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MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories

In the Blink of an Eye (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

Today, I’m going to tell you three stories about how just one small moment of distraction can lead to absolute catastrophe. You can WATCH all new & exclusive MrBallen podcast episodes on my YouTube channel, just called "MrBallen" - https://www.youtube.com/c/MrBallen If you want to reach out to me, contact me on Instagram, Twitter or any other major social media platform, my username on all of them is @mrballen Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

2026. 11. 4.29:30

요약

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This podcast shares three true stories where single moments of distraction or misunderstanding led to tragic deaths, including a family disaster in an Egyptian well, a fatal taxi ride in South Korea, and a bizarre encounter with wildlife in the Virginia swamp.

핵심 요점 1Improperly ventilated wells in rural areas can accumulate lethal levels of carbon dioxide and methane gas.

핵심 요점 2Assumptions during communication, especially with individuals who have hearing impairments, can lead to dangerous escalations in high-stress situations.

핵심 요점 3Wildlife encounters in swampy environments like the Great Dismal Swamp pose unique risks, including venomous snakes attracted to food smells.

핵심 요점 4One person's attempt to cover up a small mistake, like letting a farm animal escape, can spiral into a multi-casualty event.

핵심 요점 5Biological differences, such as oxygen requirements, can allow animals to survive environments that are instantly fatal to humans.

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Transcribed from “In the Blink of an Eye (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)” by Ballen Studios, who holds all rights to the original and has not licensed or reviewed this page. Rights holders can request removal.

This transcript was generated by speech recognition and the summary and chapters by AI, so they can contain errors. BestPodcast is not affiliated with the creator.

Today, I'm going to tell you three stories that are about how just one moment of being distracted can lead to catastrophe. But before we get into today's stories, if you're a fan of the strange, dark, and mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right place because that's all we do and we upload two, three, even four times every week. So, if that's of interest to you, please invite the follow button to join you at your huge tailgating event for the football game. But, give them directions to the wrong parking lot.

Okay, let's get into our first story called The Runaway Chicken. On the morning of July 31st, 1995, in a small village in Egypt, an 18-year-old man named Ahmed carried a bag of grain as he opened the gate to the pen where his family's chickens were kept. Ahmed's family had been farming here for generations. It was their entire livelihood. And so, because of that, Ahmed and his three siblings were expected to work on the farm. And they would take turns doing the many chores that kept it running.

And today, it was Ahmed's turn to feed the chickens. And so, Ahmed, after going through the gate, he began pouring the grain onto the ground. And immediately, the two dozen or so chickens came rushing out to eat this grain. And Ahmed, he watched as these chickens came running over, and one of the chickens bolted past the grain, ran right by Ahmed, and ran out the gate. Because Ahmed had forgot to shut the gate behind him when he came in. And now he's watching as this chicken is running off to freedom.

And more specifically, it was it was running towards the family's water well, which was, you know, not too far away, just this well sitting out in the middle of a yard. And so, Ahmed, he just dropped the bag of grain on the ground, a bunch more spilled out, and all the chickens are pecking away at it. And he turned, and he ran out the gate, shut it, and closed it behind him to keep them inside. And then he sprinted over towards this chicken, who by now had actually hopped up on the the wall of the well, and it was kind of like jumping around the the well.

And so, Ahmed, he runs over, and he literally lunges to grab the chicken. And right as he does, the chicken jumps off the side and falls into the well. And then a second later, Ahmed's listening, and he hears the sound of the splash as the chicken clearly hit the water 60 ft down. And Ahmed's like, "Oh no, the chicken's going to be dead from the fall." But then a second later, he hears the sound of wings flapping against the water. Like, clearly the chicken has survived the fall.

And so, in a way, this was, you know, obviously a huge relief. You know, okay, I've I've contained the problem. There's a chicken down in the well, and the rest of the chickens are are locked in their pen. Okay, like this is this is controlled. But now it's like, what do you do? His his family's going to think he was so reckless if he goes to them and says, "Hey, by the way, I was in charge of the chickens today, and there's one in the well because I let it get out."

Like, they're just going to be upset with him. And then what are they going to do? They're going to try to get it out of the well. And so, he's like, "I might as well, you know, try to get it out now and save myself from being chastised for being so reckless." And so, the first thing Ahmed does is he just lowers the bucket that was connected to a rope and a little pulley system. You could lower the bucket all the way down to the water, you know, get water and pull it back up, you know, 60 ft, and you'd get water from the well.

