# Moment between LIFE and DEATH caught on camera... - MrBallen

An episode of [Crime and Horror](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/6813298400), 19 Sep 2026, 24 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/74776000/moment_between_life_and_death_caught_on_camera_mrballen_64k.mp3

Moment between LIFE and DEATH caught on camera... - MrBallen

## Transcript

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

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