 2:56Speaker 1: car and walked towards the wreck, you know, it was
- 2:59Speaker 1: raining and dark out and, you know, the visibility wasn't great.
- 3:02Speaker 1: But right away, he saw there were three teenagers who
- 3:05Speaker 1: were standing upright outside of the car. Now, they looked
- 3:08Speaker 1: pretty shaken up and they visibly had some cuts on
- 3:10Speaker 1: their body. But, you know, overall, his assessment was they
- 3:13Speaker 1: were basically okay. And so while Coyle's partner went to
- 3:16Speaker 1: go examine the wreck itself, Coyle walked up to these teenagers.
- 3:20Speaker 1: And one of them, through tears... explained to Coyle that
- 3:23Speaker 1: he had been driving, and he said he had been
- 3:25Speaker 1: just going too fast, and he tried to take a
- 3:27Speaker 1: sharp turn, and he hydroplaned, lost control, and they hit
- 3:31Speaker 1: the tree. And then the driver said, it didn't matter, though,
- 3:34Speaker 1: how this happened, because what mattered now is his friend, John,
- 3:38Speaker 1: is still in the car, and he's not moving. And
- 3:41Speaker 1: so Officer Coyle left the teenagers and told them to
- 3:43Speaker 1: stay put, and he walked over to the wreck where
- 3:46Speaker 1: his partner was, and Coyle, he knelt down, and he
- 3:48Speaker 1: looked inside the Jeep, and he saw the other teenager, John,
- 3:52Speaker 1: slumped over inside the passenger seat, and he wasn't moving.
- 3:56Speaker 1: And so Coyle asked his partner, hey, have you checked him?
- 3:58Speaker 1: Is he okay? And the partner looked at Coyle and
- 4:01Speaker 1: just said, no, he's dead. So Officer Coyle took a
- 4:04Speaker 1: deep breath, and while his partner called for backup and
- 4:08Speaker 1: taped off the scene, Coyle went back to John's friends
- 4:11Speaker 1: and broke the news as gently as he could. But,
- 4:14Speaker 1: of course, they were all devastated. The only thing Coyle
- 4:16Speaker 1: could do to help them was to call an ambulance
- 4:19Speaker 1: to come and take them to the hospital to get
- 4:21Speaker 1: checked out. Once the ambulance had taken them away, and
- 4:24Speaker 1: once John's body had been removed from the Jeep, Officer
- 4:27Speaker 1: Coyle and his partner began to document the scene by
- 4:30Speaker 1: taking photos of the crashed car with a camera. Now,
- 4:32Speaker 1: this was all standard practice, and so while they did it,
- 4:36Speaker 1: they didn't think anything of it. However, about a week later,
- 4:39Speaker 1: when Coyle and his partner were reviewing the photos they took,
- 4:43Speaker 1: Coyle noticed something shocking. One of the pictures that Officer
- 4:46Speaker 1: Coyle had taken of was so bizarre that it ended
- 4:49Speaker 1: up in newspapers not only in Minnesota, but all over
- 4:53Speaker 1: the country. Even today, 30-plus years later, people are still
- 4:57Speaker 1: talking about it. And when you see this photo, you'll
- 5:00Speaker 1: understand why. This is the photograph. And if you look
- 5:03Speaker 1: at the top right, above the Jeep's open door, you'll
- 5:05Speaker 1: see something that could just be a flash of light.