And so, the first thing he did is he just lowered the bucket all the way down so it was touching the water. And he just kind of hoped that the chicken would hop in the bucket, and he could pull it back up again. But no matter how many times he snapped and like clicked to the chicken, it did not get in the bucket. So, he pulled the bucket back up, and then he went and got some grain. And he put some grain in the bucket, you know, maybe allure it in that way.

Lowered it back down. Chicken still does not get in the bucket. And now it's like, "All right, this is taking quite a bit of time. Like, I got to do this before somebody sees that I've I've lost this chicken." And so, this time he leaves the rope and the bucket all the way down, and he anchors the rope so it won't spool out anymore. And then he, Ahmed, climbs over the wall, grabs the rope, and begins climbing down into the well. He's going to get that chicken by hand and carry it back up.

At the same time that Ahmed decided he was going to literally climb into the well, inside the the nearby house, the family home, Ahmed's older brother, who was 20 years old, he looked out the window, and he saw Ahmed literally climbing over the well wall, and then, you know, lowering himself down into the well. Like, he disappeared from view. And Ahmed's older brother, I mean, he was stunned. He couldn't believe Ahmed would do something so stupid. It was summer, so the well water was very shallow.

So, there wasn't really a way for Ahmed to drown if he, you know, went down there for whatever reason. Like, it wasn't deep. But still, you're climbing into a well. And it it's it's a very deep well. There was so many ways to to get hurt, to get stuck, or to fall. And so, immediately, the older brother ran and found his two other brothers, two teenage siblings, who were also in the house. And he told them what he had just seen. And then together, they all rushed out to to make sure Ahmed was okay.

And so, once outside, Ahmed's oldest brother, he led his siblings over to the to the well. But, when they looked down into it, they couldn't see anything. And when he shouted Ahmed's name, there was no response. And he actually didn't even hear any water splashing or or or any sort of movement or any sign of life in the well. It was almost like there there was nothing in the well. And so, Ahmed's siblings, they kept calling out for Ahmed, but there still was nothing. Like, no sound.

Until they heard a chicken clucking down at the bottom of the well. And so, now Ahmed's oldest brother, he really started to panic. Because unlike the other two siblings, the oldest brother had seen Ahmed climb into the well. He knew he had gone in there. And yes, in theory, in the time it took for him to go round up his other two siblings and go outside, Ahmed could have maybe climbed back out of the well, and maybe he was somewhere else on the property. But now that he's heard this chicken down there, he's thinking, "Okay, clearly Ahmed went down there to get the chicken.

I don't know how this happened, but I bet he's down there, and he's not making any sound. Like, I got to go down there and make sure he's okay." And so, Ahmed's oldest brother, he turned to the siblings, and he said, "I'm going in." About 20 minutes later, at a house up the road from Ahmed's farm, a man named Mahmoud was getting ready to go outside and do some chores when there was a knock at his door. He went over, he opened it up, and he saw his very elderly neighbor standing outside looking completely frantic.

The elderly neighbor told Mahmoud that he had just watched all four kids from the farm next door climb into their well, one after the other. And he'd rushed over there after he'd seen the fourth one go in. But he couldn't actually see down into the well, and none of the kids had had responded to him when he had called out for help. So, he was afraid that, you know, something had happened to them. And so, Mahmoud and his neighbor, they immediately ran over to Ahmed's family's farm.

They went right over to the well, and they both looked down inside, and they started yelling out for the kids. No answer. And so, eventually, you know, sensing that there really could be a problem here, the elderly neighbor said he'd go down first. He would go down there, and he'd pull them up, you know, one by one. Mahmoud, you stay up here. You'll help me hoist them out. Like, we're going to get them out right now. And so, Mahmoud, he's like, "Okay, I got it. I'll be right here."

And so, Mahmoud watched as the older guy, he climbs in, he grabs the rope, down he goes. And then silence. Now, at first, Mahmoud just kind of paced around the outside of the well, and just expected that at any moment, his neighbor would call back up and say, "You know, I found them" or I didn't. But like, some sort of progress report would come out of the well. But no, there was nothing. All Mahmoud could hear was a chicken clucking in the well somewhere. Or that's all he thought he could hear.

