A real-life case · United States, 2009

Ryan Hammons’ reincarnation case

Ryan Hammons was a four-year-old boy in Oklahoma who cried because he wanted to go “home,” to Hollywood. At five, in a library book, he pointed to a man in a 1932 movie and told his mother: “That guy’s me.” The man was an extra without a single line, and no one knew his name.

In almost all of these cases, the child gives a name or a place from the start. By the time the researcher arrives, the child’s family and the dead person’s family already know each other. In this one, the child picked out a man in a photo. His mother wrote down what he said, and a psychiatrist recorded a conversation with the family, months before anyone knew who that man was. 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 Ryan remember the life of a man who died forty years before he was born?

Step 1

Around 2009 · Ryan is four years old · Told by his mother, Cyndi

A boy in Oklahoma cries because he wants to go back to Hollywood

Ryan Hammons lived in Muskogee, a city in Oklahoma, in the United States. His father, Kevin, was a police officer, and his mother, Cyndi, worked in the county offices. She grew up in a Baptist church, and he was the son of a Protestant minister. No one in the family believed in reincarnation.

When he was about four, Ryan began asking to be taken “home,” to Hollywood. He cried and begged to be taken to see his other family. When he played, he shouted “Action!” and directed imaginary movies. A few months later, he started having nightmares. He would wake up clutching his chest and saying he couldn’t breathe. He said that in Hollywood his heart had exploded.

His mother looked for help at the town library.

Step 2

Late 2009 or early 2010 · Ryan is five years old · Told by his mother

In a movie book, Ryan points to a man in a bowler hat: “That guy’s me”

Cyndi checked out some books of Hollywood photos from the library, in case Ryan recognized a place. One of them had a photo from Night After Night, a 1932 gangster movie. It shows six men in bow ties, and two of them are arguing in the middle. Ryan pointed to one and said he was George, and that they had made a movie together. Then he pointed to another man, who stood to one side in a bowler hat and an overcoat. “Mama, that guy’s me. I found me,” he told her.

The caption said it was Night After Night, with George Raft, a star of 1930s gangster movies. He was the first one Ryan had pointed to. It said nothing about the second. According to the mother, her husband later found the movie on YouTube and they watched it together. Then they called Ryan in and showed him part of it, the scene with a closet full of guns that he had already talked about. The man in the bowler hat appears in several scenes, but he doesn’t say a single line. At the end of the movie comes the cast list, with names and no faces.

Cyndi decided to write to some researchers who studied cases like this.

Step 3

February 2010 · From the mother’s letters and e-mails, according to Jim Tucker

The mother writes to a psychiatrist and tells him what the boy says

Cyndi wrote to the University of Virginia, where a group has been studying children who talk about another life since the 1960s. She sent the photo and asked for help finding out who that man was. Jim Tucker, a child psychiatrist in that group, wrote back. She told him she had started keeping a journal of everything Ryan said.

In her e-mails over the following weeks, Cyndi told him more. Ryan had nightmares about a man he called “Senator Five.” He said this man was the worst villain who had ever lived. He talked about an “agency” and about a cemetery in New York he went to with a friend who worked for that agency. He also started tap dancing and said he had danced on Broadway, in New York. And before a family trip, when his mother told him he could dress up to go to a show, he answered: “Oh Mom, I hate auditions.”

In April, Tucker went to meet him.

Step 4

April 2010 · Ryan is five years old · Told by Tucker

The psychiatrist visits the family and records the conversation

Tucker traveled to Oklahoma with a small camera that a television production company had lent him. He recorded the conversation at the kitchen table. Cyndi had already sent him a copy of her notes. According to Tucker, Ryan usually talked about his other life at night, after his bath, and sometimes with a grown-up’s vocabulary.

According to the mother’s notes, Ryan said that in his other life his mother had curly brown hair. He also had a sister. He had been to Paris and China, traveled on big ships, and danced with ladies. He brought coloring books to three children, and he wasn’t sure if they were his. And he lived somewhere with the word “Rock” or “Mount” in the name.

