Fingerprints of God
Arvin Gibson's near-death research

Arvin Gibson is a retired nuclear engineer and a prominent near-death researcher.  His research culminated in the publication of several major works on the subject.

In 1996, Arvin Gibson interviewed a fire-fighter named Jake who had a most unusual near-death experience while working with other fire-fighters in a forest.   What makes it unique is that it happened at the same time as several other co-workers were also having a near-death experience.  During their near-death experience, they actually meet each other and see each other above their lifeless bodies.   All survive and they verify with each other afterward that the experience actually happened.  Jake's experience was sufficiently interesting that Gibson's local chapter of IANDS invited Jake to tell his story at one of their meetings.  What follows is an excerpt of Jake's near-death experience from Arvin Gibson's book Fingerprints of God.

Jake was a member of an elite fire-fighting group called "Hotshot;" a crew whose job it was to be dropped into particularly troublesome forest fires and bring them under control.

During a wilderness fire in 1989 a helicopter dropped Jake, as crew boss, and two 20 person Hotshot crews onto a fire at the top of a steep mountain.   The fire was burning below the crews in thick Ponderosa Pine and Oak brush. 

The slope of the hill the men and women were working on was about 40 degrees.  They worked their way down the steep slope, when, part way down, to their horror, the wind changed to an upward direction.  The trees in front of the men and women traveling down the hill erupted into flames with explosive force.

Jake explained how fire-fighters have a fire-resistant pack that is carried on their web gear.  The pack includes an aluminum foil-type material which they can throw over themselves as they crouch to the ground in an emergency.  These foils are only effective if the people can deploy the shelters after properly preparing the ground by reaching mineral soil with no residual flammable organic materials.  The problem in this case was that the enormous winds caused by the inferno erupted all around them and the immediacy of the crisis made the shelters useless.

The panic stricken crews started to try and go back up the trenchtrail they had build.  Trees exploded and fire engulfed the immediate area, and oxygen feeding the conflagration was sucked from near the ground where the people struggled to breathe.  One by one the men and women fell to the earth suffocating from lack of oxygen.  They were reduced to crawling on their hands and knees while they attempted to get back up the hill to a safer area.

Suddenly Jake had the thought:  This is it.  I am going to die.  And with that thought in mind he found himself looking down on his body which was lying in a trench.  The noise, heat and confusion from the inferno surrounding them was gone and Jake felt completely at peace.  As he looked around Jake saw other fire-fighters standing above their bodies in the air.   One of Jake's crew members had a defective foot which he had been born with.   As he came out of his body Jake looked at him and said:  "Look, Jose, your foot is straight."

A bright light then appeared.  Jake described the bright light in this manner:  "The light - the fantastic light.   It was brighter than the sun shining on a field of snow.  Yet I could look at it and it didn't hurt my eyes."

Standing in the light was Jake's deceased great-grandfather.  His great-grandfather acted as Jake's guide throughout his NDE.   Jake met with others of his ancestors and had an extensive experience.  Only the portions pertinent to this discussion are repeated here.

His great-grandfather ultimately communicated by mind thought to Jake that it was Jake's choice whether or not he should return to earth.  Not wanting to come back from the beautiful and peaceful place that he was in, Jake argued with his great-grandfather.  Explaining that it would be devastating to return to a horribly burned body, Jake pled with his great-grandfather to remain.   Jake said that all of this communication was by questions he would think of and have instantly answered in his mind.

Jake was informed that neither he, nor any of his crew who chose to return, would suffer ill effects from the fire.  This would be done so that "God's power over the elements would be made manifest."

Returning to his body was one of the more painful events of his life.  When I asked Jake why it was painful he said:   "When I was there, everything was so perfect, and my spirit body, it ... it was so free.  It felt like everything was limitless.  When I came back, well you know, there's always something plaguing you, like arthritis, or sore muscles, or ... but not there.  Getting back into my physical body felt cramped - held back.  For example, when I used to play football for a few days after a game or hard practice I was always sore.  The same thing was true after coming back into my physical body.   I hurt and felt constrained, and it was hard to get used to for some time."

Finding himself, again, in his body Jake looked around and noticed that some of the metal tools they had used to fight the fire had melted.  Despite this intense heat, and the fire still raging around him, he was able to walk up the hill in some sort of protected bubble.  He did not hear nor feel the turbulence around him.  Upon reaching the relative safety of the hilltop the noise of the fire was again evident, and he saw other members of the crew also gathered there.

The entire happening was so profound that upon escaping from what they had supposed would be sure death the group of saved people knelt in prayer to thank the Lord for their deliverance.  All of the crew escaped and the only visual evidence on them of what they had been through was a few singed hairs.

Jake said that in comparing accounts of their different episodes the men and women were astonished that they had each undergone some type of near-death experience.  Throughout the summer as the crew worked together they continued to discuss the miraculous adventure which they had lived through.   Others of the crew confirmed, for example, that they also felt the ill effects of returning to their physical bodies.  They, too, had met with other members of their deceased families and were given the choice of remaining where they were or of returning to earth.