MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories

Today’s podcast will feature 4 stories about people whose jobs put them face-to-face with the unthinkable. The audio from all four stories has been pulled from our main YouTube channel, which is just called "MrBallen," and has been remastered for today's podcast.

One night in August 1992, a sheriff’s deputy raced down an empty road in a rural part of Tennessee. A local woman had been kidnapped that morning, and right this very second, the kidnapper was making a ransom call. That call had been traced to a payphone just up ahead, and the deputy was racing to get there before the suspect left. The deputy sped up to the curb in front of the phone booth and leapt out of the car – but inside the booth, the phone was dangling on its cord... and the suspect was gone.

Today's podcast will feature 2 stories about eyewitness accounts that challenge everything we think we know about death. The audio from all three stories has been pulled from our main YouTube channel, which is just called "MrBallen," and has been remastered for today's podcast.

One night in February 2012, a farmer in rural Ohio was at home, when he suddenly heard the sound of a revving engine and spinning tires outside. It was coming from a neighboring field that nobody was supposed to be in, so the farmer hurried out to his truck to try and catch the intruder. But by the time he reached the field, whoever it was... had vanished.

Today’s podcast will feature 3 stories about people whose encounters with the supernatural defy explanation. The audio from all three stories has been pulled from our main YouTube channel, which is just called "MrBallen," and has been remastered for today's podcast.

Today's story is a fan favorite that was previously published as Episode 374. One day in mid-December 2003, Detective Mark Kelly walked into a small kitchen at a home in Fort Worth, Texas. The house belonged to a potential suspect in a homicide case, and while his partner was interviewing that suspect in the other room, Kelly was poking around. He wanted to hurry, because the kitchen he was in was disgusting. There was a layer of dirt on the floor, the dishwasher was open, with dirty plates and silverware still inside, dishes were stacked up in the sink, and used pots and rotting food covered the counters. Kelly could hear his partner talking in the other room as he grabbed the nearest drawer and pulled. Instantly, he regretted it. Because when he opened that drawer, about a dozen cockroaches crawled out of it. Kelly gasped and took an instinctive step back, watching the bugs skitter away. He was searching for a weapon, and it wasn’t here. But something about the filth felt like a clue. Kelly just didn’t know what it meant yet.

Today, we have three stories about people who had certain plans in place that got completely derailed – and in each case, the way they responded made everything way, way worse.

Welcome back to the Campfire! Tonight, I have two very different stories. But each of them are about sisters who stick together, even in the face of truly unimaginable horror. Be sure to WATCH this episode on my YouTube channel on Friday, October 16th at 2:00 p.m. ET!

In 2013, a police sergeant in northern France called the local telephone company, and asked to set up a tap on a suspect’s phone. He had a warrant in his hands and was ready to read off the details, but the operator on the line said... "It couldn’t be done." Because that phone number was already being tapped – as part of another murder investigation.

Today’s podcast will feature 3 spooky stories about messages from beyond. The audio from all three stories has been pulled from our main YouTube channel, which is just called "MrBallen," and has been remastered for today's podcast.

One afternoon in December 1980, one of the most famous comedians in France pulled a stack of letters from his mailbox in Paris. As he flipped through them, one caught his eye: It had no postmark or return address, and there was something small and hard inside. He ripped the envelope open and pulled out a bullet, along with a piece of paper that read: “The next one is for you.”

Today’s podcast will feature 2 stories that challenge our understanding of reality. The audio from both stories has been pulled from our main YouTube channel, which is just called "MrBallen," and has been remastered for today's podcast.

One night in March 1997, a man carried a muddy, black plastic case into a police station in the small town of Higginson, Arkansas. A local police officer had been murdered just three days ago, and the man desperately needed to see the detective who was leading the investigation. So once the man got inside, he headed straight to the detective’s office, where he immediately opened the black case – and pulled out a gun.