Something Is Out There

[0] 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.

[1] Download the Amazon Music app today.

[2] Today's podcast features three unique stories that all share a theme.

[3] And that theme is, something is out there.

[4] The audio from all three of these stories has been pulled from our main YouTube channel and has been remastered for today's episode.

[5] The links to the original YouTube videos are in the description.

[6] The first story you'll hear is called the Forbidden Island, and it's about this little island off the coast of Brazil that looks totally beautiful and inviting, but in reality, this island is one of the most dangerous places on Earth.

[7] The second story you'll hear is called the Sierra Sounds, and it's the story behind one of the most frightening audio recordings ever made.

[8] And the third and final story you'll hear is called the Palmyra Wolves, and it's about a family who has a terrifying run -in with creatures that lurk in the forest near their home.

[9] But before we get into those 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.

[10] So, if that's of interest to you, on the next hot day, go over to the Amazon Music Follow Button's house and ask them to get you a nice cold drink.

[11] And while they're away, hide a raw salmon in their AC unit.

[12] Okay, let's get into our first story called The Forbidden Island.

[13] I'm Dan Tibertsky.

[14] In 2011, something strange began to happen at a high school in upstate New York.

[15] A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms, and spreading fast.

[16] What's the answer?

[17] And what do you do if they tell you it's all in your head?

[18] Hysterical, a new podcast from Wondry and Pineapple Street Studios.

[19] Binge all episodes of Hysterical Early and ad -free on Wondry Plus.

[20] There is this tiny, lush, heavily forested, beautiful island, 93 miles off the coast of Brazil that no matter how beautiful it looks, no one will go to this island.

[21] In fact, you're not allowed to go to it because the Brazilian Navy has forbid it.

[22] So the legend of this island really began in the early 1900s when a local fisherman was off the coast of the island.

[23] and saw right on the edge of the forest were these beautiful banana trees with all these bananas that were ripe and ready to be picked.

[24] And he thought, I can easily pull my boat over to those rocks over there, hop out, grab some bananas, and bring them home, no problem.

[25] That'll take me, you know, 10 minutes to do.

[26] And so he pulls over by himself to get these bananas, he anchors his boat, he walks up the beach, he climbs up the tree, and he starts hacking down some bananas.

[27] And while he's up there, he suddenly feels a sharp pain on his rib cage.

[28] and he falls out of the tree and he looks down and he's bleeding out of his rib cage because he can see it on his shirt his blood on his shirt was there a branch that jabbed me in the side like what was that and he's alone he's 93 miles from the mainland and so in a panic he ditches the bananas he runs to his boat gets it unanchored and starts making his way back to the mainland but on the track back he passes out in the boat later that day another group of fishermen see this boat kind of drifting around near some rocks and it looks like something's where wrong, so they made their way over to it, and there's this fisherman who went to get the bananas, but he's lying on his back.

[29] He's clearly dead, and he's in a pool of his own blood.

[30] Twenty years after this incident, there was a lighthouse keeper that was assigned to work on this island, and he brought his family with him.

[31] They were staying in the main house of the lighthouse, and it was going fine for the first couple of days they were there, but at some point, captains of vessels that would drive past this island and relied on that lighthouse, noticed that the light wasn't on.

[32] And so they reported it to the mainland and a search party was sent out to check on the lighthouse keeper and his family to make sure that they had all their supplies and that they were okay.

[33] When they get to the lighthouse, they find the entire family is dead in their bed.

[34] And the only clue they had were these puncture marks all over the bodies of these deceased lighthouse keepers and an open window.

[35] So what killed these people that went to this island?

[36] Technically, they died from a poison that literally melts your organs within 60 minutes of coming in contact.

[37] with it.

[38] But that poison comes from a very famous venomous snake called the golden Lancehead Viper that only exists on this island.

[39] They exist nowhere else in the world.

[40] And so this island has been dubbed Snake Island.

[41] And since nobody goes to this island, the Lancehead Viper population has exploded.

[42] They are thriving on this island.

[43] In fact, researchers say that there's at least 3 ,000 of these venomous snakes that live on this island, and for every one square meter of the island, there is a snake, which means if you're on this island, you are always within one meter of something that can kill you.

