What a Fire Captain SAW After DEATH; ASTRAL REALMS & BEINGS OF LIGHT with Bill Letson

There are moments in life when the veil between worlds grows thin, when the body falters and consciousness slips away, only to find itself drifting into something vast and unspeakably luminous. On today’s episode, we welcome Bill Letson, a retired fire captain whose journey beyond death reveals realms of mystery, joy, and the eternal embrace of love.

Bill’s story begins not with a grand design but with something as ordinary as illness. In the chaos of an epidemic, he inhaled the breath of a dying patient. Days later, his body failed him. Blood pressure collapsed, consciousness dissolved, and his life as “Bill Letson” faded into the background. In that unraveling, he found himself released—like a bird freed from a cage—sailing through a star-filled expanse where every orb shimmered with beauty. He described it as “like honey pouring through my brain,” a cosmic ecstasy that dissolved the weight of earthly existence.

And there, in that vastness, came the realization that life as we know it is a game of masks. He remembered his earthly identity as though it were a play he had taken far too seriously. Who was this Bill, with his likes, dislikes, and stubborn concerns? How could he have forgotten the radiant being that he truly was? In that moment of recognition, the illusion of separation gave way to a profound joy.

Soon, he found himself in a more structured place, face to face with beings of light and playfulness—mischievous yet kind, almost childlike in their joy. They asked him gently, “How was it? What did you learn?” But what struck him most was not their words but their laughter. They reminded him that life’s tragedies, dramas, and struggles are but the games of children in the great school of existence. Among them also appeared a tall, luminous figure radiating such overwhelming love that it nearly broke him into tears. “It was paralyzing,” Bill recalled, “like being undone by love itself.”

What astonished him was their gentle humor. When he asked if it was time for a life review, the tall being chuckled as though amused by a child asking to lead the class. And when Bill insisted he could not return to the harshness of Earth, they simply smiled and said, “You must. You have more to do.” For them, there was no tragedy in his return—only the continuation of a greater journey, unseen yet purposeful.

When he awoke, anger surged within him. Why had he been sent back? Why torn from the joy of that starry expanse? A nurse, with a kind of wisdom that seemed to pierce the soul, leaned over him and said softly, “Honey, you’ve been in escrow, and you fell out of escrow. Now you’re back with us.” That simple statement, ordinary on the surface, carried a truth that lingered with him: life itself is temporary escrow, a brief arrangement before we return to our true home.

As he recovered, Bill faced disbelief. His fellow firemen asked, curious yet cautious. Some dismissed his tale when it didn’t match their preconceived pictures of heaven. Yet he could not deny the truth he carried. His experience had shown him that the real purpose of life is not found in wealth, status, or recognition but in something simpler: kindness, service, and love. As he put it, “The ultimate purpose of life is to be kind and to help others… Walk your ancestors home.”

SPIRITUAL TAKEAWAYS

  1. Life is a temporary dream, and our identities are but masks—behind them lies a radiant being of light.

  2. The universe, even in its solemn lessons, is filled with joy and laughter; love is its deepest reality.

  3. Our purpose is not measured by success or wealth but by kindness and our willingness to walk one another home.

So, what do we make of this fire captain’s story? Perhaps that death is not the end but a homecoming, a return to something far greater than our minds can hold. And perhaps, too, that the work we do here, in this fragile human form, is not in vain. Each act of kindness, each moment of love, ripples into eternity.

Please enjoy my conversation with Bill Letson.

Right-click here to download the MP3

Watch more NDE & Beyond stories commercial-freeDownload the Next Level Soul TV App!

Follow Along with the Transcript – Episode DE080

Alex Ferrari 0:00
Tell me what your life was like before you died.

