Transcript of Seeing Is Believing | 7

The twins are looking straight at the camera. Gillian and Jennifer must be about, I don't know, 7 or 8. But their faces somehow look older, much older. And there's something creepy about the image. Actually, it's really creepy.

The twins look like they know something, a secret. Their eyes are dark, hooded, deeply shadowed. They're in identical outfits, plain black dresses with vertical pleats down the front and a flat, broad white collar with stiff white cuffs. They wear identical white hairbands. It's all vaguely sort of religious, kind of like perhaps they belong to a cult.

They're also standing side by side, very close. And their hands are touching, but they're not holding hands, which in itself is kind of weird. They're almost mirror images of each other, almost, but not quite, because their expressions are different. The twin on the left looks serious, whereas the twin on the right has a hint of a smile, but no more than that. Looking at it, you're kind of thinking, what is it that they know?

What is it they're concealing? And if I'm being honest, they do sort of look a little bit evil. Now, if you do a search for the Pollock twins, this creepy photo is the 1 that appears everywhere. Articles, blogs, videos, they all use this photo to illustrate the story of the crash, the birth of the twins, the birthmarks, and whether it all points towards reincarnation being real. So which 1 is Jennifer and which 1 is Gillian?

Well, the answer to that is neither, because that photo is not the Pollock twins. In fact, it's got nothing to do with them. And wanna know how we know? Well, we just asked Jennifer.

God, that's not us. And I thought, no, that's not me and Jill. Not in a 1000000 years. I know that's not me and Jill.

Poppy's done it. She's got Jennifer. For the first time in 40 years, Jennifer Pollock has given an interview. This is extrasensory, an Apple original podcast produced by Blanchard House. I'm Will Sharp.

Episode 7, seeing is believing. So let me tell you who the twins in that spooky photo really are. They're from nowhere near the north of England, not even close. They're from New Jersey in the US. Roselle, New Jersey, to be precise.

And these twins are actually called Kathleen and Colleen Wade. The photo was taken in 1967 by the famous American photographer, Diane Arbus. But let's be clear, the Wade twins have nothing whatsoever to do with reincarnation. Apparently, Diane Arbus just spots the Wade girls at a Christmas party, 4 twins, and thinks, well, okay, that'll make a great photo and a story. Until the photo of Kathleen and Colleen enters the magical mystery machine of the Internet.

The Internet does its thing. The photo somehow gets linked with the Pollock twins. I mean, maybe it's got something to do with those scary twins in the Kubrick movie of The Shining. And, well, people just think that's what the Pollock twins ought to look like. So anyway, hey, presto.

Kathleen and Colleen Wade become Jennifer and Gillian Pollock. However, there are some genuine photos of the Pollock twins on the Internet, and they're worth a look to, worth scrutinizing. 1 shows the twins aged 8, and they have matching blonde braids and these striking light blue eyes.

And I've got to put my glasses on. Oh my god. They were so much more identical then. Wow.

Joanna Pollock, John's granddaughter.

In later years, I mean, their their looks just went in totally different directions. So they're there in their matching outfits and their matching hairstyles, and I'm not sure who that doctor is. Who is he?

The doctor is doctor Banerjee, the Indian academic who, for a time, kind of hijacks the Pollock case from Stevenson. He looks every inch the serious professor in super thick rimmed glasses. He's making notes, and an old school reel to reel tape recorder sits on the bed. Remember, Banerjee starts off as Stevenson's translator, but then makes things a bit, well, stressful. Because by the time of this photo, 1966, Banerjee's already been accused of faking stuff.

And then at the back, there is a praying mantis.

She means John Pollock, who is leaning against the door.

In his, you know, black suit, his tie and his, yes, those are my daughter's expression on his face. It's kind of like, how could you not believe me? Yes, I am a special person.

And even though this is definitely the twins, it's not the twins as John and Eutham.

Those are brand new coats and brand new shoes and yeah. They didn't look like that

all the time.

They're so clean. Yeah. That would have just been for the cameras.

I guess the truth can be like that. Right? Even when you think you've finally got at it, there are always more questions that need asking. Then another photo that sparks a memory for Joanna. In this 1, the twins are 7, and they're sitting on a box holding a little black dog.

Both of them are looking away from the camera. Their attention is directed to something out of frame.

Oh, good god. I think that could have been the playroom.

Oh, really?

Where is is this Whitley Bay? Yeah. That's the playroom.

Joanna would have been 4 when this photo was taken.

In that playroom, there was a doll's house. And I'd always been in love with it. And the twins really didn't care about it.