- 5:08Speaker 1: But to Officer Coyle and so many others who have
- 5:10Speaker 1: looked at this photograph... They say that weird apparition-looking thing
- 5:15Speaker 1: above the Jeep looks eerily similar to John Boulware's face,
- 5:20Speaker 1: the 16-year-old victim of the car crash. And it almost
- 5:22Speaker 1: looks like this photograph captured, like, the moment of John's
- 5:27Speaker 1: spirit departing Earth. Like, it's showing his final moment in life,
- 5:32Speaker 1: like when he died, screaming as the car is about
- 5:35Speaker 1: to crash into this tree. One evening in the summer
- 5:51Speaker 1: of 1974, a 60-year-old doctor named Julian Kirchick sat beside
- 5:56Speaker 1: his backyard pool at his home in Old Westbury, New York,
- 5:59Speaker 1: which is a suburb of New York City. It was
- 6:01Speaker 1: a quiet, sunny day, and Dr. Kirchick was glad to
- 6:04Speaker 1: have some time to relax. He was a surgeon at
- 6:06Speaker 1: a local hospital, and he also had a wife and
- 6:09Speaker 1: four children, so it was not often that he got
- 6:11Speaker 1: a moment of peace to himself. And so Dr. Kerchik
- 6:14Speaker 1: leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes and
- 6:16Speaker 1: tried to relax for a second when all of a
- 6:18Speaker 1: sudden he heard something rustle in the bushes nearby. Now,
- 6:21Speaker 1: at first he just figured it must be a squirrel
- 6:23Speaker 1: or a bird or something. So he didn't even bother
- 6:25Speaker 1: opening his eyes. Like, this is just nature. It's fine.
- 6:27Speaker 1: But this rustling sound persisted and it just wouldn't stop.
- 6:32Speaker 1: And so eventually Dr. Kerchik did open his eyes and
- 6:35Speaker 1: he got up out of his chair to go see
- 6:36Speaker 1: what was going on. Now, these bushes were like 20
- 6:39Speaker 1: feet away from the doctor. And so in order to
- 6:42Speaker 1: truly investigate, he had to get up and actually walk
- 6:44Speaker 1: over there. And so he gets up and he takes
- 6:46Speaker 1: a few steps when he suddenly freezes. Because now when
- 6:50Speaker 1: he's looking at the bushes, he sees there is someone
- 6:53Speaker 1: standing basically in the bushes, a person. But he realized
- 6:57Speaker 1: this person was not a normal looking person. The person
- 7:00Speaker 1: was wearing what appeared to be this dark, long robe
- 7:04Speaker 1: that covered their whole body. And in fact, the robe
- 7:06Speaker 1: kind of obscured their face completely. It was like they
- 7:09Speaker 1: were this dark presence just standing there in the middle
- 7:12Speaker 1: of these bushes. And so Dr. Kirchick is just frozen,
- 7:15Speaker 1: having no idea how to react to this. I mean,
- 7:17Speaker 1: does he call out for help? Does he, you know,
- 7:19Speaker 1: chase this guy out of his yard? Like, what does
- 7:21Speaker 1: he do here? And as he's standing there transfixed, this
- 7:25Speaker 1: person in the robe extends one of their arms, this long,
- 7:29Speaker 1: skinny arm, and kind of begins to beckon Dr. Kirchick
- 7:33Speaker 1: towards them. And Dr. Kirchick went from being sort of
- 7:36Speaker 1: startled to being terrified. This figure basically looked like the
- 7:42Speaker 1: Grim Reaper. And it felt like now the Grim Reaper
- 7:46Speaker 1: is beckoning him to come with him, to come die, basically.
- 7:49Speaker 1: That was the feeling he suddenly had. And it was
- 7:52Speaker 1: unbelievably overwhelming. And so Dr. Kerchik is staring, horrified. He
- 7:56Speaker 1: blinks for a second, and the man is gone. Over
- 8:00Speaker 1: the next few days, Dr. Kerchik obsessed over what he
- 8:04Speaker 1: had just seen. I mean, really, it felt like he
- 8:07Speaker 1: had just witnessed the Grim Reaper and worse, that the
- 8:10Speaker 1: Grim Reaper was like telling him to come with him.
- 8:13Speaker 1: Like he was signaling to Dr. Kirchick that his time
- 8:16Speaker 1: on Earth had come to an end, that his death
- 8:19Speaker 1: was imminent. That's what Dr. Kirchick is thinking. But Dr. Kirchick,
- 8:22Speaker 1: he's a surgeon. He's a man of science and reason,
- 8:25Speaker 1: and he can't understand how this could have happened. I mean,
- 8:29Speaker 1: even if it was just a hallucination, it was so vivid.
