The Universe Exists for My Amusement

Here’s a skill I’d rather not have.

Total Recall: The Woman Who Can’t Forget.

The most remarkable moment comes when Sawyer asks Price when Princess Grace died. She immediately answers, “September 14, 1982—that was the first day I started 12th grade.” For once, it seems that the memory lady has blown it. Sawyer laughs nervously and tries gently to right her guest: “September 10, 1982.” Price misunderstands, thinking she’s being prompted to identify another event—the possibility that she’s being corrected apparently doesn’t occur to her. No, Sawyer says, she has made a mistake; according to the book that 20/20’s producers were using as a source, Princess Grace died on September 10. Price stands her ground, and not 60 seconds later, a producer breaks in: “The book is wrong.” Price is right after all!

Until recently, no one had ever heard of Jill Price. Her friends and family knew her memory was remarkable, but nobody in the scientific community did. Her road to stardom started in June 2000 (Monday, June 5, to be exact), when she stumbled upon a Web page for James McGaugh, a UC Irvine neuroscientist who specializes in learning and memory, and decided to send him an email describing her unusual ability to recall the past. McGaugh wrote back 90 minutes later. He tells me he was skeptical at first, but it didn’t take long for him to become convinced that Price was something special; he soon introduced her to two of his collaborators, Larry Cahill and Elizabeth Parker.

The three researchers interviewed Price many times over the next five years, but they kept the story to themselves. Finally, McGaugh and company were ready to share what they had found. In February 2006, their article, “A Case of Unusual Autobiographical Remembering,” appeared in the journal Neurocase. Shortly thereafter, the UC Irvine press office peddled the story to The Orange County Register—and Price’s world was turned upside down.