NASA scientist who 'died three times' saw the same thing every time... and it wasn't the pearly gates of Heaven
By STACY LIBERATORE, US SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EDITOR
A NASA scientist has claimed she did not just die once, but three times, and saw the exact same thing each time.
Ingrid Honkala, 55, an oceanographer who has worked with NASA, said she had near-death experiences at the ages of two, 25 and 52.
While each incident unfolded differently, she said the outcome was identical: she entered a strange state of complete calm, with no fear, no sense of time and a feeling of separating from her physical body
Honkala described becoming 'pure awareness,' immersed in what she calls a vast, interconnected consciousness filled with light, clarity and peace.
She claimed this was not a fleeting hallucination, but a consistent experience she returned to every time she came close to death.
The scientist now believes these moments offered a glimpse into what lies beyond human life, challenging the idea that consciousness ends when the body shuts down.
Her claims, which blur the line between science and spirituality, are already sparking debate over what really happens when we die.
And despite skepticism, she insisted the experiences were more real than anything she had felt in the physical world.
Ingrid Honkala, 55, an oceanographer who has worked with NASA, said she had near-death experiences at the ages of two, 25 and 52
Honkala said her first brush with death came when she was just two years old after falling into a tank of icy water at her home in Bogotá, Colombia.
She recalled the initial shock and panic of struggling to breathe, before everything suddenly shifted.
'Instead of fear, a deep calm came over me,' she told Jam Press. 'The panic disappeared and was replaced by an overwhelming sense of peace and stillness.'
She described the moment as if her awareness separated from her body, allowing her to see herself floating lifeless in the water.
'At that moment, I no longer felt like a child in a body but like pure consciousness, a field of awareness and light,' Honkala said.
According to her, time seemed to disappear entirely, along with fear, thoughts, and even the sense of being an individual.
Instead, she felt completely connected to everything around her.
'It felt like being immersed in a vast intelligence filled with love, clarity and peace,' she explained.
While each incident unfolded differently, she said the outcome was identical: she entered a strange state of complete calm, with no fear, no sense of time, and a feeling of separating from her physical body
In one of the most extraordinary parts of her account, Honkala claimed she could see her mother several blocks away and somehow communicate with her without speaking.
Her mother later rushed home and found her daughter unconscious in the water, a detail Honkala said matched what she had seen during the experience.
The incident, she said, changed her life forever. 'From that moment forward, I no longer feared death,' she said.
Honkala went on to have two more near-death experiences later in life, one during a motorcycle crash at 25 and another at 52 when her blood pressure dropped during surgery.
Despite the very different circumstances, she said each experience brought her back to the same place.
Each time, she claimed, she entered the same peaceful state of awareness beyond her physical body.
While many scientists argue that near-death experiences are the result of brain activity under extreme stress, Honkala believes they point to something far deeper.
'These experiences transformed my understanding of life itself,' she said.
'Instead of seeing ourselves as isolated individuals struggling to survive, I began to understand that we may be expressions of consciousness experiencing life through a physical form.'
She now believes death is not the end, but a transition. 'From that perspective, death does not feel like the end of existence, it feels more like a transition in the continuum of consciousness,' she said.
Despite her extraordinary claims, Honkala went on to build a successful scientific career.
She earned a PhD in Marine Science and worked in environmental research, including collaborations with NASA and the US Navy, adding that her near-death experiences actually fueled her desire to understand reality through science.
'I wanted to understand the nature of reality through observation and research,' she explained.
While she largely kept her experiences private for years, she now believes science and spirituality may not conflict.
Instead, she argued they could be exploring the same unanswered questions from different angles.
Her upcoming book, Dying to See the Light: A Scientist's Guide to Reawakening, dives deeper into her experiences and what they could mean for our understanding of consciousness.
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