A real-life story · Camp Barkeley, Texas, United States, 1943

George Ritchie’s near-death experience

In December 1943, George Ritchie, a 20-year-old soldier, collapsed with pneumonia in an army hospital in Texas. The medical officer on duty pronounced him dead twice, and he was revived with a shot of adrenaline into the heart. He later said he had left his body and flown to a city by a river. And he said that afterward he met a light that, for him, was Christ.

No. 44 in the ranking

It is a well-known near-death experience. Raymond Moody, the author who made these experiences widely known in the 1970s, heard it in 1965, when he was a philosophy student. Years later he dedicated his book “Life After Life” to George. The story has one detail that can be checked. George says that on that night he saw a cafe in a city he didn’t know. Months later he recognized it in Vicksburg, on the Mississippi River. We tell it step by step and then look at what can be checked. If you only want the evidence, skip straight to what can be checked. Did George really see that cafe?

Step 1

December 1943 · Camp Barkeley, near Abilene, Texas · George’s account

A 20-year-old soldier waits for the train that will take him to medical school

George Ritchie was from Richmond, Virginia. He had finished premed at 19 and had enlisted in the army. He was doing his basic training at Camp Barkeley, an army camp in the desert of West Texas.

At the end of November he got news he didn’t expect. The army needed doctors and was sending him to medical school in his hometown. Classes started on December 22 at the Medical College of Virginia. If he didn’t get there in time, his place would go to another soldier.

In early December he caught a cold and was admitted to the camp hospital. His fever went up and down. On December 19 he was finally moved to the recovery ward. A jeep was going to pick him up in the small hours of that night to take him to the station.

That night his fever came back.

Step 2

Early morning, December 20, 1943 · In the camp hospital · George’s account

George coughs up blood, has a fever of 106.5°F and collapses at the X-ray machine

George didn’t want anyone to find out about the fever, and he took some aspirin. Around three in the morning he got up to get dressed. His legs were shaking, and the cup he had been spitting into was full of blood. He asked the orderly for a thermometer. It read 106.5 degrees Fahrenheit, more than 41 degrees Celsius.

The orderly told the nurse, and the nurse told the doctor. They took him by ambulance for a chest X-ray. The technician asked him to stand in front of the machine for a moment.

George heard the machine hum. His knees buckled and he fell to the floor.

The next thing he remembers is a room he didn’t know.

Step 3

After he collapsed · In a small room in the hospital · George’s account

George says he gets out of bed and sees someone else lying in it

George says he woke up in a small room and jumped out of bed. He thought he was going to miss his train. He looked for his uniform and couldn’t find it. When he turned around, he saw someone lying in the bed he had just gotten out of. It was a young man, lying very still. Later George would notice that the man was wearing his college fraternity ring.

He went out into the hallway. A sergeant was coming toward him carrying a tray. George spoke to him, and then shouted at him to get out of the way. The sergeant kept walking as if he didn’t see him, and George never knew how they missed each other.

George went out the door of the building. He says that all of a sudden he was flying at top speed over the desert scrub, heading east. He wanted to get to Richmond.

Sleeping towns passed by below him.

Step 4

During his experience · In a city by a large river · George’s account

George says he stops in a city by a river and sees an open cafe

George says he crossed a very wide river with a long, high bridge, and saw a city on the other bank. He wanted to ask someone whether he was heading the right way for Richmond, so he came down. On a corner there was an all-night cafe. In the book he published in 1978, he describes a one-story building with a red roof. Over the door, the word “Cafe” glowed in blue neon. In the window there was a sign for Pabst Blue Ribbon beer.

A man of about forty was coming down the sidewalk, wearing an overcoat and no hat. George asked him what city this was. The man didn’t answer and went into the cafe. George tried to touch his shoulder, and his hand touched nothing. He leaned against the guy wire that held up a telephone pole, and his body passed right through it.

The first time he told it himself, in a magazine in 1963, he gave fewer details. He said only that he stopped by a telephone pole in a town by a large river, and that his hand passed through the wire.