But Joanna spends all of her time playing with it. It's the real deal, A proper big doll's house with a red roof and bay windows and a chimney on each side. It even has electric lights and a garden.

It's the 1 thing that I loved about that house and being in that playroom.

And guess who has that doll's house today? Yep. Joanna.

It's Tudor style. The front 2 portions open, so you can see the staircase. And he would have got it from a sale room, auction house.

By he, she means John. Anyway, the Dolls' House doesn't really mean much to the twins. So at some point, when they're grown up, Joanna gets it. And Joanna takes it with her on her life's journey from place to place all the way to California. The doll's house is always there.

But then something happens. Joanna has a house fire.

And when the house caught on fire, it

was just like, oh, god, the doll's house.

The Doll's House survives, but it's a close call. And it's now a shadow of its former self, blackened and charred.

It's the metaphor for my life. Look at it. It's all like smoke damaged.

And now, Joanna wants to restore it.

I just wanted it to be perfect again. I want to make it so perfect and so happy. And, you know, I want the garden back, and I want the lights on, and I will go in there and live.

Oh, that's so Freudian. Oh, my god. We'll let you do your own thing with the symbolism of all that. But then, Joanna remembers something else about John Pollock.

Oh, god. This can sound so terrible. I asked him if I could have it once. I said, when you die, granddad, can I have the doll's house? And that was my payment.

Of course, you can, Joanna. Payment. Okay. We'll come back to that. Now, Joanna shared quite a bit with us.

There's a lot to process, plenty of new information about John. So what does Lauren make of it all? Remember, Lauren is 1 of John's granddaughters. But unlike Joanna and Lisa, she never actually knew him. And the whole reincarnation thing is a family secret.

We've just never spoken about it as a family. I haven't spoken to Lisa. Like, no 1.

And Lauren's dad, Keith, never talked about his father, John.

I didn't hear bad things.

My dad would never say a bad

word against him in front of us. He never spoke about him.

So we told Lauren what Joanna and Lisa had told us, that John was bullying and coercive and physically violent. God,

man.

He sounds like a horrible, horrible man, and I feel really sorry for my dad and his siblings that they grew up in that house and Florence as well. Yeah. To have his tyrant just walking in and and controlling the atmosphere. And I think knowing that about him also makes me look reflect and look at how my dad brought us up. And I think he was the total opposite, probably because of what he saw in his dad.

And Lauren is mad that John was never stopped, never held accountable.

It makes me angry that he got away with it for many years because he did. You know, no 1 probably stood up to him. And then the boys just kind of cut ties with him. But I think, yeah, it makes me angry that he got away with it for all those years. You can't treat people like that.

1997. Stevenson's now 79, but he's still at his desk trying to prove his doubters wrong. He's hammering out the last few pages of his new book, and, of course, he doesn't know any of that stuff about John Pollock, or at least we don't think he does. And by now, John is long gone. It's been 12 years since his death.

Re incarnation and biology.

A short title for a big book. And Stevenson clearly sees this 1 as his legacy to the world, his last great work, 40 years in the making. And it is humongous. So humongous, in fact, that it's actually 2 books, 2 volumes, which run to a mighty 2,268 pages. I think it's fair to say not really holiday reading.

But there is a crucial chapter on twins, which Stevenson says.

May be 1 of the most important of all my publications.

And of course, he writes all about the Pollock twins, his most detailed analysis yet. And he goes through all of the stuff we know, the dolls, the visit to Hexham when the twins identified their dead sister's school, the phobia of cars, and so on and so on. Now, based on what Lisa and Joanna have told us, a lot of that can be explained away. Almost all of it comes from John, after all. And according to Lisa and Joanna, John Pollock is not a reliable witness.

Far from it. They say he's a liar, a publicity seeker, a narcissist. And our other main witness, John's wife, Florence, is not reliable either for very different reasons. According to his granddaughters, John is controlling and coercive and violent. So Florence has no choice but to go along with John's lies.

Remember, Joanna told us that Florence said privately, the whole reincarnation story was, quote, bullshit. Then, of course, there's the twins themselves. Well, as Lisa and Joanna say, it could just be that they were coached by John, told what to say. But there is a problem. There's 1 thing that can't so easily be dismissed as a lie.

The first volume of Stephenson's book is all about birthmarks. And here's what he says.

Birthmarks and birth defects provide an objective type of evidence well above that which depends on the fallible memories of informants.

So here's the problem with just writing the whole Pollock story off as John's big lie. Jennifer's birthmark, specifically the 1 on her face. Because remember, Stevenson sees a photo of Jacqueline's scar, and then he sees Jennifer's birthmark in exactly the same place. It's the 1 piece of evidence which is much, much harder to just dismiss. So, okay.