- 8:32Speaker 1: It was so visceral. Like, how could this be? What's
- 8:34Speaker 1: going on with him? But the problem Dr. Kirchick had was,
- 8:38Speaker 1: who's he going to talk to about this? Hey, by
- 8:41Speaker 1: the way, I saw the Grim Reaper, and now I'm
- 8:43Speaker 1: worried I'm going to die soon. Or maybe somebody in
- 8:45Speaker 1: my family is going to die soon, or a patient
- 8:47Speaker 1: is going to die soon. Like, who's going to have
- 8:49Speaker 1: that conversation with him? But at the same time that
- 8:52Speaker 1: he was feeling increasingly isolated because of this, you know,
- 8:54Speaker 1: whatever he saw, he couldn't help but feel like it
- 8:57Speaker 1: was real and it was driving him mad. Like, I'm
- 9:00Speaker 1: not doing anything and something bad is imminent. What do
- 9:03Speaker 1: I do? And so for months, Dr. Kirchick just carried
- 9:06Speaker 1: this incredible weight with him everywhere he went, like this
- 9:09Speaker 1: constant sense of unease until October of 1974. That month, Dr.
- 9:16Speaker 1: Kirchick suddenly got sick. He had a fever, and it
- 9:19Speaker 1: just wouldn't go away. And so he went to his
- 9:21Speaker 1: own doctor for a checkup, and his doctor told him,
- 9:25Speaker 1: I got some bad news. That day, Dr. Kirchick was
- 9:28Speaker 1: diagnosed with an incurable form of blood cancer. He was heartbroken,
- 9:32Speaker 1: but he was not totally surprised. Because for him, this
- 9:36Speaker 1: sort of felt like a validation of what he'd already seen. Death,
- 9:40Speaker 1: the Grim Reaper, had been calling him. And now, Dr.
- 9:43Speaker 1: Kirchick knew why. Dr. Kirchick would share his story with newspapers,
- 9:47Speaker 1: which is how we know about it today. And shortly
- 9:50Speaker 1: after sharing his story, Dr. Kirchick would die. cool announcement
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- 10:49Speaker 1: Thank you. On the afternoon of Sunday, August 27th, 2000,
- 11:02Speaker 1: a 50-year-old husband and father named Bruce Leninger sat in
- 11:05Speaker 1: his living room in Lafayette, Louisiana. He and his wife
- 11:09Speaker 1: and his two-year-old son, James, had just gotten home from church,
- 11:12Speaker 1: and now Bruce was just trying to relax. However, it
- 11:15Speaker 1: was proving very difficult to relax because as Bruce is
- 11:18Speaker 1: trying to sit on the couch and just kind of
- 11:20Speaker 1: close his eyes for a second, his son, James, the two-year-old,
- 11:24Speaker 1: has his toy plane, his favorite toy plane, and he
- 11:26Speaker 1: is repeatedly smashing it into the coffee table as loud
- 11:30Speaker 1: as he can, saying, plane crash, plane crash, plane crash.
- 11:34Speaker 1: And while, of course, like, you know, James is a kid.
- 11:36Speaker 1: He's going to be loud and noisy and obnoxious. That's
- 11:38Speaker 1: what kids do. But for Bruce, he's watching his son
- 11:42Speaker 1: do this and he couldn't help but be really concerned.
- 11:45Speaker 1: Because lately, like over the past few months, James had
- 11:49Speaker 1: become unnaturally fixated, not on planes, but on plane crashes.
- 11:54Speaker 1: And even more specifically, James had begun having these recurring nightmares,
- 11:58Speaker 1: like four or five times a week, where he'd wake
- 12:01Speaker 1: up terrified and he would say he, James, had just
- 12:05Speaker 1: been in a horrible, fiery plane crash. And it was
- 12:07Speaker 1: like every night. That was the nightmare. And it was
- 12:11Speaker 1: like Bruce and his wife didn't even know what to
- 12:13Speaker 1: make of this. Like, where is he getting this from?
- 12:15Speaker 1: James was a pretty sheltered kid. Like, he wasn't being
- 12:18Speaker 1: exposed to, you know, horrible plane crashes either in movies
- 12:22Speaker 1: or TV shows or books. I mean, he's a two-year-old.
