Boy made up story that he died and went to heaven

Why we should be willing to change our minds with new evidence.

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/i-did-not-die-i-did-not-go-to-heaven?utm_source=pocket-newtab

Slate | Ruth Graham

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On the drive home, Kevin answered a call on his cellphone just as he approached an intersection with a blind spot that locals knew to fear. He didn’t see the other car coming. Kevin was thrown from his vehicle but was unhurt. Alex was taken in a helicopter to Columbus Children’s Hospital. (The occupants of the other car were not seriously injured.) Alex had suffered an “internal decapitation”—his skull essentially separated from his spine. His injuries were so serious that the coroner was called to the scene of the crash.

Six years later, a book was published that would become a sensation. The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven—with Kevin and Alex listed on the cover as co-authors—tells the saga of Alex’s improbable survival. But it wasn’t that medical miracle that launched the story to fame. In the book, Alex claimed he had spent time in heaven after the accident, and continued to be visited by angels and demons after he emerged from his coma two months later. He wrote that he traveled through a bright tunnel, and was greeted by five angels, and then met Jesus, who told him he would survive; later, he saw 150 “pure, white angels with fantastic wings.” Heaven has lakes and rivers and grass, the book says. God sits on a throne near a scroll that describes the End Times. The devil has three heads, with red eyes, moldy teeth, and hair made of fire.

The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven sold more than 1 million copies and spent months on the New York Times’ bestseller list.

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The cover of The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven calls the book “a true story.” But the boy himself now says it was not true at all. Four years ago, Alex sent a letter to a conservative Christian blog dramatically renouncing the book. “I did not die. I did not go to Heaven,” he wrote. “I said I went to heaven because I thought it would get me attention. … People have profited from lies, and continue to.”

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Alex told me that in reality, he doesn’t remember anything about the accident, and the whole idea that he saw angels started as a mix-up: He awoke alone in his dark hospital room, and looked groggily into the bright hallway, where he saw his father talking to someone. “I thought it was an angel, because I thought I was dead,” he told me. “I don’t know why I thought that, but I did, and that’s what I remember.” He has said he told those supernatural stories as a child because he thought it would get him attention. The whole thing “got blown out of proportion,” he told me. Yes, his father would ask him questions and write things down, but he had no idea why. “I thought he was writing down something to talk about at church or something,” Alex said. “I didn’t even know it was going to be a book.”

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