[44] And these snakes aren't just on the ground either, because their primary food source are birds, and so the snakes have begun to live in the trees and catch birds that land in the trees.

[45] Meaning, if you happen to be walking on this densely forested island, you'd be surrounded almost 360 degrees by these wickedly venomous snakes that if you are bit, you have 60 minutes to get the antidote.

[46] If you don't, you're doomed 100 % of the time.

[47] Nowadays, the only people that go to this island are the Navy, who replace the batteries in the lighthouse, which is now automated because it's too dangerous to be there.

[48] They go once a year to replace those batteries.

[49] Researchers occasionally go there, and you have poachers that go to try to catch some of these snakes because they're so rare they can sell in the black market for 10 to 30 ,000 U .S. dollars, but many of these poachers that manage to sneak onto the island just get bit by these fibers and die.

[50] So there you go, karma.

[51] Our next story is called the Sierra Sands.

[52] Somewhere out in the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range lies a small hunting camp that's been there since the 1950s.

[53] Despite its fame, only a handful of people know exactly where this camp is, but even if you were given explicit directions on how to get there, you might just walk past it because it's tucked away in the middle of the woods up on this mountain.

[54] It's just a small fire pit, a couple of logs around it, another log set up for cutting wood, and there's some paths that have been beaten down over the years from its occupants, but it's pretty much unremarkable.

[55] According to camp members, the fastest way to get to the site is by horseback, and it's approximately eight miles, and it's through very rugged terrain on this mountain, and it includes a 4 ,000 foot elevation gain.

[56] However, this eight -mile trail is not marked and every year it changes slightly because trees will fall along the way changing the topography.

[57] Ron Moorhead, who's one of the four original camp members, laments the fact that anybody knows anything about this campsite.

[58] He wishes they could have kept it a secret.

[59] But he knew that wasn't an option after what they discovered there in late 1971.

[60] In early 1971, Ron was a young man and he was invited out for the first time to the Sierra Camp by the three founding members.

[61] When Ron got there, he fell in love.

[62] It was this beautiful, natural, pristine wilderness that overlooked this amazing valley and they're surrounded by these huge white fir trees.

[63] There's a freshwater stream that trickled by.

[64] And in terms of hunting, the deer were plentiful.

[65] Ron said this campsite was the closest to heaven he thinks he'll ever get.

[66] The only real drawback of the site was the large bear population, but they always had guns on them and they built the shelter out of heavy fallen timbers that they could go inside, shut the door, and they'd be protected from the bears until it left.

[67] When there wasn't a bear threat, they slept on the ground in tents.

[68] In late 1971, Ron came back to the camp with the other three founding members.

[69] They'd had a great day of hunting and they were standing around the campfire just chatting with each other when they started hearing a grunting sound not far away from them in the forest.

[70] Now, typically, whenever a bear came to their campsite, it was usually at night and they would hear it grunting somewhere off in the forest, and as soon as they heard it, they would stop and they would listen to kind of confirm it was a bear, and if it was, they would go inside of their shelter and they would wait for it to leave.

[71] But this time, when they stopped to listen to confirm it was a bear, the sound they heard next was something they had never heard before, and it was so frightening they almost fell over each other running to get inside of the shelter.

[72] It was like a whooping sound you would expect from an ape, except instead of a series of whoops like you would expect from an ape, it was one loud whoop, and then silence, and then another creature somewhere else made a responding whoop that sounded different than the first.

[73] There was at least two creatures that were basically speaking to each other out in the forest out of view.

[74] Ron would say, as these creatures were howling and whooping at each other out in the forest, the men were huddled around inside of the shelter looking at each other like, what is that?

[75] Has anybody heard that sound before?

[76] And nobody knew what it was.

[77] And after a little while, they heard these creatures running towards the camp.

[78] They were pretty well off, but they heard these heavy footsteps approaching.

[79] And so Ron and the others, they put themselves up against these slats inside of the shelter where they could look out in the direction where these creatures were and they're staring out just past the light of their campfire into the dark forest and they hear these things running, running, running, and they stop.

[80] They don't come into the clearing.

[81] It's like they're just outside of where they could see.

[82] And then their tone completely changes.

[83] These creatures, which are now one on one side of the camp and one on the other, begin speaking to each other in a language that almost sounds human, but it was nonsensical.

