On April 13, 1995, at 3:21 AM, I woke up, having a vision that Jesus was holding my hands, rubbing salve into slits in my palms, and telling me that in the future, I was going to lose someone close to me but not to be sad or afraid.  I tried to understand who the person was that would die, but I could not quite get the name.  My body felt tingled and felt pleasantly paralyzed and I did not want this closeness with Jesus to end.  I was fully awake in the bed while this was happening.  At that moment, my 5 year old son Alex walked into the room and came over to me. (He had woken up from sleeping in his bedroom.)  I put my hand on his face and said "Jesus Loves You", and he said, "I know", and I told him to go back to bed.  I got up and recorded the entire vision, that has many more details, not listed here.  I placed this record in my Bible and still have it today. 

On May 8, 2007, 10:01 PM, Alex was killed instantly in a car accident 1 mile from our home, while returning from a physics study group.  My wife and I drove up on the wreck, with the hearse still sitting in the road, while coming home from Houston, Tx.  We were, and still are, devastated from losing our wonderful son, and such a fine young man, and good brother to his younger sister, April.  We had experienced several very strange events in the hours prior to his accident. 

We began to have strong ADC's within a couple of days of his death including visions of Alex, hearing his audible voice, smelling his cologne, feeling a hug, feeling a powerful presence with mental conversation that made me literally laugh and cry at the same time, electrical lights flashing, vivid dreams, redbirds everywhere all of a sudden, and a couple of occurrences that I still can't even believe happened.  I am choosing to share the experience below, because it is one of the most clear occurrences witnessed by more than one person. 

My wife and I were in our kitchen discussing where April (Alex's sister) should go to college.  At that moment, we heard the Aggie Fight Song for Texas A&M University start being played by a novelty can opener in the kitchen drawer.  We both looked at each other in shock and then started laughing because Alex was very excited to have decided to go to A&M before he was killed in a car accident.  He had recently visited the university with his Mom and had decided on a BS in nuclear engineering and an MD in Neurology.  Perhaps he was putting his vote in for April to attend A&M. 

We opened the drawer and examined the can opener that continued playing until the song was finished.  We had received this can opener as a gift several years before and after playing the song a couple of times on that first day, it had laid silent in the drawer for a couple of years, untouched, amid a lot of other miscellaneous items that we never used.  This spontaneous song from the can opener had never happened before or since, and I later checked to see if the lithium battery was going dead which may have caused it to go off as one last gasp.  The battery was fine, and is still fine to this day.  The drawer was closed, and there was no movement or vibration when the can opener began playing and we had not opened the drawer or done anything else except talked while standing at the kitchen bar.  The song began within a second or two after I spoke the words, "Where do you think April should go to college?"

Was this experience difficult to express in words?  No

Did you hear the deceased or hear something associated with the deceased?          Yes

            Describe what you heard, how clearly you heard it and what was communicated:    My wife and I both heard the entire Texas Aggie Fight Song spontaneously played by a novelty can opener in the kitchen drawer while we were discussing our daughter's college plans.  (Our deceased son had decided to attend A&M before his tragic accident.)

            Did the voice or sound seem to originate externally or outside of you, inside you, or did you not hear a voice or sound, but had a sense of knowing what was communicated?  Absolutely external, generated by the can opener.

            If you heard a voice or sound, was it similar or dissimilar from the voice or sound the deceased made when they were alive?           We had played the song on the can opener several times when we received it as a gift a couple of years before.

            Is there any possibility what you heard was from any other source present in the surroundings at the time of your experience?           No.

            Was there any possible impairment to your hearing at the time of the experience?            Absolutely not.

Did you feel a touch or experience any physical contact from the deceased?            No

We have felt this in other experiences, but not this one.

Did you see the deceased?         No

Not during this experience but in other experiences.

Did you smell a distinct smell, scent, fragrance or odor associated with the deceased?      No

            What smell, scent, fragrance or odor did you smell?           Not during this experience, but in another experience.

How long did the experience last?        About a 90 seconds

Was the beginning and end of the experience gradual or more sudden?         sudden

Could you sense the emotions or mood of the deceased?           No

Not during this experience, but in other experiences

Did the deceased give you information you did not previously know?  It seemed to give his choice of colleges for his sister to attend.

How do you currently view the reality of your experience?           Experience was definitely real

            Please explain why you view the reality of your experience as real or not real:           We have no doubt that the experience happened.  The only doubt I have is could it have been caused by some other extremely unlikely coincidence, having never happened before or since, and having occurred at a most pertinent time in the context of our discussion of colleges choices for our daughter, without any  apparent explanation.

            Was the experience dream like in any way?   No   

Describe in detail your feelings/emotions during the experience:           We were both very surprised, and then felt very lifted emotionally, and hopeful.

Was there any emotional healing in any way following the experience?           Yes

At the time, we were quite positive and happy to have the experience.  Over time, I cannot say that we are healed.

