Child's spooky knowledge of island 220 miles from home left family fearing he'd been reincarnated
Children often come out with all sorts of random comments, but the family of Cameron Macauley were forced to wonder about the toddler's past when they heard some of the strange remarks he started making as a young boy.
Cameron's family was living in Glasgow, Scotland when they first began to notice the little boy, born in 2000, sharing strange details about a past life.
At two years old, Cameron would speak about things he wouldn't have any reason to know, such as sights he'd 'seen' or details supposedly about himself and his memories.
According to his family, whose story is shared in the 2006 documentary The Boy Who Lived Before, Cameron would describe himself as a 'Barra boy' - referring to the remote Scottish island of Barra. The only problem was, the Macauleys lived 220 miles from Barra, and had never been there.
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As well as being a 'Barra boy', Cameron was able to describe living in a white bungalow with a view of the beach, and apparently remembered looking out of the window of the home to watch 'three brothers and sisters' as they played outside.
“I lived in a white house with my mum and dad, and my three brothers and sisters," Cameron says in the documentary.
The 'memory' didn't fit in with Cameron's experiences with his current family, who lived on a terrace street in their Scottish city.
“My favorite place in Barra was the beach and I’d take my dog with me," Cameron says. "I’d play with him and my brothers and sisters would also play. The planes used to land on the beach.”
Cameron's mom, Norma, initially believed her son was 'making things up', but then began to question how her son even knew of the name Barra in the first place.
The family became more concerned when Cameron began insisting he had to go 'home' to Barra, and would ask for his 'Barra mom' to pick him up from nursery instead of Norma. He even remembered his 'dad' from the island, a man he named as Shane Robertson.
As for how he'd ended up in Glasgow, Cameron said he'd fallen out of bed when he was four years old in Barra, and tumbled through a 'hole' which landed him with his Glasgow family.
“How do you deal with that? What do you do? What do you say to him?," Norma questioned.
As the documentary got underway, the mom found help from child psychiatrist Dr Jim Tucker, from the University of Virginia School of Medicine. He flew to Scotland to meet Cameron, and accompanied the family on a trip to Barra to see how Cameron would react.
Upon landing - on the beach, as Cameron had described - Cameron told his mom he was 'happy to be back'.
The family met with a local historian who identified a white bungalow on the beach, where a family with the surname Robertson - the same Cameron claimed his former dad had - had lived in the 1960s and 1970s. The landscape surrounding the house appeared to match Cameron's descriptions from prior to his visit.
A genealogist called was able to track down the Robertson family to allow Cameron to meet with a member called Gillie, who confirmed that a sheepdog belonging to a neighbor was often seen on the land. However, Gillie did not know of a man named Shane.
Sharing his thoughts on Cameron's apparent memories, Tucker said: "He may have had some memories and emotions that somehow existed on this island beforehand in another life, and then somehow carried over to him.”
Emily Brown