Tucker and Cyndi had assumed the boy was talking about a spy agency. But Ryan had never said that. According to his mother, he had said he worked at an agency “where people changed their names.” Some time later, Tucker searched for towns with “Rock” or “Mount” in the name. The mother explained that Ryan wasn’t talking about a town but about a street.

They still didn’t know who the man in the bowler hat was.

Step 5

Spring 2010 · Told by Tucker

The TV team picks the wrong actor, and Ryan doesn’t recognize his houses

A few weeks later, the production company decided to make a program about the case. Its team believed the man in the bowler hat was Ralf Harolde, an actor of the period, only because the two looked alike. Tucker wasn’t sure. He checked the census records and saw that Harolde was an only child, while Ryan talked a lot about a sister.

The team took the family to Hollywood and showed Ryan two houses where Harolde had lived. The boy didn’t react. On camera, his father asked him if anything looked familiar, and Ryan said no. Later, when he learned the man wasn’t Harolde, Ryan complained that they hadn’t listened to him and had given him the wrong name.

The program’s producer hired a film archive expert.

Step 6

Summer 2010 · Told by Tucker

An archive expert finds a name on the back of a photo: Marty Martyn

Kate Coe, the film archive expert the producer hired, sent the photo to other researchers, and no one knew who the man was. Then she went to the library of the Hollywood Academy, the one that gives out the Oscars, and asked for everything it had on Night After Night. There she found another photo of the same man, with the bowler hat and a cigar. On the back, a note said he was Marty Martyn, playing a mobster.

Tucker watched the movie again. Only two characters wear bowler hats. One is the man Ryan pointed to, and the other, his boss in the movie, is played by the actor Bradley Page. Marty Martyn’s name is in the cast list, but with a character name that no one says in the movie. That’s why it was so hard to put a face to it.

With the name, the team found his life. Marty Martyn was born in Philadelphia and danced on Broadway with one of his two sisters. In Hollywood he was an extra and then a talent agent, with his own agency, the Marty Martyn Agency. A talent agency is a place where many people change their names to appear in movies. He married four times and lived in a big house with a swimming pool on Roxbury Drive, in Beverly Hills. He died in Los Angeles on Christmas Day 1964.

Before telling the family, Tucker wanted to run some tests.

Step 7

Summer 2010 · Ryan has just turned six · Told by Tucker

Ryan picks out “Senator Five” from four photos

Tucker didn’t tell the family the man’s name, so that no one could look him up beforehand. He went back to Oklahoma with a television crew and photos of people Marty Martyn knew, mixed with photos of strangers. He showed them to Ryan four at a time and asked if anyone looked familiar. Tucker himself knew which photo was the right one.

In the afternoon, Ryan didn’t want to do it and pointed at photos at random. In the evening, he asked to try again. Among four women, he pointed to Martyn’s last wife and said she looked familiar. Among four men, he pointed to one and said: “That’s Senator Five.” Tucker asked him if he was sure, and Ryan said yes. It was Irving Ives, a senator from New York in the 1940s and 1950s. According to Martyn’s daughter, her father met him, and she has a photo of the two of them together. Then Ryan started missing again, and they stopped.

The next morning, his father read him a list of four names. Three were made up, and the fourth was Marty Martyn. The father didn’t know which one was right. Ryan said no to the three made-up names and chose Marty Martyn.

What remained was to compare everything he had said with Martyn’s life.

Step 8

2010 to 2016 · Told by Tucker and Martyn’s daughter

Many things fit Martyn’s life, and others don’t

Martyn’s daughter agreed to meet with Tucker and Ryan, but she didn’t want to appear on camera. She was eight when her father died. She confirmed some things. Her father hated cats, sunbathed and got sunburned, and traveled with his wife to Paris and on big ships. Martyn had a daughter and five stepchildren, and he adopted three of them. Ryan had talked about three children he wasn’t sure were his.

Other things don’t fit. Ryan said his heart exploded. According to his daughter, Martyn had leukemia and died of a brain hemorrhage, in the hospital and with no one there to see it. Ryan talked about a father who grew corn and died when he was little. That doesn’t fit either. Martyn’s daughter doubts he was ever in China. And Ryan said he gave his daughter a guard dog, but it was a Yorkshire terrier.