Bill Letson 0:08
I was working at a station down in Santa Barbara, station 11, and there was a flu epidemic going on. You know, we had those bad flu years, and it was a it was a good one, and it was filling up the hospitals and the emergency rooms, and we ran on one patient, and she was had really gone far. She was circling the drain by the time we got to her, and we jumped into action. And I, you know, in with everything that we do, putting oh two on her and getting vitals, she exhaled, and I inhale. And I took her breath straight in, and I was like, Oh man, that was I could feel her hot breath go down into my lungs. Everybody cringes when they think of that. And we got her to the hospital, and successful, she came home in a week or something. But a couple of days after I had my got that inoculation, I was really sick, and it came on pretty fast the next day, and just had this racing heart and this tanking blood pressure, and I was dehydrating, and before you knew it, I was circling the drain, and I got I called for help, and my department came, and, you know, local ambulance company came, and they picked me up, got me in an ambulance, got some IVs started because I was severely dehydrated, and got me to The local hospital, and the place was full of people, full kids, full of adults, people suffering from this flu, and they put me in a room, and they were kind of overwhelmed, and they came in and gave me something, you know, they injected it into the IV port, the injection port on the IV line. And the girls, you know, she's great nurse, but they were flustered, and so she pushed it in, like, all the way in, and my wife was there, and she said, your eyes rolled back, and you just keeled over, straight back, and you were gone, and they couldn't get you back, and they could barely get a blood pressure. So I didn't come back, and they put me into intensive care with, you know, a couple of IVs, and head down, and I just kind of hovered there at, you know, a blood pressure that was like 40 over zero for hours, and at some point during that night, two, three in the morning, something like that, I left my body. What I found, I found myself in a star filled realm. It was just all of these stars, these colorful orbs. I was parading through them, and it was all good vibes and beautiful stars, orbs, I guess we call them. And it was a complete ecstasy. It was complete euphoria. It felt like I'd been let out of a hot, dark, stuffy closet, and I'd been stuck there, and I was now this huge, expanded cloud just sailing through this welcoming party of stars. And I felt like somebody was pouring honey all over my brain, and it was running down through all my nerves, and it was like a cosmic orgasm. And it just kept going. It was just the standing wave of absolute euphoria. And I was thinking, Man, that was rough duty, that place was gnarly, this earth, and all those things, like those low emotions, like anger and jealousy and rage, those things didn't exist. It was just pure delightful existence. And as I flew along through all these stars, I was thinking, How in the world did I forget who I really was? How is it that I was absolutely convinced, immersed in this dude, that I was pretending to be this bill Letson, and he had this whole story, and he had his likes and dislikes, and he had, you know, this, all this stuff, and all of it was, it was like, it was pretend it was like something I was doing, like a game, and anyone going back to that was out of the question. There's no way I was free. And I was absolutely stoked. So I flew along for a while, and then, and everything was awesome. And it's like this moment is constantly the same thing of, Oh, wow. This is so cool. Everything is new and absolutely stoked in each moment. So I was flying along. Just could do this forever. This is awesome. And then I landed in a place that was solid. There was indirect lighting, there was equipment there, there were beds, there were it was a solid place, and right in front of me were three beings, and they were the short, little hooded guys with big smiles on their face. And they were bouncing around and giggling. And I was trying to sort out, Well, where am I now? This was complete change in everything that was a, you know, in a structure, and they were looking at me, and they were they were giggling, and they were saying things like, how was it? What did you learn? What can you tell us? And I was just kind of looking at him like, where is it? What is this place? And who you guys are? Very strange looking. And they looked exactly like that, those guys in the movie communion, where Christopher Walken goes in, and there's a lot of people when they see that, they see demons or something, but they weren't.