George thought about the young man in the bed. He understood that no one could see or hear him, and that the body had to be his own.

He decided to go back and find it.

Step 5

During his experience · Back at the hospital · George’s account

George finds his body under a sheet, and the room fills with light

George says he was back at the hospital in an instant. He didn’t know which ward his body was in, and he searched for it room by room. He looked at the left hands of the sleeping soldiers to see whether any of them was wearing his ring. In the end he found it in a small room. A sheet covered the body’s face, and the ring was on its hand.

Then the room filled with a light brighter than all the light bulbs in the world. George says it wasn’t a light but a man made of light, and that he knew he was in the presence of the Son of God. He felt that this being loved him without conditions.

At the same time, he saw his whole life, every moment of his twenty years. And a question came to him: “What did you do with your life?” George understood that it wasn’t asking about his achievements. It was asking how much he had loved other people.

After that, he says, the light showed him other worlds.

Step 6

During his experience · George’s account

George says he sees people trapped on earth, great libraries, and a city of light

George says the light took him to see three worlds. In the first, people who had died were still tied to what had mattered to them in life. He saw businessmen trying to get their colleagues to pay attention to them. He saw a mother following her grown son around, giving him advice. No one heard them. George says they were the saddest faces he had ever seen.

The second world was very different. There were universities, great libraries, and laboratories, and the people there were searching for the truth.

He saw the third only for a moment. Far away, he saw a city made of light, with streets and houses that shone, and beings as bright as the one beside him. In an instant, the walls of the small room closed in around him again.

Meanwhile, in that room, the orderly was making his rounds.

Step 7

Between December 20 and 22, according to the accounts · In the small room · Told by George and by nurse Retta Irvine

The doctor pronounces him dead twice, and he gets a shot of adrenaline into the heart

George didn’t see this part. He was told about it later. In his 1978 book he says it happened early in the morning of December 21, a day after he collapsed. In other accounts he gives other dates. The ward orderly came by the room with the medicines and couldn’t find a pulse or any breathing. He called the medical officer on duty. The doctor examined him, pronounced him dead, and told the orderly to prepare him for the morgue.

A few minutes later, the orderly came back to the room. He thought the body had moved, and he went to get the doctor again. The doctor examined him again and once more pronounced him dead. The orderly asked him to give George a shot of adrenaline into the heart. The doctor gave it, and George’s heart started beating again.

George says the doctor told him that about nine minutes had passed since he first pronounced him dead. The nurse in charge of his case, Retta Irvine, described what happened in a notarized statement some fourteen years later. She says she remembers that the medical officer on duty pronounced him dead twice and that he revived after the shot into the heart.

George didn’t wake up until Christmas Eve.

Step 8

December 24, 1943, to January 1944 · In the hospital · George’s account

George wakes up on Christmas Eve and can’t put what he lived through into words

George opened his eyes with a terrible headache. A nurse told him it was Christmas Eve and that he had very nearly not made it. She was Lieutenant Retta Irvine, the nurse in charge of his case. George tried to tell her what he had lived through, but he couldn’t find the words, and even breathing was hard for him.

He had pneumonia in both lungs. He spent weeks in the hospital and lost a lot of weight. The medical school held his place for him, and in January 1944 he was discharged and took the train to Richmond.

Almost no one wanted to listen to him. His stepmother did. George says that one night he told her about his flight toward Richmond.

That year, things didn’t go well for him at medical school.

Step 9

October 1944 · Vicksburg, Mississippi · George’s account

Passing through Vicksburg, George says he recognizes the cafe

The medical school dropped him, and the army sent him back to Texas. He was traveling by car with three other students who had left medical school. They were driving down along the Mississippi River to cross it on the bridge at Vicksburg. It is a city in the state of Mississippi, and George says he had never set foot there.

George says that as they drove into the city, everything felt familiar. He knew how the streets would cross before he saw them. He asked the driver not to turn toward the bridge and to keep going straight. On a corner, a white, one-story wooden cafe came into view. It had a red roof and the Pabst sign in the window. George recognized the sidewalk, the telephone pole, and the wire.

