Or, at least, he
could have been.
The story goes something like this. My dad comes from a fairly large family, and his siblings (and therefore himself, of course) were all born within a relatively short period of time. I always get confused as to which generation is made up of "baby boomers" -- is it the people that are having 9 million babies, or does the name refer to the 9 million babies? (the point of this is that he had several older siblings that corroborate this story, not just his parents)
Anyways, I digress. When my dad was about 6 years old, he would stare off into space, distracted for a bit. He'd come back to earth, and ask, "Where's my ship?"
I should take this opportunity to point out that 6 year olds, even clever ones, aren't really capable of what follows.
He then proceeded to ask about members of "his crew" - by full name. He mentioned dates, ports, ship names, cargo companies, and dozens of other details.
And this didn't happen on just one occasion; it happened several times, and each time he'd ask some of the same questions and mention some different ones.
If my grandparents had written ANY of it down, or really had suspected it as being something beyond a child's imagination, we could have found out if any of the details he had mentioned matched up with actual facts.
Now, of course, it's a funny story my grandparents sometimes tell, and my dad doesn't remember a thing.
Makes you wonder, doesn't it?
Of course, I'm sure I'd have much more trouble convincing the noding community that all this was true if I was claiming his testimony as proof of reincarnation. Oh well.. we'll never know.