Bill Letson 4:59
They were just these cool little munchkins, and they were giggling and they were happy to see me. And if you watch that movie communion, they're actually pretty playful, joyful guys. They don't do anything that is really upsetting once Christopher Walken controls his fear of the situation, once he gets used to you know, this is something phenomenal, but it's not menacing. So one of them came forward. He looked me up and down, and he turned to the other two, and he goes, he doesn't remember us. And they started giggling uproariously, bouncing around and stuff. And I was like, Guys, I kind of remember you, but this is very unusual here. And then there was this other guy, and he was in the background at first, he was this tall, wispy guy, and he had this, like, you know, I've called him, like a trimmed up Gumby and like a walking stick. And he had this huge smile on his face. His eyes were bright, and he was absolutely stoked. You could feel the love coming off of him towards me. And he had this, like, weird spinning energy like you were, you know, like if you took a glass of water and spun it and then looked at the, you know, the vortex there, the spinning that's what he looked like. And it looked like I was when he came forward. It was like I was looking at somebody underwater. And the top part would move first, and then the other parts would sort of catch up, and then he'd become whole again. And he kept moving. And as he came closer, I just felt my chest just expanding and my throat tightening, and I felt like I was going to break down an uncontrollable crying from love. There was so much love coming from this being that it was paralyzing. It was overwhelming. And we went back and forth was some different small talk stuff. And every time I said anything, he just chuckled. He just would crack up, like he was looking at a little toddler, and he was amused by his little toddler. After a while, you know, the little guys were just giggling, and he was just chuckling at everything. And I said, you know, was not, you know, this isn't very organized. There's not much going on. Do Do we net? Do we go and make a, you know, do a review of my life? Is that? What's next? Do you guys want to get started with that? And the tall whiskey guy just cracked up. He was just chuckling. And he thought that was hysterical, that this little toddler was, you know, trying to take over. But he said, Sure, Sure, let's do that. How do you want to start? And so I told a few stories about, you know, jobs that my wife and I got offered a job on off the coast of California, on this island. And I took a fire job, but she really wanted that. And she said, You know, when are we going to get a chance to live on an island by ourselves, you know. But I was, you know, 2022, something said, I'm not going to do well alone on an island at this age. And I need to, I need action. I need to be around fire. Guys, yeah, but now that I'm almost 70, I look back and I say, I wish I had done that for her, because she wanted it, and she's pretty cool. So I talked for a while. I told a couple of different things. Nobody was listening. They weren't paying attention. They were doing the same thing. You know, they were doing these playful, joyful things with each other, and a lot of chuckling and giggling. And then he just turns to me and he goes, Okay, that's enough time to go back. And that floored me, that I was shocked at that. And I was like, go back. Like, go No way. I cannot go back there that you don't understand, that place is rough duty. And he's like, No, you got to go back. You got things to do, and you're going back. As he came forward, you know, I pleaded. I told him I was almost 40. What good am I? You know, my life's pretty much over. Just, I don't know, there's not much I can do after 40, you know. And he laughed at that, just like you. And I said some other things. I said, Hey, I got lots of friends, lots of bros, but the only people that are really gonna get stung by me not coming back is my wife and my parents. But they are strong people. They will persevere. And he thought that was funny. And he said, Okay, now you're going back. And He came forward, and the place just started to break up. It started to dematerialize. He evaporated in front of me, and the room came apart, and I dropped in frequency, and I dropped away, and I was on my way to another channel, another dimension, another stop. And it was a very it was a drop in frequency. It didn't feel good as I was moving back on this place, and I got close to my body, and it was a dark place. It was lonely, it was dismal, and you didn't want to be there. You know, we talk about heaven and in between place and earth and then another place, you know, from that experience, you know, I believe that other place is right close to where we are here in the physical I think that's part of our thing, where we need to navigate that successfully when we come out of our bodies. You know that whole thing about the valley of the shadow of death without fear, we have to move through that into the higher planes. But anyway, I was back in my body, and I woke up a few times, four or five in the morning, and I was looking at the. Equipment, and it was the vital signs that things were improving with each round and, you know, they take your vitals, and I could stay awake after a while, it was still dark out, and I was looking around, and the nurse came by, and she was shocked. She's like, you're awake. And I'm like, Yes, I am. I need to talk to you. And she said, Well, I need to go tell a doctor. We've been worried all night. We didn't know what was going on with you. You know, what was where this was going. And I said, Okay, you can go get the doctor, but first, what am I doing back here? You know, I was pissed, and I wanted to verbalize that, I guess. And I said, I was home. Was home with my best rose. I was back where I belong. I had died. I had bought the farm. I was sure of it, and she had her hands on my shoulders, and she was saying, he's just old nurse, you know, seen it all. And she goes, Honey, you've been in escrow, and you fell out of escrow, and now you're back with us, and you're gonna have to get your head around that, you know. And she said it very genuinely. She sort of spoke to my soul, and I never forgot that, because I had just come back from this experience in, you know, in this illusionary, this journey, but, you know, and then everybody came by, and I was just big guy, the tall guy, the little guys, you know, and they were my best friends. And it was like, I just got off a roller coaster, and they want to know what it was about. And you see disappointment in your family's faces. And, you know, the doctor tells you outright, you're crazy. And so I was home for a few days and then recovering, and then I got back to work, and the guys all wanted to know. It's like, Hey, dude, something happened to you. Everyone's talking about it. And I'm like, Well, yeah, well, I'll tell you what happened. And I didn't leave anything out, you know, the very religious guys, you know, they didn't want to hear much more of the story once I got to the little, short little guys, because it wasn't fitting their robes and harps and beards and and I always thought that was really interesting, because they were such good people, but they wanted nothing to do with this sort of unusual story. And so I told the story for a while, and then the word kind of leaked down from the office. Hey, you better stop telling that story, because, you know, we don't have Kooks riding our fire engines, and that made sense. So, yeah, it's that, and it's all those other things. The ultimate purpose of life is to be kind and to help others. And when your parents get old, you know, drop everything you want to do, even though you're young and healthy, and be there for them. Most of us don't. You know, my mom went through this place, and it was the only there was 80 people in there, and I was only one that was there every day. They'd come on the weekends or holidays and stuff, but walk your ancestors home. And you know, we're programmed to believe that we are, you know, that is something has value, then it has monetary value, and if you sell a lot of it, then you're a best seller, and now you have more value. And that's I stay away from it. I stay away from any bucks coming my way. And you know, Jesus, there's only one time Jesus got pissed off and he he went back to Jerusalem, Jerusalem with his followers, went into the temple, and there was all this stuff, people selling things, and he flipped out. He turned the tables over and, you know, he lost his cool because there was money changers in the temple. You know, we're not, we're not supposed to be doing this. This life here on earth is a temporary gig. It's over in a few heartbeats, out of the illusion of This world and back to who you really are.

Guests Links

Sponsors

Connect with Us

👉 Watch & Subscribe to Divine Encounters on YouTube
👉 Listen to Divine Encounters on Apple Podcasts
👉 Listen to Divine Encounters on Spotify

NEXT LEVEL SOUL PODCAST 2025 v2 THUMBNAIL 500x500

Next Level Soul Podcast

with Alex Ferrari

Weekly interviews that will expand your consciousness and awaken your soul.