On a map, George drew a line from Abilene, the city next to the camp. Vicksburg was in a straight line to the east. He told his companions nothing. In a second book, from 1991, he tells it differently. There he says they reached Vicksburg at night and that he recognized the cafe the next morning.

It took George years to tell his story in public.

Step 10

1957 to 2007 · Told by his books and by people who knew him

George becomes a psychiatrist, and his story reaches Raymond Moody

After the war, George finished medical school. He was a family doctor in Richmond for many years and later trained as a psychiatrist at the University of Virginia. He devoted much of his life to working with young people.

His story was first published in 1957, told by the writer Catherine Marshall in a book. Marshall doesn’t give George’s last name and tells of no journey outside the hospital. She writes that George did not yet feel free to tell all of it. In 1963, George told it in his own words in Guideposts magazine. In 1965, Raymond Moody heard it. Moody later gathered hundreds of similar accounts and dedicated his 1975 book to George.

In 1978, George published the book “Return from Tomorrow” with the writer Elizabeth Sherrill. Its Spanish edition is titled “Regreso del futuro.” It is the fullest account, and the first one we have found that mentions the cafe. He died in 2007, in Virginia.

One question remains: did George really see that cafe in Vicksburg?

What does the evidence say?

What can be checked

We ask every story the same five questions. They help us find out whether someone saw or knew something they had no way of knowing, and whether that can be shown.

1.5 of 5

Yes
Unconfirmed
No data

Did George Ritchie describe what the cafe looked like before he passed through Vicksburg?Unknown. George says that in January 1944 he told his stepmother about his flight toward Richmond, but he doesn’t say he described the cafe to her. The two earliest accounts we have found, from 1957 and 1963, don’t mention the cafe. The first account of his with the cafe that we have found is his 1978 book, written after he had seen the cafe in Vicksburg.
Is it known what time George Ritchie was pronounced dead?Only roughly. The exact time is not known, only that it was in the morning. Guideposts magazine, which had the doctor’s and the nurse’s statements, says he was pronounced dead on the morning of December 20, 1943. George gives three different dates in his accounts: the 20th, the 21st, and the 22nd. His medical records have not been published.
Is it known whether the Vicksburg cafe was open that night and whether the man in the overcoat George says he saw went in?Unknown. Nothing published says what was going on at that cafe that night, whether its lights were on, or who went in. It would take a witness or a record from that night.
Was there a cafe in Vicksburg like the one George Ritchie describes?Only in part. The researchers Robert and Suzanne Mays found a restaurant by the river, on a corner and near the bridge, that was already in business in 1944. It fits in broad terms, but according to their floor plans it had two stories and was built of concrete block. In 1978 George described it as a one-story wooden building. The color, the neon sign, and whether it was open at night could not be checked.
Could George Ritchie have described the Vicksburg cafe simply because he had seen it in person?He could have, in part. George saw the cafe with his own eyes in October 1944, and the first account of his with the cafe that we have found is from 1978. His account may have blended with what he saw that day. He says he had never been in Mississippi before.

Why we ask each question

When did each thing happen?

This is what is known about when each thing happened and when it was told, from the oldest to the most recent:

Early morning, December 20, 1943. George collapses in front of the X-ray machine. Guideposts magazine, which had the doctor’s and the nurse’s statements, says he was pronounced dead that morning. In his accounts, George gives three different dates for his death: December 20, 21, and 22.
December 24, 1943. George wakes up on Christmas Eve.
January 1944. He is discharged and goes back to Richmond. He tells his stepmother about his flight toward Richmond.
October 1944. He passes through Vicksburg and, according to him, recognizes the cafe.
Around 1957. Donald Francy, the doctor in charge of the ward, and nurse Retta Irvine sign their notarized statements. The writer Catherine Marshall publishes the story, without the journey.
1963. George tells it in Guideposts magazine. He talks about a town by a large river and a telephone pole, with no cafe.
1965. Raymond Moody hears him tell it.
1978. His book “Return from Tomorrow.” It is the first account we have found that includes the cafe.
1991. His second book, with the two statements.
2008–2010. The researchers Robert and Suzanne Mays search for the cafe in Vicksburg.