What was the best and worst part of your experience?      Getting the message from my son, but realizing that he is still not going to be with me day to day.

Has your life changed specifically as a result of your experience?         Yes                 Describe:      It did for a while but now I am quite depressed again since the communication seems to have ceased.

Did you have any changes of attitudes or beliefs following the experience?   Yes     Deeper belief in ADC, spiritual confusion.

Did the experience give you any spiritual understandings such as life, death, afterlife, God, etc.?            Yes     Made us feel more confident about life after death

Death Compacts are when two or more living people promise among themselves that whoever dies first will try to contact the other(s).  Have you ever made such a compact?        Yes

On 12/2/95, I promised Alex and April, (and recorded in my bible) that I would write them a letter when I died telling them what heaven is like, not realizing that I would lose my son before I died.

Did you observe or hear anything regarding people or events during your experience that could be verified later?          No Other than my wife as a witness.

What emotions did you feel during the experience?            We felt amazed that the experience happened, hopeful of future experiences, but also profoundly sad that we did not have our boy with us; alive.

Was the experience witnessed or experienced by others?           Yes

My wife and I both experienced it simultaneously.

Did you have any sense of altered space or time?   No

Did you have a sense of knowing, special knowledge, universal order and/or purpose?    Yes

During the initial experience, I received a message that someone close to me would have to die.  At that moment, my son walked into the room.

Did you become aware of future events?       Yes

My son died 12 years after the first experience.

Did you have any psychic, paranormal or other special gifts following the experience that you did not have prior to the experience?         Yes

In November 2008, I dreamed that I would begin to have stark coincidences as a part of some psychic response to my need to understand ADC's, and these began to happen shortly after this dream for about 3 months.  Most of these involved prior knowledge or discussion of an event just seconds before it happened, that made it appear to be a highly unlikely coincidence, just like the incident when the can opener began playing the fight song immediately after my words about the college.  Others witnessed these events and were "creeped out" by them, especially since I had experienced the dream that it would start happening, and it happened over and over.  The dream indicated that outside of this world, events are not subject to time as a series of sequential events, so those that have passed on can influence us on Earth to think of something just before an event is going to happen.  This would be done to confirm that ADC's are real.

Did you experience a separation of your consciousness from your body?     Yes

During the initial experience foreshadowing my son's death, I felt I was disconnected from my body in the bed.

Did you meet or see any other beings other than the deceased?     Yes

During the initial experience, I saw Jesus, but not during the latter experience.

Did you see a light?           Yes

During the initial experience, Jesus was surrounded by light.

Did any part of your experience seem to occur in a place other than the location described above?            No

Have you shared this experience with others?        

Yes     Just my wife.  She has had separate experiences also, especially visual apparitions.  Alex's girlfriend also told us that Alex appeared to her 29 days after he died and they had a "mental" conversation while he stood by her bed, with an orange glow around him.  When she was loading her luggage the next morning (on a band trip that he would have been on with her), the sunrise matched the orange glow that she saw earlier that morning around Alex.  My Mom and Dad were awoken by their broken music box at about 2 AM playing "Don't Cry For Me Argentina" several months after Alex's death.  The music box had not played for years, and has never played spontaneously again, but appears to be fixed now.

Have you shared this experience formally or informally with any other researcher or web site?   No

 Is there anything else you would like to add regarding your experience?       After reading a lot of Skeptic material, I am trying to reconcile how this could have happened, other than an ADC.  Although some of the other ADC's I have had can be "written off" by skepticism as feelings or maybe hallucinations, this one was witnessed simultaneously by my wife and me, while we were talking, completely awake, standing in the kitchen.

Were there any associated medications or substances with the potential to affect the experience?            No

Following the experience, have you had any other events in your life, medications or substances which reproduced any part of the experience?         Yes 

The coincidences started in the same manner as the can opener experience after I had a dream that this would start occurring.

Did you ever in your life have a near-death experience, out of body experience or other spiritual event?           Yes 

As described, I had the vision that I would lose someone close to me, and my son walked into the room at that moment.

Did the questions asked and information you provided accurately and comprehensively describe your experience?               Yes

Please offer any suggestions you may have to improve this questionnaire.    The skeptic and engineer in me struggles to make sense of these events and as your website states, hard evidence is difficult to come by.  Like a mirage in the desert to a thirsty hiker, it is easy to conclude that the desperate grief that I feel could result in hallucinations, since these events cannot easily be reproduced under controlled conditions.  For future research, books, etc., I think it would be helpful to skeptics for researchers to collect sworn affidavits from people that experience ADC's and have them tell their experiences during a lie detector test.  Since only the testimonials exist, it is easy for skeptics to discount these experiences, and if others are like me, they would gladly provide sworn affidavits and lie detector results.  This might make the body of evidence begin to overcome the skeptics doubt, although it may still result in the same thing my brother said, "I believe that you believe it."