Our son has always been fascinated by airplanes. At the age of 20 months, I took him to an airshow and the Blue Angels absolutely captivated him. I bought a tape the next day called "Around the World at the Speed of Sound", which is a Discovery Channel documentary on the Blue Angels, hosted by Dennis Quaid. On a side note, it is the BEST documentary I've ever seen, regardless of subject. Five stars, two thumbs up, etc. We must have watched that tape hundreds of times, and it never got old.

Anyway, that led to total immersion in military aircraft. It also led to me trying to join the Navy, but that's another story.

From the age of two, my son could easily identify any military aircraft, regardless of country, on the ground or in the air, from WWII to present day. But he was particularly drawn to B-17s.

One day - I guess he was no older than 3 - he told my wife that he'd been a crew member on a B-17 in WWII and had been shot down and killed. He said he had to wait in Heaven a long time, but then God chose us to be his parents, and sent him back to Earth.

He gave a few details of being shot down - he'd been in the tail section, it had happened in the Atlantic theatre, and some other things. It was nothing that bothered him; in fact, he was very happy to be back on Earth with us as his parents.

We thought something special may have happened, but we didn't know what to do. As time passed, he spoke less and less of this, and as he grew into his teens, his interests moved onto other things. We never knew exactly what had happened, and didn't know if this was an isolated case.

Until yesterday.

"Good Morning America" was on. When they aired the story about James Leininger, my son started yelling, "Hey! Come watch this! This boy is just like me!"

In a nutshell, James Leininger had almost the exact same story as my son - even down to being captivated by the Blue Angels, and watching their video hundreds of times.

But James had nightmares about being shot down (our son never did). That's when he began relating incredible details to his parents. He was only 3 at the time, but knew stuff that defied explanation.

His mom and dad wrote a book about it, and below is a link to a newspaper story about James' experience. It is really, really interesting. His parents went all the way to Japan, verifying the stuff that James told them. And it all checked out.

I can't explain it. I just know it happened to us, too.

http://www.zeitenschrift....life.ihtml

No doubt

I highly believe in pasts lives. I have felt this way since I was child, and dreams that I have over and over, and knowledge of things that were never around me growing up.

Wow that was a very interesting article.

MoniGram said:

I have written out in GREAT detail what my very "1st memory" was/is

It involves a very sick 11 yr old girl laying her head on her mother's lap as they watched B&W TV news coverage on Kennedy's ( JFK ) murder ...

I was born into this body in 1964

Mach said:

Wow that is very interesting....I should write down the things I remember, never thought about doing so.

I am not totally sure but I tend to believe in past lives too.

Interesting.....what is instead of being a "past" life, it is an alternate life?

Graycap23 said:

Pretty deep concept.

My belief is that the spirit or soul of someone is sometimes sent back, but I don't know why.

I do believe that my son and the Leininger child are their own people. They are not the rebirth of anyone else.

Very interesting, rodeo... how much of what your son remembers now are memories or reinforced memories from what he's heard of what he said from when he was little? Hard to differentiate I suppose.

emm said:

I don't think he remembers anything now. I'm pretty sure he made the comments when he was 3 or so, and as I recall, there wasn't much chance he was repeating something we'd told him, or he'd seen in a video.

RodeoSchro said:

yeah, I didn't mean that it was something from a video but rather I know for myself I have "memories" from when I was little but question whether I actively remember that moment or if the memory has been reinforced from hearing about the event over the years.

The innocence and honesty of childhood is hard to explain away here. I just wondered what he recalled now as a youth. Pretty special.