What is hard to explain

Two people from the hospital put in writing what happened in the room. Nurse Retta Irvine said in a notarized statement that the medical officer on duty pronounced him dead twice. She also said that he revived after a shot into the heart. Donald Francy, the doctor in charge of the ward and the on-duty doctor’s superior, also signed a statement. In it he says that George’s return to life cannot be explained by natural means.
Vicksburg lies almost exactly due east of the hospital at Camp Barkeley, which is the direction George says he flew.
The researchers Robert and Suzanne Mays went through the Vicksburg phone directories from 1941 and 1944 and the property records. They found a restaurant on Levee Street, a street along the river, on a corner and near the bridge. Its owner bought the building in August 1943, and the 1944 directory already lists it as a restaurant. They ruled out thirteen other cafes in the city because they didn’t fit.
That restaurant fits the broad outline of the account. It was a rectangular building with the door between two windows, and next to it stood a pole with its wire.
Ian Stevenson, a psychiatrist who investigated cases like this one, met George in 1962 and heard him tell it many times. In 1991 he wrote that in those thirty years the account had not changed in any essential way.

What remains unresolved

Nothing in writing shows how George described the cafe before he saw it in Vicksburg. He doesn’t say he described it to anyone before October 1944.
The two earliest accounts we have found don’t mention the cafe. In the 1957 account there is no journey outside the hospital. In the 1963 account, told by George himself, there is only a town by a large river and a telephone pole. The first account we have found with the cafe, the neon, the beer sign, and the man in the overcoat is the 1978 book, thirty-four years after he passed through Vicksburg. A 1974 book by another author discusses his case, and we have not been able to read it. By then, George had already seen the cafe with his own eyes.
The Levee Street cafe doesn’t fit in every detail. According to the floor plans the Mays published, it had two stories and was built of concrete block. In the 1978 book, George describes it as a one-story wooden building.
No one has been able to check the color of the building, the neon sign, or whether the cafe was open at night. Nor has anyone been able to check anything that happened there that night.
George gives different dates in his accounts. His death is on December 20, 21, or 22. The time that passed after he was pronounced dead ranges from a few minutes to nine. His medical records have not been published, and most army personnel records from those years burned in a fire in 1973.
The minutes come from George, who says the doctor told him. The nurse’s statement gives no minutes and no time.

How many people have an NDE?

George Ritchie is not a one-off. For more than thirty years, several teams of doctors have asked people who survive a cardiac arrest what they remember. They do it in the hospital, a few days afterward.

Picture 100 of those people:

Each dot is a person. The 18 filled-in dots are the ones who described a near-death experience. That is what the largest study found. It was done in the Netherlands in 2001, with 344 people.

The other 82 didn’t describe one. Many remember nothing of their cardiac arrest.

The figure varies from study to study, because each one asks a different group of people
Where and when	People interviewed	Described an NDE
England, 2001	63	6%
Netherlands, 2001	344	18%
United States, 2002	30	23%
United States, 2003	116	10%
United Kingdom, United States, and Austria, 2014	101	9%
Vienna, Austria, 2023	126	4%
United States and United Kingdom, 2023	28	21%

What these figures don’t tell you

Only some people are asked. In the 2014 study, 330 people survived, but only 140 could be interviewed, and 101 reached the second interview. The rest died later, were too ill, or didn’t respond.
Most cardiac arrests are never counted. These studies run in a few hospitals for a limited time. Outside them, no one keeps track. Also, the 2003 study interviewed 1,595 cardiology patients, not just the 116 with cardiac arrest in the table, and 81 of them described an NDE from an earlier occasion. The study did not count them, because it only counted those from that hospital stay.
Some people keep quiet. In the accounts in our archive, at least 13 people say they kept their experience to themselves for a while. They kept quiet because they weren’t believed or because they were afraid of how others would react.
It depends on how you count. If you count any memory of the cardiac arrest, the numbers go up. If you use a strict scale, they go down. In England in 2001, 7 of 63 people remembered something. But on the scale, only the memories of 4 people qualified as an NDE.