- 12:24Speaker 1: It just made no sense that he was having this
- 12:26Speaker 1: recurring nightmare. But what made it even more kind of
- 12:29Speaker 1: unsettling is that James wasn't just fixated on the plane
- 12:33Speaker 1: crash aspect of this nightmare. He also began to tell
- 12:37Speaker 1: Bruce and his wife... these weird details about the plane crash,
- 12:41Speaker 1: because it was always the same plane crash in his nightmare.
- 12:44Speaker 1: He began telling his parents that the Japanese shot me down.
- 12:49Speaker 1: And Bruce and his wife are like, what is he referencing? Like,
- 12:53Speaker 1: is this a World War II reference? But again, he's two. Like, developmentally,
- 12:58Speaker 1: it's not something he would say, even if he was
- 13:01Speaker 1: exposed to it. Like, it just didn't make any sense. Now,
- 13:04Speaker 1: over the past few months that this behavior had really
- 13:06Speaker 1: ramped up, Bruce and his wife had taken James to
- 13:09Speaker 1: the doctor to say, what's going on here? Like, what's
- 13:12Speaker 1: my kid doing? I don't understand any of this. And
- 13:14Speaker 1: the doctors were all like, nah, he's a kid. Like, yeah,
- 13:16Speaker 1: it's a weird fixation he's got, but he'll grow out
- 13:19Speaker 1: of it. Like, don't worry about it. But to Bruce
- 13:21Speaker 1: and his wife, it just seemed like James was not
- 13:23Speaker 1: growing out of it. He was just getting more and
- 13:26Speaker 1: more fixated as time went on. And so as Bruce
- 13:29Speaker 1: is sitting there on the couch watching James for the
- 13:31Speaker 1: millionth time smash his toy plane into the coffee table
- 13:34Speaker 1: and pretend it was this plane crash he couldn't stop
- 13:36Speaker 1: thinking about, Bruce decided he had to do something about this.
- 13:40Speaker 1: And so over the next couple of months, Bruce, instead
- 13:43Speaker 1: of trying to figure out what was wrong with James
- 13:46Speaker 1: that was causing him to fixate on this plane crash,
- 13:49Speaker 1: you know, instead of doing that, he began sort of
- 13:52Speaker 1: like leaning in and asking James to give him more
- 13:55Speaker 1: information about whatever he was seeing in his nightmare. Like,
- 13:58Speaker 1: give me all the specifics you can possibly recall. And
- 14:01Speaker 1: James would eventually let on that it wasn't just the
- 14:04Speaker 1: Japanese that shot him down. It was the Japanese military.
- 14:08Speaker 1: And also, the type of plane that James was flying in, apparently,
- 14:13Speaker 1: was a course airplane. Bruce had never heard of that before.
- 14:16Speaker 1: And again, he's looking at his two-year-old son thinking, how
- 14:19Speaker 1: do you even know what a course airplane is? But nonetheless...
- 14:23Speaker 1: That's what James said. And so Bruce doesn't know what
- 14:25Speaker 1: to do with this information. But again, he's just trying
- 14:28Speaker 1: to learn. And so in November of that year, Bruce
- 14:31Speaker 1: found himself sitting in the living room and he had
- 14:33Speaker 1: this World War II coffee table book that he had
- 14:36Speaker 1: actually purchased for his father, but he hadn't given it
- 14:38Speaker 1: to him yet. And he saw James playing with his plane,
- 14:41Speaker 1: smashing it into the coffee table. And Bruce, he grabs
- 14:44Speaker 1: this coffee table book full of pictures of pilots and
- 14:46Speaker 1: combat and war. And he flips two pictures of pilots
- 14:50Speaker 1: from World War II. Because now Bruce is thinking maybe
- 14:53Speaker 1: My son somehow is imagining a scene from World War II.
- 14:57Speaker 1: You know, a pilot has crashed in World War II.
- 14:59Speaker 1: The Japanese military shot them down. I don't know. No
- 15:02Speaker 1: idea how he got this image, but that could be
- 15:04Speaker 1: what he's thinking about. And so he's like, well, maybe
- 15:06Speaker 1: I'll just start looking at pictures from World War II
- 15:09Speaker 1: of pilots. And maybe somehow or another, James will look
- 15:13Speaker 1: at this and something will click for him. Bruce really
- 15:15Speaker 1: didn't know what he was trying to get out of this.
