The sudden shrieks of James Leininger shattered the quiet night and awoke his mother Andrea.
She hopped out of bed and rushed down the hallway to her toddler son's room.
Despite his ear piercing screams, 2 year old James was still asleep.
Andrea picked up her son and cuddled him.
Gradually he calmed down, and fell into a normal sleep.
Andrea chalked James’ nightmare up to recent changes.
Just two months before, the Leininger family had relocated to Lafayette, Louisiana from
Dallas, Texas.
The house they had moved into was 70 years old and creaked at night.
The next day James was his usual happy self.
But that night James had another nightmare.
Again, Andrea soothed him until he went back to sleep.
The next night the same.
Soon, James was having nightmares on a regular basis, averaging 4-5 times a week.
Each nightmare was utterly terrifying for James, but also for his mother to witness.
He would contort and thrash about, wailing, but at the same time he was caught in a deep
sleep.
Andrea took James to a pediatrician, who couldn’t find anything wrong.
Two months passed.
Due to James regularly having nightmares, Andrea was exhausted, on edge.
She now slept in her son’s room to be able to soothe him quickly before he could wake
his father Bruce.
One night James was in the throes of a nightmare and Andrea was trying to calm him when she
suddenly realized that James wasn’t randomly screaming, he was screaming words.
What he was saying sent a shiver down Andrea’s back.
She ran to the master bedroom, shook Bruce awake and made him come listen.
“Airplane crash!
Plane on fire!
Little man can’t get out!”
James was screaming over and over.
His frightened parents didn’t know what to think.
Andrea consulted her family.
Her mom and sisters thought James’ nightmares were a normal stage of childhood and Andrea
should just wait them out.
They suggested James saw a plane crash on the news and the story became a part of his
nightmare because he was so interested in planes.
This would also explain why when playing James would crash his toy planes into the table
and break off the propellers.
They advised Andrea to get him interested in other toys.
James’ aunt sent him some Thomas the Tank Engine toys.
Andrea and Bruce hid a Blue Angels flight squadron videotape James was obsessed with
watching, telling him that it broke, but still the nightmares continued.
August 11th, 2000
One night, while Andrea was reading James a bedtime story, he lay on his back and kicked
his feet as if he was trying to use his legs as a battering ram to escape a tight space.
“Little man goes like this,” James said and kicked his legs some more.
“Ohh!
Ohh!
Can’t get out!”
It was the first time James had reenacted his nightmare while awake.
Andrea asked her son who the little man was.
James answered “Me.”
Struggling not to sound scared, Andrea told James that she was going to go get daddy so
he could tell him too.
When Andrea came back with Bruce, James kicked his legs and told him.
Bruce had always down played the significance of what James was dreaming, but now he wasn’t
so sure.
Bruce asked what happened to his plane.
James told him it crashed while on fire.
Bruce asked how the plane crashed.
James said it was shot down.
When Bruce asked who shot down the plane, James replied ‘The Japanese” in an impatient
tone, as if the answer was obvious and he was done humoring his father’s questions.
After their son had gone to bed, Andrea and Bruce talked about what James had said.
They decided to wait and talk to Andrea’s sister Jenny who was arriving for a visit
tomorrow.
The next day, Bruce and Andrea told Jenny what had happened.
Jenny chatted with James and asked him how he knew that it was the Japanese that shot
his plane down.
He answered “The big red sun.”
Referring to the sun symbol the Japanese painted on their planes.
That night Jenny finally saw one of James’ nightmares in action.
She realized that her sister wasn’t an overly worried mother exaggerating.
Andrea and Jenny called their mother as well as their other sister.
For the first time, the four women began to discuss the idea of a past life.
In fact, Bobbi, James' grandmother had been reading up on dream interpretation.
Though she had been raised Catholic, Bobbi felt there was a possibility and she wanted
to do more research.
Bruce, a Christian, who also took pride in being a rational thinker and problem solver
didn’t believe in reincarnation, it simply conflicted far too much with his faith and
worldview.
Andrea, also Christian, was a bit more open to the possibility, especially since she couldn’t
explain her son's behavior.
August 27th, 2000
Again during bedtime stories, James began to talk about the little man and the plane
crash.
Andrea went and got Bruce.
Together they gently questioned their son.
When asked what kind of plane crashed, without hesitation, James replied “A Corsair.”
Bruce knew that was a type of a World War II plane.
Further questioning revealed that James’ Corsair had taken off from a boat called the
Natoma.
After James went to sleep, Bruce did some online research, mainly for his peace of mind,
to prove his son wrong.
But a Google search led to a boat called Natoma Bay; it was a United States aircraft carrier
which saw action in the Pacific theatre during World War II.
James’s nightmares continued.
Whenever he brought up the dream, his parents questioned him gently, letting him lead the
conversation.
