Aurelien Okay. The very first thing I see is this furry

banana which I bought on holiday with my family.

NARRATOR 20 year old aurelien is remembering a specific

day, when he was just four years old. he claims to have a power that scientists didn't believe

humans could possess.

Aurelien I've never met anyone who's been able

to do what I do.

NARRATOR put simply, aurelien is the first British

man to say that he doesn't forget his past.

Aurelien 'Cause I remember the 25th being the day

where it snowed in the morning, and I think it was the day that George Best died.

Dominic O'Brien 7th of July 2008.

Aurelien It's a Monday.

Aurelien It just seems like there's no gaps at all.

I can just see it all.

NARRATOR around the world, other people have come forward.

some claim to remember every day of their life.

Jill Price Bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing.

Jill Price If you could stick a camera in my head then

I think everybody would freak out.

NARRATOR this summer, we met the people who say they

have this unbelievable ability. and the scientists putting them to the test.

Giuliana Mazzoni I always claimed that actually this was not

possible, because normal memory does not work like that.

NARRATOR could the amazing power they claim to have

possibly turn out to be real?

Dominic O'Brien I can tell within, you know, 30 seconds to

a minute if someone's genuine or not.

Dr McGaugh (Archive) November 13th 1980.

Jill Price (Archive) Was a Monday.

Dr McGaugh (Archive) How do you know it's a Monday?

Jill Price (Archive) 'Cause I just do.

Aurelien Sorry, I didn't wanna answer that question.

Can you stop filming? Sorry.

Interviewer Sure.

NARRATOR aurelien is a university student. we first

filmed with him on saturday the 19th may. sceptical about his unbelievable talent, and

curious to see how he could prove it.

Interviewer How could you demonstrate for me what it is

that your memory does that maybe mine doesn't?

Aurelien I suppose if someone said what happened, oh,

tell me something that happened in, like, June 2008. And I could instantly think of

things, whereas most people would not be even able to remember, you know, what they were

doing it that year.

Interviewer What about the 17th of June 2008?

Aurelien Yeah, I can tell you. That was a Tuesday,

and it was the first day after I finished my GCSE exams, and my room was an absolute

tip, so I had to just clear it all out, and I spent the whole day doing that. I could

tell you it was quite a nice day. It got sunnier and we went for a curry in the evening.

Aurelien And I remember watching Loose Women with my

mum, and Joan Rivers got thrown off for swearing on live TV. Yeah.

NARRATOR i checked the date of joan rivers' daytime

television outburst. he was right, it did occur on tuesday the 17th of june 2008.

NARRATOR aurelien said he couldn't tell me how he

did this. but he let me come back and test him on more random dates.

Interviewer 19th of September 2008?

Aurelien It was a Friday. I remember my dad was like

selling his car.

Aurelien It was the last that we saw his car before

it got taken.

Interviewer 30th of May 2007?

Aurelien It was a Wednesday. The weather was quite

good that day. Which was quite unusual because it rained pretty much for the whole of that

May.

Interviewer When you tell me all this stuff.

Aurelien Yeah.

Interviewer How am I supposed to know it's right? How

am I supposed to know that you remember this stuff? You claim it's true, but how do I

know?

Aurelien I suppose the thing is you don't, so. I

could be making it up right now.

Interviewer Are you making it up?

Aurelien No. I don't see why I would bother to be

honest with you.

Aurelien What do you think about it?

Interviewer I think it's a little unusual.

Aurelien Mmm.

Interviewer And I'm rather curious about how you're

doing it.

NARRATOR aurelien told me he remembered days way back

into his childhood. but he had absolutely no idea how they stuck in his head.

NARRATOR i wanted his parents to confirm the truth

of his memories, and see what they thought of their son's strange skill.

