STAR RE-BORN
I believe I was a Hollywood star before being reincarnated as a boy named Ryan – I remember what happened when I died
WHEN a three-year-old boy became convinced he was a Hollywood agent in his past life, his parents were baffled and it was hard for anyone to take him seriously.
Ryan Hammond, 11, claimed he was the reincarnation of a man who died 40 years before him - and even claimed he remembered what happened when he died.
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The little boy made claims about vivid memories of his life livin in Hollywood in the 1940s and 1950s.
Ryan claimed he remembered his heart "exploding" - and then going towards the light.
His wild and unchildlike claims shook his parents and garnered national interest in the US - with the family appearing numerous times on TV.
Reincarnation has never been proved to exist by scientists - but accounts of it continue to emerge and are studied by experts.
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Ryan believed he was once Marty Martyn - a former movie extra who later became a powerful Hollywood agent.
Marty lived a life of luxury in New York, married four times, took holidays in Paris and had many influential political contacts before he died from a brain haemorrhage in 1964 at the age of 61.
And when Ryan, born in Oklahoma in 2004, was just three, he started recalling intimate details of his supposed past life in pin-sharp detail.
He bizarrely told his parents, a county deputy clerk and a small-town cop, he was in Hollywood when his heart exploded, and he would wake up in the night clutching his chest.
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Ryan often told his mum to take him to Hollywood so he could see his "other family" - and he would also wake in the night calling "action" for imaginary movies.
One evening, he even told his mum it's important to go towards the light when you die, so that everyone comes back - suggesting he remembered the moment he passed when he was living Marty's life.
Recalling details of his past life, the youngster said he had a big house with a pool that was located on a street whose name had "rock" in it.
He also said he drove a Rolls Royce no one else was allowed to drive and liked to go to the beach with his girlfriends.
And the boy recalled how he was once punched by Marilyn Monroe's bodyguards for trying to talk to her, and talk about trips to Paris to see the Eiffel Tower.
Ryan also told his mum he picked her to be his mother.
The mystery of death and what might come after remains one of the biggest enigmas of all - with people around the world constructing myths and theories about what could happen.
And for some people, the answer to life's final mystery is simple - we come back again as a new person.
Scientists and doctors have never found definitive proof of reincarnation.
But one child psychiatrist, Dr Jim Tucker, believed Ryan and his outlandish memories.
The academic spent years working with kids who can recall intimate details of their past lives - and it's led him to believe that reincarnation could be actually real.
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In an effort to help Ryan remember more, his mum began to borrow books about Hollywood from her local library.
The mystery of Ryan deepened when he picked out a picture from one of the books she brought home.
It was from the 1932 movie, Night After Night, and showed a group of men, including actor George Raft.
Ryan pointed at the man next to George and said: "Hey Mama, that's George. We did a picture together. And mama, that guy's me. I found me."
The peak of Ryan's memories came when he turned four - but they continued for years after.
When he was five, he told his mum: "Mama, I think I used to be someone else."
When a documentary crew heard about Ryan's case, they set up a meeting between the youngster and Marty's daughter who was still alive.
When they met, Ryan, who was six at the time, couldn't understand why the woman was no longer a girl.
He was given a tour in LA of the places associated with Marty - and Marty's daughter did confirm an incredible number of claims.
"The world just doesn't work as we think or assume it does. The cases I have examined don't come under a normal explanation of how we perceive the world," Dr Tucker said.
After researching thousands of cases, he found that children reveal their past life at an extremely young age - at usually two or three.
He said the memories manifest themselves as unusual episodes of streams of consciousness, recollections and sometimes as intense nightmares.
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A chapter of Dr Tucker's book, Return to Life, focuses on the case of Ryan, who apparently remembers his past life as Marty.
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In the months after the meeting, Dr Tucker said Ryan became calmer and the memories of his past life faded.
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