For as long as he has been able to speak, Cameron has been telling the story of his life on Barra, a remote island in the Outer Hebrides about 220 miles from his current home in Glasgow. He described his childhood on the island in detail: the white house he lived in, the black and white dog he walked on the beach. He spoke about his mother, seven siblings and his father, Shane Robertson, who died when he was hit by a car.
There is nothing surprising about this. Except for the fact that Cameron is only five years old now; his memories seem to come from a previous life. Since Cameron began telling his story, which has become more detailed, the shock of his insistence that “I’m a Barra boy, I’m a Barra boy” has faded. But his emotional attachment to his “Mother Bara” involves his mother, and when he says “my real Bara father doesn’t look around”, something is clearly going on in the poor boy’s head. Cameron’s mother, Norma, decides to investigate his claims.
Everyone who met Cameron was skeptical, but his story was so consistent. In search of a plausible explanation for Cameron’s story about his Bala childhood, Norma first visited the psychologist Dr. Chris French, editor of The Skeptic magazine. French believes Cameron only learned about Barra on television or from a family friend and made up the stories himself.
Norma wasn’t happy about that. Her next port of call was educational psychologist Karen Majors, who told her that the way Cameron described his world of Barra was similar to the way some children talk about imaginary places and people, except that Cameron seemed Really think he saw them have what he described first hand; he also doesn’t seem to be able to control his “imagination” like other kids. Norma decides to investigate the possibility of reincarnation and contacts leading expert Dr. Jim Tucker of the University of Virginia.
