Extrasensory - Seeing Is Believing | 7

Episode Date: December 2, 2024

The bombshells about John Pollock sink in. Producer Poppy steps up the search for Jennifer Pollock, one of the twins. Doubts are raised over a photo of the Pollock twins. Stevenson’s methods are called into question as he takes his final field trip. And at the 11th hour, Poppy has a breakthrough in her quest to track down Jennifer.Extrasensory is an Apple Original podcast produced by Blanchard House. Follow and listen on Apple Podcasts.apple.co/Extrasensory

The twins are looking straight at the camera. Jillian and Jennifer must be about, I don't know, seven or eight. 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 one 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 one is Jennifer and which one is Jillian? 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 want to 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 million 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 Extra Sensory, an Apple original podcast produced by Blanchard House. I'm Will Sharpe. 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 for twins and thinks, well, okay, that'll make a great photo. End of 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. 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 too, worth scrutinizing. One shows the twins aged eight, and they have matching blonde braids and these striking light blue eyes. And I've got to put my glasses on. Oh my god, there was so much more identical then. Wow. Joanna Pollock, John's granddaughter. In later years, I mean, 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 Dr Banerjee, the Indian academic who for a time kind of hijacks the Pollock case from Stevenson. He looks every inch the series 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. And he's, you know, black suit. He's Thai 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 Joanna knew them. 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 one, the twins are seven 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 it? Is this Whitley Bay? Yeah. That's the playroom. Joanna would have been four 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 one 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 two 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 doll's house doesn't really mean much to the twins. So at some point when they're grown up, she means John. Anyway, the Doll's 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 want 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 a symbolism of all that, but then Joanna remembers something else about John Pollock. Oh, God, this is going to 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 one 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've never spoken to Lisa, like no one. 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 controlling the atmosphere and I think knowing that about him also makes me 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 one 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. Reincarnation and biology. A short title for a big book and Stevenson clearly sees this one 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 two books, two 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, Maybe one 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 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 one thing that can't so easily be dismissed as a lie. The first volume of Stevenson'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 one 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 one piece of evidence which is much, much harder to just dismiss. So okay, that leaves us with a few possibilities. One, John faked that photo of Jacqueline. Two, it's sheer coincidence that Jennifer's birthmark matches Jacqueline's scar. Or three, 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 fourth possibility and it's one that we've also got to consider. And that possibility is, well, okay, I'm just going to come out and say it. The other possibility is this. Stevenson is also making stuff up. That one way or another, Stevenson is sort of complicit in John's deception.

That Stevenson 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 one 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 one 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 two 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 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. So, long story short, it does the trick.

Two last trips, Stevenson says. Come with me. Game, set and match. So, the next time the two 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 first class and I was in coach.

But 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 two 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 one 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 six or seven 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 one case like that, you'd say, well, I mean, whatever, it's weird.

But there's not just one 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 whole approach to things was very transparent, very scientific approach. The other possibility was that we 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 Stevenson. 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 want to be found.

Or certainly doesn't want to speak. And then... On a Sunday night... 11pm... On a Sunday night, 11pm, Poppy gets a message on her phone. Four words. I'll text you tomorrow. It's from Jennifer. One 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, Joanna'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 it'll take good care of you. It's a beautiful picture, is that. Do you believe in angels? Yes, I do. Yeah, I do. I think angels around you all the time protecting you. Yeah, if you ask me, dad, he'd say the same. You were angels around you protecting you. Yeah. your dad, he'd say the same. You were angels around your protection here.

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 favourite 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 challenge given tech, you know, getting used to each other really, you know, she likes one thing, I like another, so we try and, you know, do both. I like me computer, he likes his radios, I like me telly, he's got his telly.

So we're fine, just doing our own things, don't we? And I just learn to live together, basically. I'm either with radio, or doing a couple of odds and I use my 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. When you're between us we've got 20-20 vision one eye each. It's a good joke Steve. Steve and Jennifer met when they were in their mid-30s 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 just met. I think I'd slept at shop for summer and I saw her going in club and I thought as you do being a young fellow I thought I quite have a fancy at that and we're just sitting off right away and within I think the four weeks or three weeks I'd asked her to marry me. You asked me on the phone if I'm marrying 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. 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 mum and dad's relationship according to Joanna's description. And that's the first thing that we want to ask Jennifer about.

This idea that there were two John Pollocks. That he was one man in public, the life and soul of the party, and another man at home. And that man, according to Liza, 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? 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 know, he used to take us all over really when we were young in the car, like have a 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 two princesses, these scholars, he loved us dearly, he used to take us out and he wasn't strict but you knew how far you could push them. But he was a really good dad, he really was. Yeah, a really good dad. Jennifer remembers them all gathered together as a family, watching TV.

I might go and sit on my dad's knees, I might go and sit on my mum's knees, or I might want to sit on the lad's knees because there are, I mean we're only about five then, six. She remembers family Christmases. They had a beautiful piano. They used to play it Christmas like Christmas carols and we all used to sit down on the piano and sing songs. At New Year, we used to go out and a lot of friends and neighbours used to come round. And we used to lay a big massive buffet on them.

We'd all be singing along on the piano, which was really, really good. to all be singing along on the piano, which was really, really good. Then, as they grow older, there's late night chats in John's office where he plays old Mozart records. And he used to have a great big room with all books all the way round. 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, dad, it's 12 o'clock, I've got to get to bed. Well, that would mean he used to be at half past two before he used to get to my naps. We got

up by eight o'clock in the morning. From everything Jennifer says, John just loves the twins' company. I used to say to my dad, it's my day off, dad, I want to rest. He said, no, you're coming out, come on. Then on the night time, he'd say, which princess of mine is coming out with me tonight? That's me and my twin sister. She calls princesses. And I used to tell my dad, I can't be bothered. He said, come on out.

He said, come on, call your dad, then I'll be drinking, he used to say. And in the end, you were like, more or less forced to go out with him for a drink. But it was funny, it really, really was. So he would tell jokes, and he would chat to people, he was quite outgoing. Yeah, he was very, very outgoing. 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 me mum and me, and me dad used to go to a conservative club, and we used to have a good drink then, just chatting away like, daughters and parents doing their kids. And they seemed really, really happy. I've never even seen me mum and dad ever argue,

or anything really. And according to Jennifer, this John would never resort to violence. But my dad would never hit anybody like a woman or anything like that. He 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 one that Joanna and Lisa knew, John the grandfather. And in fact, it sort of feels like there are more even than just two 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 maintained that story for the rest of his twins, Jillian 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 Grisel. Additional production by Seren Jones. Original music by Daniel Lloyd Evans, Louis-Nank Manel and Toby Matimong. Sound design and mix engineering by Vulcan Kisseltug and Daniel Lloyd Evans.

The part of John Pollock is played by Peter Pevely and Dr. Ian Stevenson by Mark Arnold. Research by Alan Sargent. Fact checking by Jesse Behring and Karen Walton. Our managing producer is Amika Shortino-Nolan. The creative director of Blanchard House is Rosie Pye. The executive producer and head of content at Blanchard House is Laurence Grizzel.