He was able to tell them of a friend who appeared in his dream, a pilot named Jack Larson.
Bruce looked for Jack Larson online, but couldn’t find any info.
Not only was he on a slow dial up connection, but in the early 2000’s the internet resources
weren’t as extensive as they are now.
Nearly every evening after he got home from work, Bruce would research late into the night,
trying different angles and word combinations to try to verify the details James had provided.
Just after Thanksgiving Bruce bought a Christmas present for his father, a book about WWII
called The Battle for World War Two Iwo Jima.
Before wrapping it, he and James looked through the book.
James pointed at a photo of Iwo Jima and told his dad that the island was where his plane
was shot down.
Bruce checked and learned that the Natoma Bay had supported the US Marine invasion of
Iwo Jima in March of 1945.
Eventually Bruce came across a website for the Natoma Bay Association reunion.
He blindly reached out and was able to connect with Leo Pyatt, a vet who had flown at Iwo
Jima.
Bruce felt uncomfortable explaining about his son, so he pretended he was an amatuer
historian writing a book.
He asked Leo several questions, including whether the Natoma Bay had any Corsairs.
Leo’s answer was no, which Bruce found to be a great relief.
On the other hand, Leo was able to confirm there had been a Jack Larson aboard the ‘Natty
Maru’ as the ship was nicknamed.
This and other details verified by Leo had Andrea believing that James had a past life
as a pilot aboard the ship.
In December, Bruce and Andrea both read Children’s Past Lives by Carol Bowman, a therapist who
studies alleged cases of reincarnation.
It had been suggested by Andrea’s mother.
Though Bruce didn’t really believe the stories in the book, he didn’t object when Andrea
sent the author an email, detailing some of her experiences with James.
Carol promptly replied, giving Andrea some suggestions for managing James’ nightmares.
Among Carol's advice was to tell your child that happened before and that they are safe
now and in their bed, focus on open ended questions and not to ask leading questions
that prompt their answers.
Spring 2001
Andrea sent Carol a follow up email, thanking her for the suggestions.
James’ nightmares had begun to taper off.
He went from having a bad dream several times a week to having one once
every other week.
However he talked a lot more about his so-called past life experiences.
In April James turned 3.
Just when things seemed normal in the Leininger household, James would say something weird
or far beyond his years and creep out his parents again.
In the summer he began drawing picture after picture of naval air battles and planes clashing.
The planes depicted in his drawings were always drawn with propellers, indicating that they
were old fashioned.
Sometimes he drew bombers with the Japanese sun symbol.
He always signed his name James 3.
When asked why, he simply said ‘I am James 3’, he didn’t know why, but it was nothing
to do with his age.
Bruce continued his research.
He kept in touch with Leo, who managed to get Bruce an invitation to the Natoma Bay
reunion which was happening next year.
Spring 2002
Carol Bowman called the Leiningers.
She was working with Shalini Sharma, a TV producer for 20/20.
Shalini was putting together an episode about Unexplained Mysteries with a section about
children with past lives.
Surprisingly, Bruce was all for doing the show.
He thought the show might help unravel this mystery for once and all.
Andrea was a little worried about her neighbors’ reactions, she didn’t want to be shunned.
Not long after James’ fourth birthday, the production crew met up with the family during
a trip to Galveston, Texas and shot James roaming through the Lone Star Flight museum.
Several weeks later, TV personality Shari Belefonte interviewed the family at their
home.
During the interview something odd happened.
Shari attempted to ask Andrea and Bruce if they believed in reincarnation several times.
The first time the sound man reported the battery for the recorder had gone dead, he
put in a new one.
The second time something went wrong with the charger and it wouldn’t record.
While Shari was asking for the third time, the screw holding the camera tripod broke
and the camera crashed to the floor.
After that there was a camera glitch.
Then the TV in the next room suddenly came on, everyone felt an eerie chill so Shari
quickly moved on to the next question.
In the end, James' segment wasn’t considered strong enough to air on primetime TV.
September 2002
Bruce flew to San Diego for the Natoma Bay Reunion.
Not wanting to explain the mystery of James to anyone, Bruce kept up the idea that
he was writing a book.
He was able to gather information, learning a little more about
the casualties from the ship, including a James M. Huston.
Records showed that on March 3, 1945 James M. Huston was killed while flying an FM-2
Wildcat on a bombing mission against Chichi-Jima, the Japanese supply base less than 200 miles
(321 km) from Iwo Jima.
Bruce returned home feeling bad about his deception.
He now wanted to write a book for real.
Andrea was becoming convinced that her son had a past life as James M. Huston.
One day Bruce was raking leaves in the yard, cleaning up after Hurricane Lili.
He gave James a kiss and said he was happy to have him as his son.