- 15:17Speaker 1: But either way, he called James over and he shows
- 15:20Speaker 1: him this book. And he's like, James. do you recognize
- 15:23Speaker 1: any of these planes? Like, are any of these planes
- 15:25Speaker 1: the Corsair plane that you flew, you know, in your dream?
- 15:28Speaker 1: You know, is any of this stuff sort of lining
- 15:31Speaker 1: up with your dream? Again, he's talking to a two-year-old,
- 15:33Speaker 1: but the two-year-old sort of got it. James looked at
- 15:35Speaker 1: the pages, but nothing clicked. James sort of reached down
- 15:38Speaker 1: and was just kind of flipping through all the pages,
- 15:41Speaker 1: and there was nothing. There was no connection with James.
- 15:44Speaker 1: But towards the end of the coffee table book, where
- 15:47Speaker 1: Bruce is thinking, like, what am I even doing here? I'm, like,
- 15:49Speaker 1: prompting my two-year-old to research World War II with me? Like,
- 15:53Speaker 1: what is this? What is going on here? But as
- 15:54Speaker 1: James is flipping the pages, he suddenly stops and he
- 15:58Speaker 1: points at one of the pages and he says to
- 16:00Speaker 1: his dad, that's where I was shot down. And he's
- 16:04Speaker 1: pointing at the Battle of Iwo Jima. And so Bruce,
- 16:07Speaker 1: you know, again, he doesn't really know what he's trying
- 16:10Speaker 1: to accomplish here, but, you know, clearly his son has
- 16:13Speaker 1: pointed out this particular fact that's sort of roughly tied
- 16:16Speaker 1: in with the other things he's brought up. You know,
- 16:18Speaker 1: he's had this dream about being a pilot who crashes
- 16:20Speaker 1: because the Japanese military shot him down. He's highlighting a
- 16:24Speaker 1: battle in Japan during World War II where, you know,
- 16:27Speaker 1: the Allies were fighting the Axis powers and the Japanese,
- 16:30Speaker 1: you know, could have been shooting somebody down. So it
- 16:32Speaker 1: sort of made sense. Okay, fine. Maybe my son's dream
- 16:35Speaker 1: is about something that happened at the Battle of Iwo Jima.
- 16:38Speaker 1: Don't know how this even happens. Don't know how this
- 16:40Speaker 1: is possible, but I'm going to do some research. And
- 16:43Speaker 1: so that's what Bruce does. He begins researching the Battle
- 16:46Speaker 1: of Iwo Jima. Doesn't even really know what he's looking for,
- 16:48Speaker 1: but he just wants to see if there's anything connected
- 16:51Speaker 1: to what his son has been saying. And what he
- 16:53Speaker 1: eventually discovers actually is sort of a relief. He discovers
- 16:57Speaker 1: that there is no record of any Corsair airplanes crashing
- 17:02Speaker 1: during the Battle of Iwo Jima. In fact, no Corsair
- 17:04Speaker 1: planes at all were flown during the Battle of Iwo Jima.
- 17:08Speaker 1: And his son James had been saying specifically, I flew
- 17:11Speaker 1: a course airplane. Like, that was the plane that crashed.