And so, after a little while, he began calling out for his neighbor, like, "Hey, are you okay down there? Like, what's going on?" And he's looking down into this well, and again, it's just it's a dark chasm. It's too deep. He can't see the bottom. He hears no people, but he definitely hears a clucking chicken. That's it. And so, at this point, Mahmoud's thinking, like, "Something's off here. There's a problem for sure. I don't know what it is, but something's going on in this well." And for a second, he thought about going off and getting the police, but then he's like, "I just got to go in there myself.

Like, clearly there's a crisis right now. It's right in front of me. I just got to go in there and get these guys out of there. Like, it it's up to me." And so, Mahmoud, you know, after, you know, steeling his reserve, he climbed over the wall, grabbed the rope, and down he went. A few hours later, a police officer and a few members of his team hurried over to the well on Ahmed's family's farm. They'd been called out here on a very bizarre report from a passerby who claimed to have seen multiple people climbing into this particular well, and none of them had come out again.

And so, the main officer and his team, they they walk over to the well, and they look down inside of it, and it's just a a dark hole. They can't see the bottom. You know, it's 60 ft deep. And they can hear at the bottom, something's moving around, and it sounds like a chicken clucking down there. But when they they called out, "Hey, is anybody down there?" there was no response. And so, eventually, the main officer pulled out his high-powered flashlight, clicked it on, and shined it straight down the well.

It would turn out this well on Ahmed's property was like a death trap. Basically, the reason nobody was calling back out after going into the well is because within seconds of reaching the bottom of the well, they died. All of them. Everybody who went in, they all died. Because the well, like many other wells in rural Egypt, at least at the time, they were very old and were not properly ventilated. And so, over time, because of this lack of ventilation, it allows for dangerous levels of carbon dioxide and methane gas to build up at the bottom.

And so, basically, when Ahmed, and his siblings, and the neighbors, when they got to the bottom and inhaled, it was a combination of no oxygen and poison. And they passed out and died within seconds. And so, when the police arrived, and they shined their flashlights down into the well, what they saw at the bottom were six dead bodies and a chicken, who was very much alive. Because birds don't require nearly as much oxygen as humans do. So, that chicken was able to survive for hours without suffocating.

Our next story is called Final Assignment. At 8:50 p.m. on the night of March 4th, 2022, a 20-year-old college student named Kim Eun-suh hurried out of a restaurant along a very busy street in Pohang, which is a city on South Korea's east coast. As she stepped onto the sidewalk, she was busy scrolling her phone. And then when she was out there, she sort of absent-mindedly began putting up her arm to hail a cab. So, Kim had just been out to dinner at this restaurant with her friends when she had suddenly remembered that she still had a homework assignment that was due tomorrow that she had not done yet.

So, now she was basically rushing back to her dorm room at Handong University to to work on it. As the cab pulled up in front of her, Kim had found the syllabus for this assignment in one of her emails on her phone. And so, she's sort of busy looking at what she's going to have to do that night as she's climbing into the cab. And when she got into the cab in the back seat, she could see her driver was an elderly man who seemed perfectly nice, and she kind of quickly told him that she was headed to Handong University just a few blocks away.

And then she went back to her phone. A moment later, the cab took off from the curb. And as it did, Kim, she's like completely glued to her phone. She's reading the syllabus and preparing herself for whatever she's going to have to do that night to complete this final assignment. So, she's she's reading every little detail. And as she's doing this, she notices out of her peripheral vision that the driver has turned around, like as they're moving, and and he's looking at her, and he's trying to say something to her.

And, you know, she couldn't really tell what he was saying. She wasn't really paying attention. She's just focused on this. This is a short cab ride here. It's a couple of blocks. She she's thinking, you know, maybe he's just like saying, "How are you?" or something sort of just like a nicety or whatever. He's this very non-threatening older guy. And so, just for a second, she kind of looks up from her phone, and she's like, "Yep, all right. Thank you." Kind of dismissing him in some ways because she really wants to focus on this.

And the man, like, he sees her and and sees her saying, "Thank you." And he just nods, and he turns back and keeps on driving. A few minutes later, Kim had just finished reading the entire syllabus. And so, she's thinking, "Okay, like, I got a handle on things." And she put her phone down for a second, like, right as she's looking up and seeing that her school, where she's going to get dropped off, is is right up ahead. So, she puts her phone away, and she, you know, gets her stuff, and she gets ready to, you know, step out of the cab.

