The experience requires two stories. Both of them begin as I was flying my little amphibious SeaRey aircraft, on a bright summer day. I planned that hour, to land in a farmer’s field not far from the airport. I knew the owner of the field, and I’ve had years of experience, flying into off-airport fields. The SeaRey can land in a little over a hundred feet, and the field was nearly 2,000 feet long. There was nothing difficult about making this landing safely.
On final approach, at 40 feet above the ground, my story splits into two separate stories.
Story One: My right main landing gear struck a power line. The result was that the SeaRey instantly turned upside down and crashed inverted on the ground. There were some small fires from the broken power lines, but the airplane itself did not catch fire. Bystanders watched the crash, called the police, and soon a rescue helicopter arrived. They cut me out of the cockpit and flew my body to the hospital in Seattle. I had broken a rib and sustained a traumatic head injury and a few other problems. The doctors thought the injuries were serious enough to keep me in critical care for a while. They told my wife that I may never learn to read, talk, or to walk again. I had been in a coma for six days.
Story Two: I had no indication that we had caught any wire, anywhere. At about one foot over the field, I heard the quick little click-click-click of my wheels as they hit grass blades a second before the wheels touched the earth. I remember thinking that this was going to be a perfect landing. Then everything went black. I said to myself, ‘Oh. I thought I was flying, but this is a dream, instead.’ I waited patiently for the black to disappear. It took a long time, or so I thought.
The next thing that happened I was in the air again, over a lovely landscape. There were rolling hills and lush forests. It was just beautiful! I thought I was flying about 900 feet over the scene and saw a little village to the right. My airplane was gone, and I was the only passenger in some kind of aerial vehicle. Was it a dirigible? Seemed to be so, but there was no balloon or sign of a lifting surface attached to the vehicle. I saw no crew or controls anywhere. There were large glass windows all around me. On the ground and near the village there were 20 or so children playing a game. Most of them stood in a circle, and one ran around the circle. It was as though the game was Ring Around the Rosie, which I had played when I was about seven years old.
A quarter of a mile ahead of me was a small river, and a stone bridge over it. I knew I’d be crossing over the river soon. I watched the landscape passing me. I was about parallel to the village when I heard an emotionless human voice say, ‘Would you like to go back to your life on Earth?’ I had no idea what that meant, and I was silent. The voice said the same thing again, and I knew that I could stay in this land or I could return back to my life as it had been. For the third time, the voice said the same thing. I realized that I had not said good-bye to my wife, and I wanted to go back to her. I said, ‘Yes!’ and in the next split second, I opened my eyes, and found that I was in a hospital bed, and there next to the bed was my wife.
I felt perfectly fine. Although later, I discovered that there were tubes attached to my body for reasons I didn’t know. My first question to her, was, ‘Did you bring your car?’ She nodded and said ‘Yes.’ I asked, ‘Can we get out of here now?’
I stayed in the hospital for a month. Some said I was a miracle patient, for there were no problems being myself again soon after I awoke.. She remembers that she taught me how to read a clock, and after that she said an affirmation for me: ‘You are a perfect expression of perfect Love, here and now. You will have a perfect healing and there will be no permanent damage.’ I said that too, for thousands of times in the next month and even now, I say the first sentence, as she does, too..