- 17:14Speaker 1: And so he's thinking, okay, there's a hole in my
- 17:17Speaker 1: son's story. Like, he clearly must have latched on to
- 17:20Speaker 1: some event somehow. Somebody said it to him. He heard it,
- 17:23Speaker 1: whatever it is. And in his two-year-old mind, he sort
- 17:26Speaker 1: of warped it. And that's what he believes happened. But
- 17:28Speaker 1: it's not real. Like, he's not actually recalling something that
- 17:32Speaker 1: happened in the Battle of Iwo Jima. Like, this is just,
- 17:35Speaker 1: you know, a false memory or something. However, Bruce was
- 17:38Speaker 1: unable to definitively find the names of pilots who actually
- 17:41Speaker 1: flew in the Battle of Iwo Jima. He wanted to
- 17:44Speaker 1: find if there was any pilots named James who potentially crashed,
- 17:47Speaker 1: you know, during that battle, but he just couldn't find
- 17:50Speaker 1: the information. You know, maybe it existed somewhere, but he
- 17:53Speaker 1: couldn't find it. And so Bruce had this idea to
- 17:56Speaker 1: get in touch with this old veterans group. all these
- 17:58Speaker 1: old guys who had served in the Battle of Iwo
- 18:01Speaker 1: Jima that were still alive. They were based out in
- 18:03Speaker 1: San Diego and they got together periodically and just sort
- 18:06Speaker 1: of had social hours and stuff like that. And Bruce,
- 18:09Speaker 1: he goes out to San Diego and under false pretenses,
- 18:12Speaker 1: he basically tells the group that he's shooting a documentary
- 18:15Speaker 1: about the Battle of Iwo Jima and he needs some information,
- 18:18Speaker 1: you know, about certain pilots that flew during the battle.
- 18:21Speaker 1: He goes out there and he goes to one of
- 18:23Speaker 1: their social events and And he begins asking around, asking
- 18:26Speaker 1: if anybody knew about any pilots named James who were
- 18:30Speaker 1: shot down during the Battle of Iwo Jima. And basically
- 18:33Speaker 1: all the men he talked to directed him to go
- 18:36Speaker 1: talk to the group's historian, this one guy who kind
- 18:38Speaker 1: of had all the information about what had happened during
- 18:41Speaker 1: this battle. And so Bruce goes over to this guy
- 18:43Speaker 1: and he starts asking him questions about, you know, any
- 18:45Speaker 1: pilots that, you know, were shot down during the battle,
- 18:48Speaker 1: do you know? And the historian, he tells Bruce that,
- 18:51Speaker 1: you know, during that battle, virtually no planes were shot down. However,
- 18:55Speaker 1: there was one plane that was shot down. A single
- 18:59Speaker 1: US Air Force pilot was shot down during the Battle
- 19:02Speaker 1: of Iwo Jima and he was killed. And that pilot's
- 19:05Speaker 1: name was James Houston Jr. Bruce couldn't help but be
- 19:09Speaker 1: truly shocked that the only pilot shot down during the
- 19:14Speaker 1: Battle of Iwo Jima happened to be named James. Like,
- 19:18Speaker 1: That just seemed like a coincidence that couldn't be possible,
- 19:20Speaker 1: considering what his son was saying. And so suddenly, Bruce
- 19:24Speaker 1: doesn't know what to make of this information he's been given.
- 19:26Speaker 1: For so long, his two-year-old son, named James, has been
- 19:30Speaker 1: talking about how in his dream he's been shot down
- 19:33Speaker 1: by the Japanese military during the Battle of Iwo Jima.
- 19:37Speaker 1: And now he's being told there was a single pilot
- 19:40Speaker 1: shot down in real life during the Battle of Iwo Jima,
- 19:44Speaker 1: and his name was James? Like, how is that possible?
- 19:47Speaker 1: That just seems impossible. And so at this point Bruce
- 19:51Speaker 1: is really holding on to the fact that his son
- 19:53Speaker 1: had said his plane that he was shot down in
- 19:56Speaker 1: was a course airplane and And this guy, James Houston Jr.,
- 19:59Speaker 1: who was shot down, the plane he was shot down
- 20:01Speaker 1: in was not a Corsair plane. And so Bruce is
- 20:04Speaker 1: telling himself like, okay, this is just a crazy coincidence.
- 20:07Speaker 1: Like this didn't somehow happen to my son. He's not
- 20:10Speaker 1: like channeling somebody else who died years ago. Like that
- 20:13Speaker 1: can't be what's happening here. This is just a wild
- 20:16Speaker 1: set of circumstances. That's all this is. But he's freaked
- 20:20Speaker 1: out now. And so he calls his wife and he
- 20:22Speaker 1: tells her about what he's learned. And he kind of
- 20:24Speaker 1: downplays how much this has really unsettled him. But he
- 20:26Speaker 1: ultimately tells his wife. And the two of them decide, okay,
- 20:29Speaker 1: you know what? Let's just do a little bit more
- 20:30Speaker 1: research and just figure out what's going on here. Like,
- 20:33Speaker 1: this is just so crazy. We've got to do a
- 20:35Speaker 1: little bit more research. And in doing research about James
- 20:38Speaker 1: Houston Jr., they discover... that James has a sister who
- 20:42Speaker 1: is still alive. And so they decide to contact her.
