The Reincarnation Mystery Of The Pollock Sisters Explained
In May 1957, a distraught woman who was under the influence of multiple drugs got into her car and plowed into three children in Hexham, England (via The Mystery Box). According to Mamamia, sisters Joanna and Jacqueline Pollock were walking to church with their friend, Anthony, when the incident occurred. Tragically, 11-year-old Joanna and 6-year-old Jacqueline died instantly while 9-year old Anthony died en route to the hospital. Per RT Documentary, the sisters were "thick as thieves" and did everything together. Their senseless deaths plunged their parents, John and Florence, into a deep depression as they dealt with their grief.
Within a year, however, Historic Mysteries reports that Florence was pregnant once again. Oddly, John believed that his wife would give birth to twins. Despite the lack of evidence to support this theory, John was right and on October 4, 1958, the Pollocks welcomed identical twins, Gillian and Jennifer. A few months later, the family left Hexham for a fresh start (per Ranker).
From their birth, John and Florence noticed a resemblance between their new daughters and their deceased ones. The first thing they noticed was a birthmark on Jennifer's left hip. Jacqueline had the same birthmark. Moreover, a birthmark on Jennifer's forehead matched a scar Jacqueline had gotten from falling off a bucket. As the twins got older, the similarities only became more undeniable.
The unexplainable coincidences
According to Mamamia, the twins' personalities were much like their dead sisters', including the fact that Gillian would "mother" Jennifer, much like Joanna did Jacqueline. The girls later asked for toys that belonged to their sisters, despite having no previous knowledge of them (per Historic Mysteries). On their first trip to Hexham, the girls recognized the city and knew where to go.
Even more telling? Jennifer and Gillian were incredibly frightened by cars. With this compilation of eerie parallels, John wondered, could this be a case of reincarnation? Ranker writes that the religious Florence did not want to entertain this idea as it was not a part of Catholic ideology. Soon after, American psychiatrist Ian Stevenson took interest in the twins' story. Although he believed Joanna and Jacqueline had been reincarnated, RT Documentary reports that others were not too sure.
Maybe Jennifer and Gillian had learned about their sisters by listening to their parents' conversations or from their older brothers. It's also believed that their parents could have influenced their psyche and thus, their fear of cars (via The Mystery Box). Whatever the case, the girls' memories of their "former life" began to fade away when they turned 5. Gillian, however, would later have visions of herself in Wickham, a city her sister Joanna lived in with her parents. Up until that point, Gillian had never been to Wickham.