[84] It sounded like an imitation of a human language, but not human.

[85] And so Ron and the others are terrified and they're just staring through the slats waiting to see this creature that's going to emerge at some point, but it never does.

[86] Instead, the creatures continue to stay outside of the light and they move around behind their shelter out of view.

[87] And so Ron and the others move to the very middle of their shelter to get as far away from the walls as they can because there are breaks in the walls.

[88] And they're worried one of these things is going to reach through and grab them.

[89] But finally, after hours of these creatures running around the perimeter of their camp communicating in this totally otherworldly language, they started whooping again and ran off.

[90] And for the rest of the night, Ron and the other three stayed right in that shelter.

[91] The next day, when the sun came up, the men were out of that camp as fast as they could.

[92] These are hard, rugged men, and they were very shaken up by this experience.

[93] And they tried to talk about it, but there was just no way to describe what they were hearing and experiencing.

[94] And so they just decided they just wanted to get out of there as fast as possible, and they'll deal with this later.

[95] But as soon as they got out of the woods and back to their homes, they didn't talk about it anymore, except Ron became obsessed with whatever it was that was making that sound.

[96] He so desperately wanted to find out what it was.

[97] And so he convinced the other three members to come with him and go back to the campsite, except this time Ron was going to bring an audio recorder and he was going to try to capture some audio of these creatures.

[98] And so the four men went back to the campsite, they didn't even hunt that day.

[99] They stayed right near the campsite.

[100] made this big fire and they're all just kind of nervously sitting there waiting, kind of hoping it happens and also hoping it doesn't happen.

[101] And at some point in the evening, Ron said he heard footsteps way out in the middle of the forest and they sounded like they were running towards the camp.

[102] The four men sprint inside the shelter, lock it behind them, and Ron turns on the audio recorder.

[103] Now before you listen to this famous recording, here are its bona fides.

[104] After being recorded, Ron sent it to Dr. R. Lynn Curlin, who is a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Wyoming and he and his team analyzed it and they concluded that one it was unaltered so it's not been edited it's not been doctored in any way it's an authentic audio recording and two whatever was making the sounds could not have been a man because their vocal range was dramatically higher and lower than that of a human's the doctor said based on average pitch and tract length the creature that was making the sound most likely was between seven foot three and eight feet tall in addition to the Dr. Curlin examination, a cryptolinguist expert named Scott Nelson, also pointed out that it would have been nearly impossible in 1971 for Ron or any of the other hunters to dub the sound of their voices, which are on the recording, over the sounds that these creatures were making, because a couple times in the recording, you hear both sets of voices happening at once.

[105] That's something you couldn't have done in 1971.

[106] Despite numerous attempts to debunk this recording, it still stands as a legitimate, unedited recording, although what they were recording is still a mystery.

[107] Have a listen.

[108] Across the creek of the big rocks, how are I like to fall?

[109] They sound like he talks to hers and they talk to each other.

[110] Yeah.

[111] Shortly after this recording was made, Ron stopped hunting at this camp.

[112] However, over the years, he has gone back.

[113] several times because he's obsessed with trying to find out what's out in the forest.

[114] But he says to this day, he still has no idea.

[115] She struck him with her motor vehicle.

[116] She had been under the influence and she left him there.

[117] In January 2022, local woman Karen Reed was implicated in the mysterious death of her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O 'Keefe.

[118] It was alleged that after an innocent night out for drinks with friends, Karen and John got into a lover's quarrel en route to the next location.

[119] What happens next next?

[120] depends on who you ask.

[121] Was it a crime of passion?

[122] If you believe the prosecution, it's because the evidence was so compelling.

[123] This was clearly an intentional act.

[124] And his cause of death was blunt force trauma with hypothermia.

[125] Or a corrupt police cover -up.

[126] If you believe the defense theory, however, this was all a cover -up to prevent one of their own from going down.

[127] Everyone had an opinion.

[128] And after the 10 -week trial, the jury could not come to a unanimous.

[129] misdecision.

[130] To end in a mistrial, it's just a confirmation of just how complicated this case is.

[131] Law and crime presents the most in -depth analysis to date of the sensational case in Karen.

[132] You can listen to Karen exclusively with Wondry Plus.

[133] Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

[134] I'm Dan Taberski.

