The stories Cameron tells about his life sound like any a young boy might tell about his upbringing.
But yet there is an eerie difference. He, nor his family, had ever been to the place he was describing.
Cameron Macaulay was just two when he started speaking of another life that he had enjoyed on the remote Scottish island of Barra.
A world away from the terrace street in Glasgow where he resided with his mother and older brother, the boy described living in a white bungalow with a view of the beach.
He used to tell his mum Norma: “I’m a Barra boy.”
The Macaulays lived 220 miles from Barra, which is situated off the west coast of Scotland in the Outer Hebrides and home to just 1,000 people.
The journey from Glasgow to the Isle of Barra is eight hours by car and ferry, or a one-hour flight.
Despite its remoteness, Cameron would talk freely about playing with his black-and-white dog on the island's sandy beached.
He spoke about looking on as his siblings ran around while he watched out of the window from his family’s Barra house.
He would tell his mother that he “fell through” a hole, and into his new life with her.
“I lived in a white house with my mum and dad, and my three brothers and sisters," Cameron is recorded as saying during a documentary, Extraordinary People — The Boy Who Lived Before.
“My favourite place in Barra was the beach and I’d take my dog with me. I’d play with him and my brothers and sisters would also play.
“The planes used to land on the beach.”
Norma Macaulay, speaking to the same Channel 5 programme in 2006, said: “At first I just thought, 'He’s making things up'.
“But then I thought, how did he know the name Barra? Why is it Barra, where none of us have been or have any connection with?"
Cameron’s stories became more detailed as time went on, recalling how his Dad, who he named as Shane Robertson, had died in a car crash.
He became so embroiled in his so-called past life that he would cry at nursery asking for his “Barra mum” to pick him up instead of Norma.
“With the big tears running down his face, he would keep saying, ‘I have to go to Barra, my family are missing me’,” Norma said.
“How do you deal with that? What do you do? What do you say to him?”
Distressed by her-then five-year-old son’s behaviour, the single-mum met a psychologist and child behavioural expert to see whether they might be able to explain what was happening.
But, unconvinced by their suggestions Cameron could have been told about life on Barra by someone else or that it was an imaginary story gone too far, she turned to Dr Jim Tucker.
The child psychiatrist from the University of Virginia School of Medicine had become fascinated by the tales of alleged reincarnation regaled by tiny children.
Dr Tucker arranged to fly from the States to Scotland to meet Cameron, and then organised, along with Norma, to take him to Barra.
Upon the Macaulay plane’s touchdown in Barra— which landed on a sandy beach like in Cameron’s recollections — the youngster told his Mum: “I told you it was all true… I feel happy to be back.”
Remarkably, after meeting up with a local historian on the island, Dr Tucker and the Macaulays were able to track down a white bungalow on the beach where a Robertson family were known to live in the 1960s and 70s.
Upon visiting the property, the documentary shows Cameron becoming subdued and upset. He indicated that he remembered sitting in the single-storey home with the open fire blazing.
On the land belonging to the bungalow was a gate to the beach and rock pools below, just as he had described when back in Glasgow.
Not wanting to leave the trail there, Norma got in contact with a genealogist called Ruth Boreham who uncovered that a Robertson family, who hailed from Glasgow, had owned the rustic white house in Barra for about 20 years.
The family were able to meet Gillie Robertson, a member of the family, who showed Cameron pictures of her family's past holidays on the island.
Amazingly, she confirmed there was often a black-and-white sheepdog on the land — although it belonged to the neighbours.
But Gillie had no recollection of a man named Shane or a member of the family who had died in a car crash.
Even though not all of Cameron’s memories matched with reality, Dr Tucker said Cameron might still have memories of a previous life.
“He certainly responded to the house in a way that made it seem this was a special place for him," Dr Tucker told the documentary.
"He may have had some memories and emotions that somehow existed on this island beforehand in another life, and then somehow carried over to him.”
