Something happens. We have thousands of reports. Some contain remarkably specific information. Scientists have studied them for decades. And we still don’t know exactly what they mean.
We are talking here about one well documented phenomenon that has no solid explanation.
For decades scientists have studied reports about children, who begin talking spontaneously, typically at about 2-5 years old, often describing another family, occupation, location, manner of death, names or events.
Investigators then sometimes identify a deceased person whose biography matches a surprising number of those statements. The apparent memories usually diminish around age six or seven.
The most substantial research program is at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. Its Division of Perceptual Studies has investigated these reports for roughly 60 years, beginning with psychiatrist Ian Stevenson and later continuing under psychiatrist Jim B. Tucker. Their database contains more than 2,500 cases from around the world.
The particularly interesting cases are those in which investigators have written down the child’s statements before identifying the deceased person. That matters because it reduces the obvious problem of fitting the child’s story to information discovered afterward. There are published cases of precisely this sort.
There are stranger features too. Stevenson reported children with unusual birthmarks or birth defects that appeared to correspond to injuries suffered by the deceased person they supposedly remembered. In some cases he compared them with medical or postmortem records.
So, science has documented the phenomenon. Science has not established reincarnation as its explanation.