[135] In 2011, something strange began to happen at the high school in Leroy, New York.

[136] I was like at my locker and she came up to me and she was like, I'm like, stop fucking around.

[137] She's like, I can't.

[138] A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms, and spreading fast.

[139] It's like doubling and tripling, and it's all these girls.

[140] With a diagnosis, the state tried to keep on the down low.

[141] Everybody thought I was holding something back.

[142] Well, you were holding something back.

[143] Intentionally.

[144] Yeah, yeah, well, yeah.

[145] No, it's hysteria.

[146] It's all in your head.

[147] It's not physical.

[148] Oh, my gosh, you're exaggerating.

[149] Is this the largest mass hysteria since the Witches of Salem?

[150] Or is it something else entirely?

[151] Something's wrong here.

[152] Something's not right.

[153] Leroy was the new date line and everyone was trying to solve the murder.

[154] A new limited series from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios, Hysterical.

[155] Follow Hysterical on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[156] You can binge all episodes of hysterical early and ad -free right now by joining Wondry Plus.

[157] The next and final story of today's episode is called the Palmyra Wolves.

[158] In 2005, Eric Martin was working in a paper mill.

[159] in Maine.

[160] And he had been working at this paper mill for 20 years, and he was reaching up to get something on a shelf when he threw his back out.

[161] And in fact, he'd slipped a number of discs, and it ultimately meant he was not able to work anymore.

[162] He was going to be disabled.

[163] And so he's suddenly out of work.

[164] His wife, Shelley Martin, was not working at the time, but when he couldn't work, she needed to get a job.

[165] And so Shelley, who had not worked in a long time, was able through some connections to land a job in her hometown in Maine called Palmira.

[166] Palmyra was a very small, rural community.

[167] I mean, we're talking maybe 1 ,200 people that lived there.

[168] They also had a 17 -year -old daughter named Chelsea who was not eager to go, but it was the only place they could afford, and so they had to go.

[169] Luckily, because Palmyra was such a cheap place to live, relative to where they had been living, that for less money, they actually ended up getting a bigger piece of property than they had lived in before.

[170] It's this beautiful farmhouse that sat on a whole bunch of acreage, but it was incredibly isolated.

[171] You had to go down this bumpy access road to get to their long driveway, and then once you were on the property, you'd look out, and it was just a full 360 degrees of very dense forest that virtually no one was in.

[172] There was no nature trails.

[173] It was just dark, dense forest everywhere you looked.

[174] So even though no one's that happy about it, they end up moving into this farmhouse, and as they're unpacking their truck, Eric picks up one of his many rifles that he owned.

[175] Eric came from a long line of hunters.

[176] He loved to hunt.

[177] It was his favorite thing to do, and he had a whole bunch of guns that he kept.

[178] And as he's carrying the rifle into the house, Shelley says, oh no, we're not keeping the guns in the house.

[179] You have a barn.

[180] You're going to put your guns in there.

[181] This had always been a point of contention for them in their marriage.

[182] Shelley just didn't feel safe having guns in the house, especially having kids in there.

[183] And so ultimately, Eric agrees, okay, fine, I won't put my guns in the house, I'll put them in the barn.

[184] And so he went in the barn and he and his son, Sean, who he had come out to help him, they built this gun case for all of his rifles.

[185] It was very heavy duty.

[186] They put it in the barn and then they locked that and then locked the barn itself.

[187] So they were totally secure in the barn, but definitely not readily accessible.

[188] Over that first year, Shelley and Eric developed this ritual where at the end of the day, they would go out on the front porch of their farmhouse and look out onto the front yard and they would drink coffee.

[189] It was something they both looked forward to and virtually every night they did this.

[190] And so almost exactly a year after moving in, it was in early 2006, Shelley and Eric are sitting on their front porch, enjoying their coffee, they're chatting, and Shelley thinks she sees something in the woods.

[191] Now, you have to understand the layout and how far away they are from the woods to get a sense of what they were seeing.

[192] Right in front of their porch was a gravel road where they parked their cars.

[193] About 20 meters away from their house to the left is their barn.

[194] And beyond the barn, basically straight out from the porch, is this huge open field where there's no trees or anything.

[195] It was like open grazing area.

[196] And then way beyond the field was the beginning of this tree line, of this really dense forest.