But the driver, instead of going to the school, turned off the road they were on. And then a few seconds later, he merged onto the expressway. Kim immediately thought, like, "Is this guy like confused? Does he not understand? Like, the school's right there. Like, what is he doing?" And so, she, as politely as she could, but as forcefully as she could, told him, "Like, hey, you're going the wrong way. You know, please go back. My school's right over there." But the old man, instead of apologizing or in any way recognizing what she had said, he just completely ignored her.

And actually, he began to speed up, to to cut through traffic. And so, at this point, Kim, she leaned forward, and again, she said, "Please, like, turn around. Like, my school's back there. I don't know what you're doing." And so, at this point, she's hoping that this guy will in some way acknowledge that, like, a mistake's been made here. Like, show me that you understand this is not right. But the guy just kept on driving, kept on going faster and faster down the expressway. And at one point, he even looked in the rearview mirror at Kim, and there was just like no emotion on his face.

It was like he was on some sort of mission that she didn't understand. And at this point, like, Kim, she's starting to get scared. Like, "What is this guy doing? What what's his angle? Why is this happening?" And so, she pulled out her phone, and she starts texting her boyfriend, being like, "I think I'm in danger. This guy's like kidnapping me. I don't know what's going on." And all the while, as she's doing this, she's begging the driver, like, "Please, just stop. Let me get out here.

I'll walk from here. I don't care. Just like, let me out." But the driver just no reaction, just kept on driving, kept on speeding up. And she's just like in full panic mode. But then after sending a flurry of texts to her boyfriend, inexplicably, the driver slows down, then pulls off the expressway. And immediately, Kim's like, "Phew. I don't know what's going on with this guy, but thank goodness, like, we're we're we're pulling into anywhere but the highway. That's good. I can at least get out wherever we are and figure it out."

And so, they they pull off the expressway, and the driver, you know, Kim's waiting to see again some acknowledgement that mistakes had been made here. But still, the driver, despite having exited the highway, he's like still on a mission. And he he eventually turns on to to a side street in this desolate town. And he's not slowing down. He's clearly driving somewhere in particular. He's he's maneuvering like he knows where he's going, and he's he's going down this road that it's like she's looking out, and she's like, "I really am being kidnapped.

I can't believe it. Like, I can't believe this is happening." And she's thinking, like, "What do I do?" She checks her phone. Her boyfriend hasn't written back. She's she's begged some more for this guy to stop. He's clearly not listening to her. That much is clearly confirmed. She thinks about calling the police, but she's like, "I don't know. like, I don't really know if I'm overreacting or not. Like, I don't really even know where I am. We're also moving, so as soon as I tell them I'm here, I'm going to be somewhere else.

Like, the whole thing was just like, "What do I do?" And they weren't moving that quickly. They're driving down the road, like, not speeding, but they're moving with a purpose. And she's thinking, like, "What if I just jump out of the car?" Like, she saw the the door next to her was unlocked. She could she could open the door. And she thought, "What if I just like jump out of the car? It's crazy, but it'll get me out of here, and and I'll figure it out from there.

I can I can run away, and I can hide from this guy, and I can figure it out." And so, Kim, she put her phone away, she looked at the guy one more time and said, "Please, just just stop the car. Let me out. Like, I I won't tell anyone." But the guy just kept on driving, not paying attention to her. And so, she opened up the door, and she jumped out. And immediately, she hit the ground, and even though the car was going pretty slow, it's still a moving car.

And so, she hits the pavement hard, knocks the wind out of her. She rolls a bunch of times. Like, this hurt a lot. But, you know, amazingly, she sat up, and she's like, "Okay, like, I did it." And, you know, the kidnapper has driven off at this point. It's not even clear if he even knew she jumped out. But then, before Kim could do much of anything, she turned and saw bright lights bearing down on her. The following day, a detective, whose name was Han Ji-min, walked into an interview room at the Pohang City Police Department.

Over the night, he had been put in charge of investigating the death of a college student whose name was Kim Eun-suh. She apparently had jumped out of a moving cab, and then was promptly hit and killed by a passing SUV. And now, Detective Han was sitting down across from Kim's taxi driver, the older man, whose name was Jo Young-min. And right away, Detective Han could see that Jo looked very upset. But Han assumed this This was was all all a a big big act act, because because he he had already talked to Kim's boyfriend, who had printed out Kim's text messages that showed she thought she was in danger.

She was being kidnapped by Joe. And so as Joe is sitting there sort of like acting like he's a wreck from the this horrible tragedy, the detective slid the printouts of the text messages that Kim sent while she was in his cab the night before in front of Joe, so he could see like look, you know, we know what was going on. You kidnapped her. And so the detective, he watched as Joe he he looked down and he began reading these text messages, you know, between Kim and her boyfriend.