That leaves us with a few possibilities. 1, John faked that photo of Jacqueline. 2, it's sheer coincidence that Jennifer's birthmark matches Jacqueline's scar. Or 3, well, here's what Stevenson says.

The birthmarks and birth defects in these cases do not lend themselves easily to explanations other than reincarnation.

Yeah. That it's real. Reincarnation is real.

A deceased personality, having survived death, may influence the form of a

later born baby. But there is a 4th possibility, and it's 1 that we've also got to consider. And that possibility is, well Okay. I'm just gonna come out and say it. The other possibility is this.

Stevenson is also making stuff up. That 1 way or another, Stevenson is sort of complicit in John's deception, that Stephenson is part of John's big lie. Well, I think we should just test that theory, don't you? Charlottesville, Virginia 1997. Stevenson's got a new doubles partner, and it's 1 set all.

Props to Stevenson. Right? I mean, he's nearly 80. But to be fair, this match isn't really about the tennis. His new partner is a journalist who's trying to convince Stevenson to take him on 1 of his overseas trips.

The journalist is a guy called Tom Schroeder, an editor at the Miami Herald. And he's actually been trying to sweet talk Stevenson for 2 years.

The first thing he said when he heard what I wanted was, I'm interviewed out.

But Tom is not taking no for an answer. You see, he's looked into the whole field of reincarnation research before. And let's just say he's not impressed. So he wants to see if Stevenson is just another crank or if he's the real deal. But Stevenson is very resistant.

He really did not want to have popular attention because his only concern was getting mainstream scientists to take him seriously.

And there's another issue. Stevenson might still be a mean tennis player, but he's not sure about taking any more trips. He's nearly 80, and his wife, he's remarried, wants him to call it a day, to retire. But Tom continues applying the pressure.

I also pointed out to him that if he'd spent 30 years being really cautious about letting any journalists sort of report on his work, where had that gotten him? Which was nowhere. I mean, you know, it hadn't persuaded his scientific colleagues to take him seriously. So I said, you really don't have anything to lose. That's cool.

So long story short, it does the trick. 2 last trips, Stevenson says. Come with me. Game, set and match. So the next time the 2 men meet, it's in Paris for a flight to Lebanon, home to a large Druze population.

Reincarnation is a big part of the Druze faith. Stevenson is clutching a bulging briefcase with brass combination lock. And guess what?

He was in 1st class, and I was in coach. But we we met there and, you know, and I get on the plane, and I'm thinking, my biggest thought was, what if he turns out to be a fraud?

So the 2 men arrive in Beirut, which is still recovering from 15 years of civil war. In fact, it's still pretty dangerous.

People were living in sort of bombed out buildings, stringing electrical lines from the street up into their windows, which had no glass.

So Tom is kind of wondering whether this might all be a big mistake. Anyway, Tom and the professor hit the road and start work, meeting people who claim to have past lives, and things do start to get interesting pretty fast. They speak to a guy who says he was killed in a car crash at the age of 25. Then a girl with a phobia of knives who says she was murdered in a massacre. And in each case, the claims match a real person who died in exactly that way.

Then they speak to a kid who says he was shot in the head in his past life. And yes, this kid has birthmarks. Birthmarks similar to bullet wounds recorded in an autopsy report for a guy who, you guessed it, died in a shooting just before the kid was born.

They didn't exactly match, but they were pretty darn close.

Birthmarks, phobias, violent deaths. Sound familiar? And there is 1 case in particular that makes Tom sit up and take notice. A girl who claimed that in her previous life, she'd been a mother who died during surgery. Now, the dead woman's family somehow connect with this kid and go to visit her.

And the little girl, who's like 6 or 7 at this point, when they come into the house, she calls them by name. And the first thing she says to them, she says, you're here, finally.

Tom does identify some inconsistencies in these stories. But mostly, he's kind of blown away by what he's hearing.

Really impressive. Now, if it was just 1 case like that, you'd say, well, I mean, whatever. It's weird. But there's not just 1 case. There are dozens and dozens of cases.

And it all convinces Tom that Stevenson is completely trustworthy. He's not a crackpot, and his case studies aren't crackpots either.

Right away, I saw his his whole approach to things was very transparent, very scientific approach. The other possibility was that we'd go and these people would be obvious frauds. And that was definitely not the case.

So Tom does the trip to Lebanon. Then he goes with Stevenson to India, and he writes it all up in a book which he calls Old Souls. And while Tom doesn't come away from it all a believer as such, he's certainly no longer such a skeptic.