In 2016, Tucker did the count. The mother had written down about 230 things Ryan said about his other life. Of those, 55 fit, 15 were wrong, and the other 160 couldn’t be checked.

That leaves the question from the beginning. Did Ryan remember Marty Martyn’s life?

What does the evidence say?

What can be checked

We ask every case the same five questions. They help us find out whether what the child said was written down before anyone knew who the person he talked about was, and whether it can be checked with evidence. Here we ask them about what Ryan said about Marty Martyn.

2.5 of 5

Yes
Unconfirmed
No data

Was what Ryan Hammons said written down before anyone knew the man in the photo was Marty Martyn?According to the psychiatrist Jim Tucker, the mother kept a journal and sent him e-mails and a copy of her notes before the name was known. They included a senator Ryan called “Five,” an agency, New York, and an address with “Rock” or “Mount” in it. Tucker learned about the agency where people changed their names during his April 2010 visit. But the journal and the e-mails haven’t been published, and Tucker told the story in 2013, when he already knew the answer.
Is it known when what Ryan Hammons said was written down?According to Tucker and the mother, she wrote to him in February 2010, he visited her in April, and Marty Martyn’s name turned up that summer. The journal has dates, but it hasn’t been published. The journalist Leslie Kean read a copy in 2015 and says that what it contained was written on the dates it gives. There is no specific reason to doubt it, but no one can check it from outside.
Are there documents on the life and death of Marty Martyn?For his life, there are. He is in the cast list of Night After Night, from 1932, and his talent agency appears in film industry yearbooks from the 1930s and 1940s. For his death, on Christmas Day 1964, we haven’t seen the death certificate or any obituary. The date comes from his daughter and Tucker.
Does anyone outside confirm what Ryan Hammons said about Marty Martyn?The name was found by a film archive expert with no connection to either family, from a note on the back of a photo. The personal details were confirmed by his daughter, who was eight when he died, and not everything fits. And three hits depend on how you read them: “Five” for Ives, the senator Martyn met; “Rock” for Roxbury, the street where he lived; and the age at which he died.
Can it be ruled out that Ryan Hammons heard or saw something about Marty Martyn?That extra was unknown to everyone, even the TV production company, which picked the wrong actor. And no book or program from before 2010 that told his life has been found. But his name was in the cast list, and the mother had it written down among the names without faces. No one controlled what the boy saw or heard, and in the photo tests Tucker knew the answer.

Why we ask each question

When did each thing happen?

This is what happened and what was written, from oldest to newest:

1932. Night After Night is released. Marty Martyn is in the cast list, with no face.
December 25, 1964. Marty Martyn dies in Los Angeles, according to his daughter and Tucker.
2004. Ryan is born in Oklahoma.
Late 2009 or early 2010. Ryan points to the man in the bowler hat in a library book.
February 2010. The mother writes to Tucker. She is already keeping a journal.
April 2010. Tucker visits the family and records the conversation.
Summer 2010. Kate Coe finds Marty Martyn’s name. Then come the photo tests.
April 30, 2011. The television program about the case airs.
2013. Tucker publishes the case in his book Return to Life.
2016. Tucker gives the count: 55 hits, 15 misses, and 160 unchecked.

What is hard to explain

Marty Martyn wasn’t found by searching for someone who fit what the boy said. Ryan picked him out in a photo. His name was found later by a film archive expert with no connection to either family, from a note on the back of another photo.
Before that name was known, Tucker already knew about the agency “where people changed their names,” the tap dancing on Broadway, the New York senator, and the street with “Rock.” Martyn was a talent agent, danced on Broadway, met Senator Ives, and lived on Roxbury Drive.
Tucker says he knew those statements before the name was known. The journal hasn’t been published, but the journalist Leslie Kean read a copy in 2015, and the April visit was recorded with a production company’s camera. There is no specific reason to doubt it.
According to the mother, on April 2, 2010, she wrote in her journal that Ryan had said he died at 61 in his other life. When Martyn was found, everyone believed he had died at 59, going by the birth date on his death certificate. According to Kean, the 1910, 1920, and 1940 censuses give a different birth year, 1903, and by that date he was 61. Those documents haven’t been published.
No one knew who that extra was, not even the production company, which picked the wrong actor. His entry in the largest movie database on the internet gave only his years and one movie. That was still the case in May 2011, after the television program. No one has found a book or program from before 2010 that told his life.
Tucker also reports his own wrong leads. He thought it was a spy agency and searched for towns with “Rock” or “Mount.” Someone who touches up a story after the fact doesn’t usually leave their own mistakes in view.

