Cathy Byrd told KFI's Kris Ankarlo that one day when her 2 year old son Christian Haupt was playing baseball in the house he stopped and said "mommy I was a tall baseball player." He went on to say he had to stop playing because his body stopped working.
Lou Gehrig, the first baseman known as the "Iron Man of Baseball" played for the New York Yankees from 1923 to 1937. He was forced to retire because of ALS, the fatal disease now named after him, that attacks the human nervous system.
Cathy told Ankarlo that "it took a lot of courage to actually share the story because it's odd." She added that she is a Christian and "reincarnation was not a part of her belief system."
She said that she was riding in an elevator with her son years ago when he told her, "This looks like a hotel... When I was tall baseball player, I used to stay in hotels almost every night."
At the advice of reincarnation researcher, Carol Bowman, Byrd showed photos to Christian, and he was able to identify Gehrig in a photo of the 1927 Yankees team, as well as the correct name of Gehrig's parents from a photo.
Psychiatrist Dr. Jim Tucker who has studied children who remember past lives, interviewed the boy at age 5, and Christian told him that he picked out his current parents while in the afterlife state. By the time Christian turned six, his past life memories started to fade, which is what typically happens in such cases, according to Tucker's research.
20th Century Fox recently optioned their story to be made into a film.
More on Cathy and Christian's story here
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Listen to Cathy's full interview with Kris Ankarlo here: