A two-year-old boy in Glasgow starts talking about a life he's never lived, on a remote Scottish island 220 miles away called Barra.
Cameron Macauley has never been to Barra. Neither has his mother, Norma. But since he could first form sentences, Cameron has described it in detail: a white house near the beach, a black-and-white sheepdog, brothers and sisters, a father named Shane Robertson who died after being struck by a car, and planes that landed not on a runway, but on the sand.
His story has never wavered. Not once.
Now Cameron is five years old, and the memories aren't fading, they're getting heavier. He misses his Barra mum. He talks about her constantly. He's asked, over and over, to be taken back. The longing has become so intense that Norma is watching her son suffer genuine distress over a place he has never set foot in.
She starts looking for answers.
First she consults Dr. Chris French, a psychologist and editor of The Skeptic magazine, dedicated to debunking paranormal claims. His explanation: an overactive imagination, fed by television and the internet. Norma isn't convinced. She then visits Karen Majors, an educational psychologist who specialises in children's fantasy lives, and who says Cameron's memories don't match that profile at all.
With no rational explanation in hand, Norma makes a decision. She's taking Cameron to Barra.
What they find there will be very difficult to explain.
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This story is based on the documentary The Boy Who Lived Before. Case research by Dr. Jim Tucker, University of Virginia.
Apr 1 202616 min