Aurelien's Mother We were talking sometimes at the table when

we were having a meal, and then I used to say, for instance, oh 'do you remember when

we went to Bangkok three years ago', or whatever. He used to say 'no, it was not

three years ago, it was four years ago, and it was actually on the blah blah blah',

you know, and he gave me the day, the month, and so forth. I used to say 'really?',

and then I used to run to look in my diary to see, you know, just to check, and I think

that's why I started to think gosh, you know, you memory is not bad.

Aurelien's Mother Do you remember what we did on the 30th of

Aurelien I know it was a Monday.

Aurelien's Mother Yeah.

Aurelien Bank holiday.

Aurelien's Mother How do you know that?

Aurelien I think it could be, I know that we went to the Cadbury factory

around that time.

Aurelien's Mother Yeah. Well, yeah, that's correct.

Aurelien So, I don't know for certain that it was

that day.

Aurelien's Mother Yeah it is that day.

Aurelien But I know that it was around that time.

Aurelien's Mother Yes, correct. That's exactly what we did,

we went to Cadbury World, we stopped in Ross-on-Wye on the day, and we had a great day eating

chocolate.

Aurelien's Father And over the years we've learnt to sort

of accept that if Aurelien does say that there's a date that's correct, after a couple of

years of saying 'oh no you got that wrong', and realising that he wasn't wrong, we tend

to accept it now without challenging it.

Interviewer What's your explanation for why Aurelien

can do that?

Aurelien's Mother 'Cause he's just like me, he's bright.

I don't know. Because, as I said to you before, it's not something I, you know,

I knew he had a good memory, but that was the extent of it really. I never knew he was,

you know, something really special and different from most people.

NARRATOR it seemed aurelien's memories were surprisingly

accurate. but it was hard to know how much of his life he'd got stored in his head.

Interviewer So, I'll pick a month at random.

Aurelien Okay.

Interviewer July 2009.

NARRATOR the month i chose was three years ago, 1,080

days have passed, since these events took place.

Aurelien I can remember 20 of the days. Like that.

I can remember all of those days. I suppose there are three things that pop out instantly

when I think of July. I went to France one weekend Tool in France, Duke of Edinburgh,

and driving lesson in fact. I can put that there. And I think around that time I started

reading Tess of the d'Urbervilles.

Aurelien Anyway, it's like I could get a diary for

2009 and write it if I wanted to. Retrospectively.

NARRATOR aurelien said that his brain stored all this

information automatically. but i wondered if he was hiding some secret technique. we

went to meet a man who has trained his memory. eight times world memory champion, dominic

o'brien.

Dominic O'Brien I would be suspicious if someone said that

they automatically know what they were doing on a specific day in their life. The day of

the week for any date, without involving some sort of technique.

Dominic O'Brien I can tell within, you know, 30 seconds to

a minute if someone's genuine or not, and most of the time they're not able to do

what they claim.

Dominic O'Brien Hello, you must be Aurelien.

Aurelien Yes, Dominic.

Dominic O'Brien Welcome.

Aurelien Nice to meet you.

Dominic O'Brien How are you?

Aurelien Good. You?

Dominic O'Brien Come inside we'll share some memories.

Aurelien Okay.

Dominic O'Brien Come in.

Aurelien Thank you.

Dominic O'Brien Go.

Aurelien Okay. Go.

NARRATOR aurelien says he has no technique to help

his extraordinary memory. dominic o'brien does, and he can memorise information at a

world record breaking speed.

Aurelien Okay.

Dominic O'Brien Two of hearts, four of diamonds, the jack

of hearts, the jack of clubs, seven of clubs, two of clubs.

Aurelien Completely right.

Dominic O'Brien Alright.

Aurelien I'd be interested to know what you do obviously.

I honestly, don't know where I'd begin.

Dominic O'Brien I mean, the jack of diamonds could be Johnny

Depp.

Aurelien Right.