- 20:46Speaker 1: Not really even sure what they're going to say, but
- 20:48Speaker 1: they figure, you know what, let's just get in touch
- 20:49Speaker 1: with her and just tell her what's going on. Who knows?
- 20:51Speaker 1: Maybe somehow she can explain this. Who knows? And so
- 20:55Speaker 1: kind of on a whim, James and his wife, they
- 20:58Speaker 1: send a message to this woman, to the sister. And
- 21:00Speaker 1: the sister, when she finds out there's this two-year-old who's
- 21:03Speaker 1: sort of referencing her brother's death in some way, for
- 21:06Speaker 1: whatever reason, her reaction is, was to send actual physical
- 21:11Speaker 1: photographs of James Houston Jr. when he was a pilot,
- 21:15Speaker 1: when he served in the military. She just sent a
- 21:17Speaker 1: whole bunch of pictures to Bruce, his wife, and James
- 21:21Speaker 1: to look at. Like, there really wasn't a clear set of,
- 21:23Speaker 1: what do we do now? And so that's what she did.
- 21:25Speaker 1: Here are some pictures. And when Bruce looked at these photos,
- 21:29Speaker 1: it was like his whole world was completely rocked. Because
- 21:33Speaker 1: in one of the photos that clearly showed James Houston Jr.,
- 21:37Speaker 1: He is standing in front of a plane and that
- 21:40Speaker 1: plane was a course airplane. And so at this point
- 21:44Speaker 1: for Bruce, it felt like the set of circumstances, the
- 21:47Speaker 1: coincidences here were simply too much to ignore. This is
- 21:50Speaker 1: no longer coincidence. This is something else. And also there's
- 21:54Speaker 1: one other small detail that now was sort of bubbling
- 21:57Speaker 1: up in Bruce's mind. And that was periodically his son, James,
- 22:02Speaker 1: would talk about how he really wasn't named James. He
- 22:05Speaker 1: was named James three. Just periodically, his son would say that.
- 22:10Speaker 1: Not every time, but he brought it up enough that
- 22:12Speaker 1: it was sort of a known thing, that he was
- 22:13Speaker 1: James III. And now Bruce is thinking, James Houston Jr.?
- 22:19Speaker 1: That's James II. My son? How could he possibly know
- 22:23Speaker 1: all these things that happened to James Houston Jr. if
- 22:26Speaker 1: he was not James III? James Houston Jr. 's reincarnated soul.
- 22:31Speaker 1: Bruce would eventually take his son's story to the news,
- 22:34Speaker 1: and the family would film a primetime segment on ABC
- 22:37Speaker 1: about it. James was soon invited to the Battle of
- 22:40Speaker 1: Iwo Jima Veterans Reunion, where he would shock the group
- 22:43Speaker 1: with his knowledge of the battle. James also met James
- 22:46Speaker 1: Houston Jr. 's sister, and when he did, he called
- 22:49Speaker 1: her by a nickname that only her late brother ever used.
- 22:53Speaker 1: After that, even she was convinced that her brother's spirit
- 22:57Speaker 1: had come back to Earth in James 3. If reincarnation
- 23:01Speaker 1: is real, James' story is one of the most credible
- 23:04Speaker 1: and well-documented cases in history. Thank you so much for watching.
- 23:12Speaker 1: Let me know what you thought of today's episode in
- 23:14Speaker 1: the comments. And remember, we have hundreds of videos for
- 23:18Speaker 1: you to binge right now. But if you're looking for
- 23:20Speaker 1: a recommendation from me of that one video that's worth
- 23:23Speaker 1: your time, well, it's this one right here. So give
- 23:27Speaker 1: it a watch. All right, until next time, see ya.