You know, I can't explain away all these what all these children and families have experienced. I think there's on some level, there's something real there, and I don't know what it is or how it works, but I'm not willing to just dismiss it.

All things considered, we can say this much. It seems that if anybody is lying, it's not Stephenson. Poppy first writes to Jennifer Pollock on social media, but she gets nothing back. Complete silence. I mean, it doesn't really seem like Jennifer uses social media very much.

Maybe she doesn't actually use it at all. At the same time, Poppy's trying to see if she can find a street address. It's hard to know where to start. Whitley Bay, Scarborough, Bridlington. Again, complete blank.

Then, of course, Poppy finds Lauren via the names on that headstone in the graveyard in Hexham. Lauren, John's granddaughter. Then Lauren leads us to John's other granddaughters, Lisa and Joanna. Now Lauren has no contact at all with Jennifer. Joanna doesn't either.

No number. No email address. Nothing. But Lisa does have a number, though she's not dialed it for quite some time. And Lisa agrees to share that number with us.

So, of course, Poppy sends a message. But again, nothing. Silence. Must be an old number. That's it.

We're kind of out of options. Weeks go by. Months go by. The team accepts that Jennifer just doesn't wanna be found or certainly doesn't wanna speak. And then on a Sunday night, 11 pm, Poppy gets a message on her phone.

4 words. I'll text you tomorrow. It's from Jennifer. 1 of the first things that Poppy sees when she arrives at Jennifer's house is a framed painting of a Native American man in a headdress or war bonnet. It's a striking image.

The painting was a gift from her brother, Ian, Johanna's dad, which he bought on a trip to a Native American reservation.

And he said, if you give this to somebody, it's a guardian angel, and he'll take good care of you. And it's a beautiful picture as that. Do

you believe in angels?

Yes. I do. Yeah. I do. I think angels are around you all the time protecting your ear.

If you ask me, dad, he he he say the same. You are angels around you protecting your ear.

So we're finally here meeting Jennifer Pollock, the surviving twin. The focus of all that attention, all that scrutiny, the subject of newspaper articles, TV documentaries, academic papers, the reason that Stevenson crossed the Atlantic half a dozen times, His favorite case study. And Jennifer is talking about it all for the first time in 40 years. Now, you're probably thinking, what about that birthmark? Well, Poppy can't see a mark on Jennifer's forehead.

But it's like she can't get too close straight away. I mean, they have only just met, and there is a lot of ground to cover. Jennifer is 66 now. She's still unmistakably the person from those old photos of her and Gillian as children. The genuine photos that is with long, fair hair and those same striking light blue eyes.

She lives with her husband, Steve, in the northwest of England. The house is small and modest. They're certainly not rich. And Jennifer spends a lot of time on her tablet, which she uses a magnifying glass to see. Steve, meanwhile, is into amateur radios.

That's the kind of thing you can listen to unusual broadcasts on like NASA, that kind of thing. Jennifer and Steve have been together for 28 years now, and they get along really well. Just tolerance give and check, you know, getting used to each other really, you know. She likes 1

thing, I like another, so we try and,

you know I

like my computer. He likes his radio. I like my telly. He's got his telly. So we're fine.

Just trying our own things, don't we?

Well, I just learned to live together, basically. I'm either with radio or doing a couple of odds and stuff.

I use my I use my, me magnifying glass because my glasses are scratched and I can't wear them, so I need some new ones.

So Steve can't see too well either, but they're both good at looking on the bright side.

Only between us, we've got 2020 vision 1 h.

That's a good joke, Steve. Steve and Jennifer met when they were in their mid thirties on holiday. They were staying on a caravan site or RV park.

She came to stay with her brother who had a caravan on park, and we we just met. And the guy had slipped at shop for summer, and I saw her go and eat club, and I thought, as you do, being a young fella, I thought, quite a bit fancy at that. And we're just sitting off right away. And within, I think, 4 weeks or 3 weeks

And I'm up here on I'd

asked her to marry me.

He asked me on the phone if I'd marry him.

I thought, well, if she says no, I can always put phone down.

But there was no need to hang up. And here they are, all these years later. Steve and Jennifer's relationship feels warm and loving. Very different to her mom and dad's relationship, according to Joanna's description. And that's the first thing that we wanna ask Jennifer about, this idea that there were 2 John Pollocks.

That he was 1 man in public, the life and soul of the party and another man at home. And that man, according to Lisa, ruled the house with a rod of iron. His brooding presence was felt even if the man himself was nowhere to be seen. Joanna said that John bullied Florence into submission, beat Florence into submission. Remember, Joanna called him a hateful, pathetic little man.