That’s why no one knows the real figure. But every study shows that it isn’t rare. Between 4 and 23 of every 100 survivors who are asked describe an NDE. George Ritchie’s case stands out for another reason. It was one of the first to be told in public, and it led Raymond Moody to study these experiences.

Frequently asked questions

Who was George Ritchie?

George Ritchie was a doctor and psychiatrist from Virginia, in the United States. He was born in 1923 and died in 2007. In December 1943 he was a 20-year-old soldier. He was pronounced dead in an army hospital in Texas and revived with a shot of adrenaline into the heart. He told the story of his experience in two books, “Return from Tomorrow,” from 1978, and “My Life After Dying,” from 1991.

What is the connection between George Ritchie and Raymond Moody?

Raymond Moody heard George Ritchie describe his experience in 1965, when Moody was a philosophy student. Years later he began collecting similar accounts, and in 1975 he published “Life After Life,” dedicated to Ritchie. Moody also wrote the foreword to Ritchie’s 1978 book. Read about Moody’s book here.

Was George Ritchie dead for nine minutes?

That is what he says the doctor told him. Nurse Retta Irvine said in a notarized statement that the medical officer on duty pronounced him dead twice. She says he revived after a shot into the heart, but she gives no minutes. His medical records have not been published. Here we explain what can be checked.

Did the Vicksburg cafe that George Ritchie saw really exist?

In 1944 there was a restaurant on Levee Street, by the river in Vicksburg, that broadly matches what George describes. The researchers Robert and Suzanne Mays found it. It doesn’t match in every detail, and George only described it in detail after he had seen it in 1944. Here we explain it.

Where this story comes from

His books

George G. Ritchie and Elizabeth Sherrill, Return from Tomorrow (1978). Foreword by Raymond MoodyBuy the book
George G. Ritchie and Elizabeth Sherrill, Regreso del futuro, the Spanish edition of Return from Tomorrow (1978)Buy the book
George G. Ritchie, My Life After Dying (1991). Foreword by Ian Stevenson. It includes the doctor’s and the nurse’s statements. Available to borrow on Internet ArchiveView

The earliest accounts

Catherine Marshall, To Live Again (1957), chapter “Is There Life after Death?” Available to borrow on Internet ArchiveView
George C. Ritchie, “Return From Tomorrow,” Guideposts magazine, June 1963. Reprinted in John Myers, Voices from the Edge of Eternity (1968). Available to borrow on Internet ArchiveView

The search for the cafe

Robert G. Mays and Suzanne B. Mays, “Investigation of George Ritchie’s NDE OBE” (2008–2010), with the Vicksburg phone directories, property records, and floor plansRead for free

Learn more

Raymond Moody, “Life After Life” (1975)Read
What is a near-death experience?Read
What does science say about near-death experiences?Read
How we check each storyRead

Our archive

Our reading of his two books, of Catherine Marshall’s 1957 account, of the 1963 Guideposts account, and of the Mays’ investigation, plus the case’s score on our five criteria, as of November 6, 2026

Keep reading

San Diego, 2004 or 2005

Randy Kay

Randy Kay, a medical-company executive in San Diego, was hospitalized with blood clots in his lungs and caught a very serious infection in the hospital. He said his heart stopped, that he met Jesus, and that when he came back he heard beside him the same song he had heard with Jesus.

1.5 of 5

United States, 1976

Mr. O.

He was resuscitated in the hospital corridor. He said he saw his wife and two of his children at the far end. They had come unannounced, and a nurse stopped them a long way off.

2.5 of 5

Asturias, Spain, 2005

María Teresa Álvarez Aramendía

She says that while she was in a coma she saw her doctor call another doctor from the health center at 8:10. According to her, months later he told her that he had made that call.

2.5 of 5

See all NDEs

Reincarnation: The top 5 people who remember past lives

We asked them the same five questions as this story. A 32-page PDF, free in your inbox.