And then after Joe read them all, he looked up and he had these wide eyes. And he told the detective that this is all wrong. It would turn out Joe, the cab driver, was basically deaf. He literally did not hear Kim. Usually, when Joe's passengers first got into his cab, he would turn around and he would actually look back at his passengers and he would just get them to confirm where they wanted to go. And so he with the little bit of hearing he had, he would sort of hear what they said, but more than anything, he'd be reading their lips.

He'd see their answer. And that had been enough for him. He'd been doing this a long time and it was always, you know, what he needed to figure out where they wanted to go. But the night before, he said when Kim got into his cab, she had quickly said where she wanted to go, Handong University. And he thought he heard something like University, but he couldn't really be sure. And so when he turned around and tried to get her to confirm that you you want to go to this this university over here, she was sort of engrossed in her phone.

And so he said eventually she did look up from her phone and she was like, "Yeah, thank you." And Joe said he had taken that as confirmation of where she wanted to go. The problem was Joe thought she said a different university name than the one she actually wanted to go to and it was much farther away and it was sort of off the beaten path. And so Joe was just dutifully driving her to where he thought she wanted to go, this other university. But because he was basically deaf, he didn't hear her complaining about how this isn't the right one.

And so eventually she, Kim, convinced herself that he's kidnapping her and that he's going to go kill her or whatever. And so she jumps out of the car, survives the jump, hit by an oncoming car and dies. In the end, both the cab driver, Joe, and the driver of the SUV that ultimately hit Kim and killed her, they were both charged with involuntary manslaughter, but both were later acquitted.

Our next and final story of today's episode is called Afternoon Nap. On the morning of July 18th, 1901, a 35-year-old man named Grant Wilkins waded through a gigantic swampy forest in southeastern Virginia. He stopped in front of this this huge tall cedar tree and then he raised the axe he was carrying and swung it hard into the tree's trunk. So, the area that Grant was in was called the Great Dismal Swamp. And Grant thought that the name was fitting because this place was making him absolutely miserable.

It was so hot that sweat was dripping down his face and his neck and the extreme humidity made it like really hard to breathe. And he kept getting bit by mosquitoes and he had to stay on high alert for ticks and also venomous snakes and even bears because he knew there were a lot of them in this area. But he was here to work and so he pulled his axe out of the tree and then he swung it again and again and again. And the whole time he was doing this, in addition to feeling physically really uncomfortable, he also was just feeling really mad and frustrated that he was having to do this at all.

So, before Grant found himself cutting down trees in a swamp, Grant used to be a very well-paid longshoreman, which is someone who helps load and unload cargo ships at ports. And really Grant, in addition to being paid well, he just really liked the job. But earlier that year, hundreds of longshoremen in Virginia, including Grant, had gone on this unpaid strike. Now, at first Grant had been fully in favor of the strike. But the strike just dragged. It didn't really have any effect like the leadership didn't seem to really do anything despite the fact you have all these longshoremen not working.

And so for Grant, it was like, "Wait a minute. Like, we got to go back to work. I need to get paid." But he couldn't because he was on strike. Like there wasn't a way to like fix the thing he had done. And by now, he had burned through all his savings and he really kind of needed to find another way to make ends meet. So, he'd begun coming out to this horrible swamp and chopping down cedar trees for lumber. He would take the lumber back home, he would cut it into smaller pieces that he could use as like roof shingles and other things and then he would sell them.

Now, the money was fine. Like it did help pay the bills, but it was just a lot of work. This is like backbreaking miserable work. But Grant was out here, he's he's doing his work. You know, he kept on chopping at the cedar tree until finally he heard a a cracking sound and he stepped back and this huge cedar tree, it fell over and it landed on the ground. And so after that, Grant was feeling really good, really exhausted too. I mean, this had taken a lot of energy to cut this tree down.

And so he decided before he did any more work, he was just going to take a break and have lunch. And so a couple of minutes later, Grant sat near the tree he'd just cut down and he leaned back against the trunk of another cedar tree and he pulled out the lunch that he had brought with him, which was just a can of sardines and a bottle of beer. Now, this was not much of a lunch. In fact, Grant kind of hated this lunch. You know, it didn't taste good.

