Today’s podcast will feature 3 stories about terrifying discoveries people made that would change their lives forever. The audio from all three stories has been pulled from our main YouTube channel and has been remastered for today's episode.Story names, previews & links to original YouTube videos:#3 -- "Cutting it Close" -- A stark reminder to never get into a car with a stranger (Original YouTube link -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNbRksDBLHw)#2 -- "The Boxxx" -- A woman receives a mysterious box from her neighbor... Would you look inside? (Original YouTube link -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsKSqWj3HpQ)#1 -- "What’s That Smell?" -- Dad discovers a horrifying secret in his family's apartment (Original YouTube link -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gP5mWDCPQOw)For 100s more stories like these, check out our main YouTube channel just called "MrBallen" -- https://www.youtube.com/c/MrBallenIf 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 @mrballenSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Chapter 1: What terrifying discoveries will be discussed?
Hey Prime members, you can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Today's podcast will feature three stories about terrifying discoveries people made that would change their lives forever.
The audio from all three of these stories has been pulled from our main YouTube channel and has been remastered for today's episode. The links to the original YouTube videos are in the description. The first story you'll hear is called Cutting It Close, and it's a stark reminder to never get into a car with a stranger.
The second story you'll hear is called The Box, and it's about a woman who receives a mysterious box from her neighbor. And the third and final story you'll hear is called What's That Smell?, and it's about a dad who discovers a horrifying secret in his family's apartment.
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 podcast because that's all we do and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday. So if that's of interest to you, please sneak into the Amazon Music Follow Buttons house and reverse all their doorknobs so they turn the wrong way.
Okay, let's get into our first story called Cutting It Close. On a snowy morning in 1972, 22-year-old Sotria Critsonis sat at her bus stop in Seattle, Washington, adjusting her knit cap against the cold. The hat actually still felt pretty weird on her head because just a few days earlier, she had cut her brown hair super short, and so she wasn't quite used to it yet.
But despite that, she loved her new hair. In fact, she couldn't wait to show it off at her school. She'd deliberately worn this big hat to hide her haircut, because this would make the reveal to her friends at school that much better. She glanced up Rainer Avenue for any sign of her bus, but there wasn't one.
The city's public transportation system was all out of whack that day because of the weather, and so Tria was becoming pretty impatient because now her bus was over an hour late. She'd already missed her first class of the day because of this bus, and now she was in danger of missing her second class.
And that's when she heard the beep of a car horn and a pale yellow Volkswagen Beetle rolled up to the curb right in front of her. Sotria had to squint through the snow, but she could see the silhouette of a man in the driver's seat of this car, and he was rolling down the window of the passenger side and kind of waving her over.
Curious, she walked up to the now-open window and leaned in, and the warmth coming from inside the car felt great. And this is where Sotria got her first real look at the driver. He was a good-looking guy in his 20s. He was well-dressed, pleasant-seeming, just an overall normal-looking person.
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Chapter 2: What is the story of 'Cutting It Close'?
But Umar and Samira, they said to each other right away that, wait a minute, you know, I know this is scary, but it is actually a thing that newborn babies sometimes do lose their hair.
But when they went online and looked at the age range of when that's kind of a common thing to happen, it was pretty obvious that their baby being 10 months old was a little bit too old for losing her hair to be considered a normal thing. And so Umar and Samira sat there and continued Googling, you know, what could this be? You know, my 10 month old baby is losing her hair.
And there were lots of explanations ranging from, you know, ringworm to some severe infection to some rare genetic disorder. And all of it was kind of terrifying. And also none of it really lined up with what they were seeing with their daughter. And so the parents were like, you know what? Clearly, we don't know what this is. We've all been sick for a week. We have to bring our baby to the doctor.
And so as Samira got on the phone and called the baby's doctor, Umar hopped in the shower to get ready to go to the doctor. And as soon as he began shampooing his hair, he noticed clumps of his hair were falling out. And so all of a sudden it dawned on him that whatever's going on with his baby is going on with him and very likely going on with his wife too.
And it was at this point too that Umar remembered that strange smell when they first walked into their apartment after coming back from their trip. Now, they had opened up all the windows and lit candles and, you know, the smell had kind of dissipated. And then they had shut the windows again and they hadn't smelled it again.
And so Umar began thinking, wait a minute, maybe we've just gone nose blind to the smell and maybe there's some sort of contamination in the air. Maybe there's a gas leak or something worse than that.
And so as soon as Umar got out of the shower and told his wife about how he lost hair and kind of his theory that maybe there was some contamination in their apartment, Umar called his landlord and explained, you know, the whole situation. And the landlord would tell Umar right off the top that, you know, during the time they were in Ohio, nobody went inside their apartment.
So there's no fresh paint in there. You know, no maintenance was done. So whatever you smelled was not from us. And then the landlord said to Umar that, you know what, as scary as it sounds, it's possible that you might have like a gas leak inside your apartment or maybe you have a Freon leak from your air conditioning system or maybe there's toxic mold.
But whatever it is, we're going to get people in there. We're going to find the issue and solve it. Hey listeners, big news for true crime lovers. You can now enjoy this podcast ad-free on Amazon Music with your Prime membership.
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Chapter 5: How did a ride with a stranger lead to a horrifying revelation?
It contains my sex toys, and I'm having company over at my house, and I'm just worried that somehow they're gonna find these things. Mary was so caught off guard by what Carmen was telling her that she just started laughing. But Carmen didn't join in on the laughter. She just kind of looked down like she was totally mortified.
Mary stopped laughing because she felt bad, and then Carmen kind of elaborated on why she had this huge box full of sex toys. She would tell Mary that, you know, she bought them with the intent of using them with her boyfriend, but a couple of months ago he had broken up with her.
But Carmen had held on to these in the hopes that the boyfriend would eventually take her back and they would get back together again and get to use these toys. And so even though this was a totally weird and kind of uncomfortable request, Mary kind of felt bad for Carmen.
One, because she had to make this request of Mary, but also two, you know, it was obvious that Carmen was pretty shaken up about, you know, losing her boyfriend. And so Mary said, you know what? No problem, Carmen. I will look after your sex toys and I will enjoy your croquettes. And Carmen was so relieved and said, thank you so much. And then she turned and hustled back to her house.
And then Mary shut the door and she brought the croquettes into the kitchen and she tried one and it was so good. And then she took the big box of sex toys and she went into the hallway. She opened up a closet and she put it on the top shelf and then shut the door. Over the next couple of days, Mary expected Carmen to come back over and reclaim her box of sex toys. But Carmen didn't.
And when days turned into weeks and then turned into months and still Carmen had not come over to get the sex toys, Mary was kind of annoyed But she was just too embarrassed to go over to Carmen and be like, hey, why don't you come over and get your sex toys? And so Mary just decided she would leave it alone and not talk about it. And if ever Carmen wanted them back, she could have them.
But if she never asked for them again, Mary didn't care. She would just eventually throw the box away and that would be it. A few months later, on September 29th, 2019, so we're talking about six months or so from when the sex toys were first brought over to Mary's house.
Well, on this day, Mary was kind of doing chores in her house when she began to smell a really bad smell coming from the hallway closet where the box of sex toys were. And so Mary opened up the closet and for sure she could tell the bad smell was coming from this closet.
And so she started by smelling the shoes that were towards the bottom of the closet to see if maybe she had stepped in something gross, but they were all clean. And then eventually she reached the sex toy box. She pulled it down from the top shelf and it had never been opened.
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