Dominic O'Brien J D, jack of diamonds. The queen of clubs,

wherever that is, there we are, the queen of clubs that could be Paris Hilton, 'cause

she likes to go clubbing, she's the queen of nightclubs. So, now when I see the cards

I automatically see people.

NARRATOR mental images are the key to dominic's remarkable

memory, and he has a similar method to calculate dates.

Aurelien The 1st of June 2004.

Dominic O'Brien Tuesday I think. Is that right?

Aurelien Yeah.

Dominic O'Brien The 3rd of October 2003. Can you do that?

Aurelien 3rd of October. I think that was a Friday.

Dominic O'Brien Yes, it was, yeah.

Aurelien I remember my sister had a friend over.

Dominic O'Brien How about the 15th of April 2007?

Aurelien Ooh, that was a Sunday, and I went canoeing,

I was in Zambia; me, my dad and my sister went canoeing. Just remember that day straightaway.

Dominic O'Brien 10th of August.

Aurelien Yeah.

Dominic O'Brien 2007

Aurelien Okay.

Dominic O'Brien What's your nearest point of reference?

Aurelien My nearest point of reference is the 8th,

which was a Wednesday. Actually the 7th. I remember that night I'd eaten way too much,

and I threw up. So, for instance, I've known instantly what the 8th of August was.

Dominic O'Brien So, you're using a reference point.

Aurelien Yeah.

Aurelien The 8th was a Wednesday. Yeah.

Dominic O'Brien Yeah. That's right.

Aurelien So then I think Friday must have been the

10th.

Dominic O'Brien You're not making a point of I must remember

this day because it's two days before my birthday and I'll remember for the future.

So you don't review this? That is fascinating. It is interesting. Don't think I've ever

met somebody quite like you. 'Cause that's extraordinary, because for me to do that,

I mean, I could do what you do, if I made a conscious effort to do it.

Aurelien Yeah.

Dominic O'Brien But I would have to review every day at the

end of the day, and then think about it the following day, next week, next month, etc.

Until I've got it.

Aurelien I think of it as, it's almost like there's

this imaginary pen writing in events in a sort of mental calendar.

Interviewer So, you're convinced are you?

Dominic O'Brien I'm 99% sure Aurelien is the genuine article.

Dominic O'Brien 99%.

Aurelien I don't think that people would meet me

and think like he's got something funny about his memory.

Friend Yeah, but we had no idea, like, at all. As

soon as you suddenly said 'oh, I've got this thing', I was like 'what? Really?'

NARRATOR it seemed aurelien had only just started to

let others see his hidden talent.

Aurelien I'd love to know what you think. I don't

know.

Friend I think it's weird that I can say a date

and you would know what day it was.

Aurelien Yeah.

Friend Rel do you remember when you lost your virginity?

Friend What day was that?

Aurelien There are some things which are.

Friend Well, do you? If you say you remember.

Friend No, I do. It was the 19th of January 2006.

Aurelien So, you lost it on a Thursday?

Friend What?

Aurelien Is it really cool or really weird?

Friend Strange.

Friend weird.

Friend Both

NARRATOR i wasn't the only person trying to make

sense of aurelien's extraordinary ability.

Henry Yeah, masses of memory, here it is. People

who can recall exactly what happened on every day of their lives.

NARRATOR his boyfriend, henry, had come across a story

of people with a suspiciously similar skill.

Henry So like do you struggle to remember what you

had for breakfast yesterday, let alone what you did last weekend? Yeah, so this is basically

what I read.

Aurelien And then you watched the documentary.

NARRATOR jill price was the first person in the world

to come forward with this ability. she's been living with it for almost four decades.

Jill Price (Archive) I actually believe I should be like in a mental

hospital, because this is, makes me crazy. Like, I still feel bad about stuff that happened

30 years ago.

Diane Sawyer (Archive) But we all do, I mean, we can all remember

one or two things.

Jill Price (Archive) It's not one or two things, everything.

Aurelien I mean, hers is very extreme. She can remember