A UK man claims that a hypnosis session triggered vivid memories of his past life as an airplane photographer and gunner during World War One.

Steve Mulligan was born in 1961, in the city of Manchester, but also has very clear memories of growing up in Llandudno, Wales, in the beginning of the 20th century. He claims that he grew up as Sydney Sutcliffe, and died at the age of 24, after his plane was shut down on the Western Front during WWI. He always had these strange memories that played out in black and white, of him looking down from high up in the sky, but he could never really make sense of them. And then he went in for a hypnosis session and discovered that he was remembering his past life.

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“Since my childhood, I’ve always been drawn to Llandudno, even when I came here as a child I knew my way around and my mum used to be amazed at how I knew where to go,” Steve recently told Daily Post. “When we’d be walking around it was like I was having Déjà vu – like I’d been there before. It wasn’t until someone suggested doing a past life regression that all of this came spilling out.”

During a hypnotherapy session with Paul Goddard, the 61-year-old allegedly recalled his past life, including joining the Fusiliers in Wrexham and later joining the Royal Flying Corps, before working as a photographer and gunner in World War One. He even recalled his last mission, an aerial reconnaissance flight over enemy lines near Cambrai, France, and looking down before the plane is hit by enemy fire and crashed.

“I can remember that feeling as the aircraft was going down and it was really strange because I had no control of it,” Mulligan said. “I could feel that loss of life but there’s nothing I could do.”

Although he understands why most people are skeptical when they hear his story, Steve Mulligan says that it would have been impossible to go for the name of someone who had actually been born in Llandudno and had lived there in the same period as his past life memories.

“I didn’t know anything about Llandudno apart from coming here as a child until I did the regression,” the 61-year-old said. “I had never heard the name Sydney Sutcliffe, so for me to choose that name out of millions of names and for that to be someone who did live in Llandudno, it’s just incredible.”

Steve recently visited the war memorial in Llandudno and actually found the name Sydney Sutcliffe listed among the local soldiers who died during World War One, as well as the graves of Sydney’s parents. Huh, imagine that…

“Seeing Sydney’s name on the grave was emotional, and I’m still trying to get my head around it. It’s a weird feeling,” Mulligan said. “The strange thing is, his mother (Rhoda) died in 1960 and I was born nine months later in 1961. So, to me, that’s as if she was waiting to pass so I could be reborn, and that’s why I’m here.”