NASA scientist who ‘died three times’ saw the same thing every time… and it wasn’t the pearly gates of Heaven

A NASA scientist claimed he died not just once but three times and saw the same thing each time.

Ingrid Honkala, 55, an oceanographer who works for NASA, said she had near-death experiences at the ages of two, 25 and 52.

Although each event unfolded differently, he said, the result was the same: He entered a strange state, completely calm, without fear, with no sense of time and no sense of separation from his physical body.

Honkala described becoming, in his words, ‘pure awareness’, immersed in a vast, interconnected consciousness filled with light, clarity and peace.

He claimed that this was not a temporary hallucination but a consistent experience that he relived each time he came close to death.

The scientist now believes these moments offer insight into what lies beyond human life and challenge the idea that consciousness ends when the body shuts down.

His claims, which blur the lines between science and spirituality, are already sparking debate about what actually happens when we die.

And despite the skepticism, he insisted that the experiences were more real than anything he felt in the physical world.

Honkala said his first encounter with death came when he was just two years old, after falling into a tank of ice water at his home in Bogotá, Colombia.

He remembered the initial shock and panic, struggling to breathe, before everything suddenly changed.

“Instead of fear, a deep calm came over me,” he told Jam Press. ‘The panic disappeared and was replaced by an overwhelming sense of peace and serenity.’

He described that moment as if his awareness had left his body, allowing him to see himself floating lifelessly in the water.

“At that moment, I no longer felt like a child inside a body, but like a pure consciousness, a field of awareness and light,” Honkala said.

To him, time seemed to have completely disappeared, along with fear, thoughts, and even the sense of individuality.

Instead he felt completely connected to everything around him.

‘I felt like I was immersed in a vast intelligence filled with love, openness and peace,’ he explained.

Although each event unfolded differently, he said, the result was the same: He entered a completely calm and strange state, with no fear, no sense of time, and no sense of separation from his physical body.

In one of the most extraordinary parts of his account, Honkala claimed that he was able to see his mother several blocks away and somehow communicate with her without speaking.

Her mother then ran home and found her daughter unconscious in the water; Honkala said this detail matched what he saw during the experience.

He said the incident changed his life forever. ‘From that moment on, I was no longer afraid of death,’ he said.

Honkala had two more near-death experiences later in his life; one at age 25 during a motorcycle accident and the other at age 52 when his blood pressure dropped during surgery.

He said that despite very different circumstances, each experience brought him to the same place.

Each time, he claimed to enter the same peaceful state of awareness beyond his 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 much deeper.

‘These experiences changed my understanding of life,’ he said.

‘I began to understand that rather than seeing ourselves as isolated individuals struggling to survive, we could be expressions of consciousness experiencing life through a physical form.’

He now believes that death is not an end, but a transition. ‘From this perspective, death doesn’t feel like the end of existence, but rather a transition in the continuum of consciousness,’ he said.

Despite his extraordinary claims, Honkala continued to build a successful scientific career.

He earned a PhD in Marine Sciences and has worked in environmental research, including collaborations with NASA and the US Navy. His near-death experiences actually fueled his desire to understand reality through science.

‘I wanted to understand the nature of reality through observation and research,’ he explained.

Although he kept his experiences largely secret for years, he no longer believes that science and spirituality can conflict.

Instead, he argued, they might be exploring the same unanswered questions from different angles.

His upcoming book, Dying to See the Light: A Scientist’s Guide to Re-Awakening, delves more deeply into his experiences and what they might mean for our understanding of consciousness.