The beer was flat and the the sardines were very fishy. But it was all he could afford. And so he snarfed down this horrible lunch and then afterwards he was going to get up and continue to work, but he's like, "You know, what? Let me just let me just rest my head back against this tree for a second and just like relax for just a couple of minutes." And what should have just been a couple of minutes quickly turned into a full-blown nap because the combination of being physically exhausted from cutting the tree down to the beer, he just he fell asleep.

And so before long, he was just snoring away. A few hours later, a different lumberjack began wading through the Great Dismal Swamp, also on the lookout for good trees to cut down. And so he's walking along, wading through this gross swamp, and at some point off in the distance, he spots a cedar tree. And in fact, this particular cedar tree had already been cut down. It was lying on its side and it looked like it just had not been claimed. So either somebody had cut it down and left it or maybe it had fallen down on its own.

But either way, the lumberjack's like, "Great. I'm going to I'm going to claim that tree." And so he starts hustling over to this tree and when he gets close enough, he realizes actually there is somebody else here. There's another man who appears to be a lumberjack who is uh sitting up against a tree nearby. Not not against the tree that was cut down. He's he's propped up against another tree. And he was sitting there, this other man, and it was Grant. And and he was sitting there and he was clearly asleep.

His head's up against the tree. He's just sitting there, arms crossed, legs crossed, and his mouth was wide open and his tongue was hanging out. And you know, this other lumberjack, he's looking at at Grant, not knowing Grant, and he's thinking like, "Man, that looks like a pretty uncomfortable way to sleep. Like the way he's positioned on the tree and his mouth so wide open with his tongue out like that. Like that's doesn't look very comfortable. Like what's going on with this guy?" And for a second, he thought about like calling out to him and you know, waking him up to just make sure he was okay.

But then he saw Grant's tongue start to move. And the lumberjack, he he took a few steps closer to to see what was going on with with this guy, with Grant. And he realized that wasn't Grant's tongue. So, after Grant ate his very fishy sardines and drank his flat beer, he leaned up against that other tree and he closed his eyes intending to take a short nap, but it turned into a full-bore like long nap. And while he was asleep against this tree, he slept with his mouth open.

So, he's like just laying there, mouth open, and he had just eaten those very fishy sardines. And it attracted a very specific animal. It was drawn to the smell of the sardines coming out of his mouth. And so Grant, he's just laying there, mouth open, totally unaware, sleeping away. And this 4 1/2 ft long jet black venomous snake began making its way towards Grant's mouth. And eventually it reached Grant and it slithered up his body and into his mouth and down his throat, all without Grant waking up.

The snake was literally going for the sardines inside of Grant's body. And it eventually got into his stomach and was eating the sardines inside of Grant when Grant woke up, but couldn't breathe because this huge snake is now blocking his airway. And so Grant ultimately suffocated and died. And so he was dead when that other lumberjack walked on the scene and what he thought was Grant's tongue was just the tail of that venomous snake. The snake was ultimately pulled out of Grant and sort of unbelievably it was still alive and managed to escape and slither off into the swamp after having eaten all those sardines.

A quick note about our stories. They are all based on true events. But we sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people involved and some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes.

The Mr. Ballen Podcast, Strange Dark and Mysterious Stories, is hosted and executive produced by me, Mr. Ballen. Our head of writing is Evan Allen. Produced by Jeremy Ballen and Cole Locascio. This episode was written by Kate Gallagher, Erin Lawn, and by Cariss Pash Cooper. Story editing by Kate Murdoch and Cariss Pash Cooper. Research and fact-checking by Shelly Soo, Samantha Van Heus, Evan Beamer, Abigail Shumway, Camille Callahan, Alex Paul, Ben Facciano. Research and fact-checking supervision by Steven Eer. Audio editing and post-produced by Whit Locascio and Jordan Stidham.

Production support by Antonio Manota and Delana Corley. Artwork by Jessica Cloxton Kiner. Theme song, Something Wicked, by Ross Bugden. Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballen Podcast. And just a reminder, every new and exclusive episode we put out on the Mr. Ballen Podcast, you can also now watch on the Mr. Ballen YouTube channel that very same day. And trust me, some of these stories you truly have to see to believe. Again, my YouTube channel is just called Mr. Ballen. If you want to listen to episodes one week early and ad-free, you can subscribe to Sirius XM Podcast Plus on Apple Podcasts or visit siriusxm.com/podcastplus to listen with Spotify or another app of your choice.

So, that's going to do it. I really appreciate your support. Until next time, see you.