James replied back in an eerie voice “That’s why I picked you, I knew you would be a good
daddy.”
Disturbed, Bruce asked when.
James explained that he saw him and mommy in Hawaii at a big pink hotel.
In 1997 the Leiningers went to Hawaii for their 5th wedding anniversary.
Five weeks later, Andrea had gotten pregnant with James.
Christmas 2002
James received a GI Joe as a present, he named it Walter.
He already had 2 other GI Joes which he had named Billie and Leon.
When asked about the names, James said “that was who met me when I got to heaven.”
Burce had heard those names before.
He dug through his research and found the names Billie Peeler, Walter Delvin and Leon
Conner.
They were in the same squadron as James M. Huston and were killed in 1944, while James
was killed in 1945.
February 2003
After a lot of research Andrea was able to track down Anne Baron, James M Huston’s
84 year old sister who lived in California.
After the women bonded on the phone, Anne sent them some photos of James, including
one of him posing in front of a Corsair.
Also, she learned that James M. Huston was a junior, named for his father, which is why
James always wrote James 3 on his drawings.
By now Bruce was beginning to entertain the possibility that his son was the reincarnated
James M. Huston, but he still struggled with it in terms of his faith.
He continued on with his research, wanting to know exactly how James' plane crashed.
June 2003
A veteran named Jack Durham found an old forum post that Bruce had made on the ChiChi-Jima
website and reached out.
He was able to provide an eyewitness account of James M. Huston's death and confirmed that
James piloted a Corsair.
The 21-year-old Navy pilot was on a mission near Chichi-Jima when Japanese artillery shot
down his plane.
The burning Corsair nosedived into the ocean, leaving James with no time to eject.
This matched the details that young James had told his parents 2 years ago.
That fall Bruce attended another veterans reunion, this time for the VC-83 squadron
of Sargent Bay, another escort carrier that fought at Iwo-Jima.
Because of how the firefight happened, it was the pilots in a second wave from the Sargents
Bay who actually witnessed James M Huston’s plane crash.
During one of his stories a veteran mentioned that the shell that hit James’s plane sheared
off the propeller.
This detail explained why James always crashed and broke the propellers off his toy planes.
Bruce ended up confessing to the vets about his son James having a past life.
To his surprise, they accepted it, telling their own stories of premonition and supernatural
occurrences during the war.
For the first time, Bruce found himself at peace about his faith and believing that James
had a past life.
Several days later Shalani, the young producer called.
The Leinigers brought her up to date on everything they’d discovered.
She now worked for ABC Primetime and wanted to do a story about James.
In addition to interviewing the Leinginger and talking to James, she wanted to interview
veterans from the Natoma Bay and other people the Leiningers had talked to on their search.
So Bruce ended up revealing the truth to the Natoma Bay vets and other people he had talked
to.
Most people believed or at least took the story of James’ past life in stride.
Bruce and Andrea were especially nervous to confess to Anne Barron, but felt she should
hear the story from them instead of finding out from a TV crew.
Anne listened to the long story in silence and then said she needed to think and they
would hear from her shortly before hanging up.
The next day the Leiningers received an email from Anne’s daughter thanking them for giving
her mother part of her past back.
Anne Barron believed.
TV correspondent Chris Cuomo interviewed Bruce and Andrea.
While James was taped, his parents requested that the TV crew let James lead the conversation
and not be formally interviewed.
April 15, 2004
The program aired just after James had turned 6.
Of course there was some backlash and accusations that the Leiningers were loony.
Despite the many requests for more interviews, the family declined most of them.
Fall 2006
However,the Leiningers did accept a trip from a Japanese production company to participate
in a one hour special for a program called Mystery Experience-Unbelievable.
Anne Baron was invited, but she declined and asked James to toss flowers into the water
where her brother crashed on her behalf.
The family flew to Toyoko and then boarded a ship for the 26 hour trip to the small island
of Chichi Jima.
Once they arrived, the Leiningers were given a tour of the island.
The next day, they took a choppy ride on a small boat out to the area where James M.
Huston’s plane went down.
Eight year old James had been very quiet during the ride.
Now he wouldn’t look at his father or the camera.
Andrea hugged her son and told him that while James M. Huston would always be an important
part of his life, it was time to say goodbye to him.
James threw himself into his mother’s lap and wept deep, heart wrenching sob, crying
for 15 minutes..
Then he threw a bouquet of flowers in the water and said “Goodbye James M. Huston,
I’ll never forget you.”
After that, James stood tall and saluted.
He cried again in his mom’s arms as the boat returned to the island.
Today James is in his early 20s.
He prefers to keep out of the spotlight and lives quietly near his family in Louisiana.
Though the memories of his early years have dimmed, he continues to believe that he led
a past life as James M. Huston.
Interested in hearing about other kids who had past lives?
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