What remains unresolved

The mother’s journal and her e-mails haven’t been published. What Ryan said before the name was known comes from Tucker’s book, which told the case in 2013, when Tucker already knew the answer.
Of about 230 things Ryan said, 55 fit. With so many statements and such a varied life, some matches can happen by chance.
Two hits depend on how you read them. “Five” isn’t “Ives,” and “Rock” isn’t “Roxbury.” And the age of 61 fits the censuses, but not the death certificate.
Some statements were told differently over the years. According to Tucker, in 2010 Ryan talked about three children he wasn’t sure were his. In the account the mother published in 2017, they were already three boys he had given his last name to, and in another book, three adopted children.
The photo tests weren’t blind, because Tucker knew the answer. In the afternoon the boy missed, and in the evening they stopped when he started missing again. Only the list of names was read by someone who didn’t know which one was right.
Martyn’s name was in the movie’s cast list. In April 2010, the mother already had it written down as one of the two names in the cast she hadn’t been able to put a face to. Ryan could have heard it, and Kean herself acknowledges this. That’s why the name test is worth little.
Tucker reports other episodes in which Ryan seemed to know things he couldn’t have known. For example, that his mother, Cyndi, had had a brother who died at birth. Tucker himself says this complicates the case. If Ryan could know things that way, what he knew about Martyn could also have reached him that way, and not from a memory of another life.
With these data, it can’t be shown that Ryan remembered Marty Martyn’s life. Nor can it be shown that he got it from something he heard or saw.

Frequently asked questions

Who is Ryan Hammons?

Ryan Hammons was born in 2004 in Oklahoma, in the United States. At four, he said he had lived in Hollywood, and at five, he pointed in a 1932 photo to the man he said he had been. The psychiatrist Jim Tucker, of the University of Virginia, studied the case and published it in 2013.

Who was Marty Martyn, the man Ryan Hammons said he had been?

Marty Martyn was a Broadway dancer who became a Hollywood extra and then a talent agent, with his own agency. He appears without saying a word in the 1932 movie Night After Night. He died in Los Angeles on Christmas Day 1964.

What does Ryan Hammons think of his case today?

In 2024, by then in college, Ryan told The Washington Post that he can’t be sure reincarnation is real. Since he was seven, he has hardly talked about Marty Martyn.

Has the Ryan Hammons case been proven?

No. Ryan picked out the man in a photo, and many things he said before the name was known fit Martyn’s life. But the mother’s journal hasn’t been published, and of about 230 things he said, only 55 were found to fit. Here we explain what can be checked.

Where this story comes from

The books

Jim B. Tucker, Return to Life (2013). Chapter 5, “He Came from Hollywood,” tells the caseBuy the book
Leslie Kean, Surviving Death (2017). Chapters 4 and 5: the account by the mother, Cyndi Hammons, and the list of what she wrote down
Erlendur Haraldsson and James G. Matlock (2016), I Saw a Light and Came Here: Children’s Experiences of Reincarnation, White Crow Books, chapter 25. It gives Tucker’s 2016 count

The articles

James G. Matlock, “Ryan Hammons (reincarnation case),” Psi Encyclopedia, from the Society for Psychical ResearchRead
Sean Lyons, “The Science of Reincarnation,” Virginia Magazine, from the University of Virginia, 2013Read
Rebecca Nathanson, “The Hard Science of Reincarnation,” VICE, 2021Read
Caitlin Gibson, “The children who remember their past lives,” The Washington Post, May 2, 2024

Learn more

Reincarnation: the cases we have studiedRead

Our archive

Our reading of Tucker’s book, Kean’s book, Haraldsson and Matlock’s book, the Psi Encyclopedia, and six press articles, and the scoring against our five criteria, as of November 11, 2026

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