So we told Jennifer all this, everything Joanna and Lisa said about John, the John that they knew. But what Jennifer tells us about John, well, as soon as she starts speaking, it's not at all what we're expecting.

What was your dad like?

He's a great he's a great he's a good dad. He really I mean, he had affairs with other women and things like that. But he's a good father to us. Especially me and my twin sister because the lads were a lot older than us. So we would like the babies, like, come back into the family.

Did he kind of spoil you too?

Yeah. He spoiled us too. Yeah. He did. Yeah.

We got more treated more than what the boys ever did. He used to go camping up to Scotland. He used to take us on the beach. I don't usually take it all over, really. When we're young in the car, like, I would drive out some for a picnic.

So this is all, well, a bit of a surprise, just a little bit different to the John that we've been hearing about. This John dotes on his princesses.

My 2 princesses use scholars, and he he loved just dearly used to take us out. And he wasn't strict, but you knew how far you could push him. But he's a really good dad. He really was.

Yeah. A really good dad. Jennifer remembers them all gathered together as a family watching TV.

Jill might go and sit at my dad's knee. I might go and sit on my mom's knee. I might wanna sit on the lad's knees because they're I mean, we're only about 5 and 6.

She remembers family Christmases.

They had a beautiful piano and used to play Christmas like Christmas cards, and we always just sit and stand on the the piano and sing songs. At New Year, we used to go out and a lot of friends and neighbors used to come round and let them play a big massive buffet on them. We thought we'd be singing along around the piano. It was really, really good.

Then as they grow older, there's late night chat in John's office where he plays old Mozart records.

And he used to have a great big room with all books all around, and he used to have a nice big desk with a bureau. It's beautiful. And he used to say, come on in and talk to your dad before he goes. I said, daddy, it's 12 o'clock. I've gotta get to bed.

Well, after an hour, it needs to be at half past 2 before he should get to bed. That's me up by 8 o'clock in the morning.

From everything Jennifer says, John just loves the twins' company.

I said to me, dad's my day off, and I wanna rest. He said, no. You're coming out. Come on. And on a night time, he said, which princess are mine that's coming out with me tonight?

That's me and my twin sisters. She's called princesses. I should say, tell her, come on out. He said, come on in. Go with your dad and have a drink.

And he used to see. And and he had to hear you, like, more or less forced to go out with him with a drink. But he was he was funny. He really he really really was.

So he would tell jokes, and he would talk to people he's quite outgoing.

Yeah. He was very, very outgoing. Yeah. But he was a lovable guy.

And here is perhaps the biggest surprise of all. According to Jennifer, John's not just a lovable guy, but a guy who genuinely loves her mother, Florence.

I used to go out with my mom and me. And my dad, we've got to concert club, and we used to have a good drink then. He's just just chatting away like daughter and parents doing the kids. And they seem really, really happy. I've never even seen my mom and dad ever argue or or anything, really.

And according to Jennifer, this John would never resort to violence.

But me and my dad would never hit anybody, like a woman or anything like that. I I I mean, it wasn't nasty that way.

You never saw him be violent?

I never saw any physical abuse with my father whatsoever.

So that's the John Pollock that Jennifer knew, John the father. And, well, it kind of knocks us all sideways. It's a very different John to the 1 that Joanna and Lisa knew, John the grandfather. And in fact, it sort of feels like there are more even than just 2 Johns. There are many Johns, multiple and competing Johns.

So what about the first John? The John we started with, John the prophet. The man who predicted that his dead daughters would be reborn. Who told the world they weren't dead at all. That they lived on in the bodies of his twins, Gillian and Jennifer.

And maintain that story for the rest of his life. What does Jennifer say about that John? You've been listening to Extrasensory, an Apple original podcast produced by Blanchard House and hosted by me, Will Sharp. The producer is Poppy Damon. Extrasensory is written by Lawrence Grisell.

Additional production by Saren Jones. Original music by Daniel Lloyd Evans, Louis Nank Munnell, and Toby Mattimon. Sound design and mix engineering by Vulcan Kiseltug and Daniel Lloyd Evans. The part of John Pollock is played by Peter Pevely and doctor Ian Stevenson by Mark Arnold. Research by Alan Sargent.

Fact checking by Jesse Behring and Karen Walton. Our managing producer is Amica Shortino Nolan. The creative director of Blanchard House is Rosie Pye. The executive producer and head of content at Blanchard House is Lawrence Grisel.