James Leininger’s reincarnation case

Step 1

February to May 2000 · James is 22 months old · Told by his parents

After a visit to an aviation museum, James starts having nightmares

James Leininger was born in April 1998 in California. In February 2000, his father, Bruce, took him to an aviation museum near Dallas, Texas. There was a Wildcat there, a World War II fighter plane. There was no Corsair, another American fighter from that war that James would talk about later.

Bruce bought James a video of the Blue Angels, the US Navy’s flight demonstration team. James watched it over and over. According to philosophy professor Michael Sudduth, who has studied the case in depth, a pilot named Larsen appears in that video.

In March, the family moved to Lafayette, Louisiana. In May the nightmares began, up to five nights a week. His parents say James kicked toward the ceiling and screamed: “Little man can’t get out!”

His parents began asking him about the dream.

Step 2

August 27, 2000 · James is 28 months old · Told by his parents. The date comes from a printout

His parents say James talks about a ship called “Natoma”

One night, his parents asked him who the little man in the dream was. According to them, James said the man’s name was James, that he flew a Corsair, and that he took off from a ship called “Natoma.”

Bruce didn’t believe in past lives and wanted to prove it was a fantasy. He searched for the word online and found the USS Natoma Bay, a World War II aircraft carrier. He printed the page. The browser put the date at the bottom, August 27, 2000.

That sheet exists and can be seen. It records what Bruce searched for. James’s words are reported by his parents.

A month later, James gave another name.

Step 3

October and November 2000 · Told by his parents. Another dated printout

His parents say James names another pilot, Jack Larsen

On October 5, his mother, Andrea, asked him if he remembered anyone else in the dream. According to her, James said “Jack” and then “Larsen,” and said he was another pilot.

On October 16, Bruce searched for the surname in an official list of war dead and found no one in the Navy with that name. He printed the sheet, which also has the date at the bottom. At the top it says “Larson,” with an o, not “Larsen,” the spelling his parents use.

In November, James pointed at a photo of the island of Iwo Jima in a book. Bruce said in 2004 that James told him: “That’s where my plane was shot down.”

Bruce kept searching among the veterans of that ship.

Step 4

December 2000 to July 2002 · Told by his parents and the researcher James Matlock

A veteran remembers Jack Larsen, and the mother asks an author for advice

In December, a Natoma Bay veteran told Bruce that he remembered a pilot named Jack Larsen. He also told him there had been no Corsairs on that ship.

On January 7, 2001, Bruce printed a list of the dead from the escort carriers, the smallest aircraft carriers, including the Natoma Bay. On it was James M. Huston Jr., of the Natoma Bay. Someone marked his name by hand, and that mark is undated. According to the family, at the time they didn’t connect it with their son.

In February 2001, Andrea wrote to Carol Bowman, the author of a book about children who say they remember past lives. Bowman advised her to encourage James to talk about those memories and to tell him that that life was over. In mid-2002, the ABC television network filmed the family for a program that never aired.

The emails Andrea and Bruce sent to Bowman have not been published. The researcher James Matlock says he has seen them. According to him, they speak of a pilot who took off from a ship and fell into the water, and they don’t name the Natoma or Larsen. Those two names don’t come up in the ABC recording either.

In September 2002, Bruce went to a veterans’ reunion.

Step 5

September 2002 · Told by his parents and the military records

At a veterans’ reunion, the father finds James Huston

At the Natoma Bay veterans’ reunion, Bruce learned that Jack Larsen was still alive. He also learned that the ship had lost only one pilot in the Battle of Iwo Jima. He was James M. Huston Jr., a 21-year-old from Pennsylvania.

Huston died on March 3, 1945. He was flying a Wildcat and went down in the water in the harbor of the island of Chichi Jima, about 250 kilometers from Iwo Jima. That attack was part of the Battle of Iwo Jima. A drawing in the mission report puts Jack Larsen’s plane next to Huston’s.

The same report says no one saw how Huston’s plane was hit and that it was not on fire. Years later, a pilot remembered a flash at the moment it was hit. Huston had flown Corsairs in tests for the Navy, according to his family and some photos his sister sent.

From that day on, the family told the story in public.

Step 6

2003 to 2010 · Told by his parents, the researcher Jim Tucker, and the critic Michael Sudduth

The story appears on television and in a book, and some phrases change

In the fall of 2003, Bruce wrote a timeline for a historian. In it, “Natoma” and Jack Larsen appear between late October and November 2000. The printouts are from earlier. They show “Natoma” in August and the search for the surname, spelled “Larson,” in mid-October. In April 2004, ABC aired the case on its program “Primetime.”

In 2009, Bruce and Andrea published a book, “Soul Survivor.” In it, “Natoma” is in August and Larsen in October 2000, as on the printouts. And the sentence about the Iwo Jima photo went from “That’s where my plane was shot down” to “When my plane was shot down.” With “when,” the sentence no longer says the plane went down at Iwo Jima. By then, Bruce knew that Huston went down near another island.

In 2010, the psychiatrist Jim Tucker, of the University of Virginia, interviewed the family. Andrea told him she had written down what James said in a notebook, and that she lost it or threw it away.

The question from the beginning remains. Did James remember the life of James Huston?