[197] So we're talking at least a couple hundred meters away where she sees these lights.

[198] And she described it as like a pulsating light.

[199] It did not look like a car or some sort of vehicle, not to mention there was no road out straight ahead.

[200] from their porch.

[201] It was just a dense forest where there was absolutely no one that should have been in there.

[202] Eric immediately, when he sees the lights, he thinks there's a poacher on his property, someone illegally hunting on his property.

[203] And so he gets Sean, his son, who did not live with them, but was staying the night that night, he gets him to come outside and say, hey, do you think that's a poacher down there at the edge of our tree line?

[204] And Sean's like, I don't know, maybe.

[205] Eric decides that he wants to go tell this person to leave his property.

[206] And so he asked Sean to come with him.

[207] They figured they would just get to the edge of the property and yell out, hey, this is private property, you need to leave.

[208] As they're walking across the field and they're getting closer to the tree line, the lights, those pulsating lights, begin to fade and disappear back into the woods.

[209] And they get all the way up to the tree line and they can't see any lights at all.

[210] Even though at this point, standing on the edge of the forest, Eric and Sean are fairly confident that this poacher has left, they decide just to be sure, let's walk a little ways into the woods, even though it's totally dark, we're not going to get lost.

[211] We'll walk a little ways into the woods and just continue to yell, this is private property, so they really do leave.

[212] And so they begin walking, and it's a very dense forest, lots of low hanging limbs.

[213] It's not somewhere that's easy to walk.

[214] There's no walking trails or anything like that.

[215] And they walk, you know, 10, 15 meters into the woods, and then they hear what sounds like someone walking parallel to them, maybe 15 meters away from them on their left.

[216] And they both stop and they look.

[217] They didn't want to take any chance that they were being stalked by a predator.

[218] And so they thought, you know what?

[219] The lights are gone.

[220] what animal this is.

[221] Let's just get out of here.

[222] About a month goes by and Nathan, who is Chelsea's boyfriend, was staying with the family at the farm.

[223] And it was the first nice spring day.

[224] I mean, it was a very dark and dreary winter.

[225] Maine winters tend to be that way.

[226] And so that weekend, Nathan and Chelsea decide, let's go walk around the woods.

[227] So they take the two family dogs and they start walking across that big field in front of the house into the forest, the same area where Sean and Eric have been looking for those lights and then heard what sounded like an animal that was near them.

[228] And so at first, Chelsea has the dogs on leashes, but they get to the forest and she lets them off their leash to let them go run around and go crazy, because they've been cooped up because of the wintertime as well.

[229] The two dogs instantly take off running for about 100 meters, and then they come to a dead stop right outside this big mound.

[230] It looks like a dirt mound, but they get up close to it, and they can tell that it's actually more like a den.

[231] There are these huge pieces of wood that have been leaned into like a lean -to -type structure with moss and dirt and grass put all over the outside.

[232] I mean, it looks like a very intentionally made mound.

[233] And there's a circular hole that's been created right on the front of it.

[234] And the dogs have stopped right outside and they're poking their heads in and smelling into this hole.

[235] And Nathan and Chelsea are looking at this thinking, who did this?

[236] Is this like a hunter's thing?

[237] Is this something a hunter might make?

[238] Would an animal make this?

[239] This seems really big for some animal to make this.

[240] But it definitely was made on purpose, whatever it is.

[241] And so Nathan, he just kind of looks down into this den, but it's totally dark.

[242] And he thinks he hears growling coming from inside of the den.

[243] And so without any hesitation, he goes, we got to go.

[244] I don't know what's living in there.

[245] We got to go.

[246] And so they take the dogs, they put them back on leashes, and the two of them get out of the forest as quickly as they can.

[247] When Nathan and Chelsea came back to the house, they told Eric and Shelley and actually Sean was there too.

[248] And they said, hey, we found this stand of some kind out in the middle of the woods, basically straight out from your front porch.

[249] And that's when Eric and Sean said, well, about a month ago, we were out in that same area, and we could have sworn we heard some animal stalking us.

[250] A couple of months go by, and Eric and Shelley are sitting on their front porch, having their coffee ritual, and there was just this low mist that kind of hung over the entire field.

[251] And as they're sitting there, they're commenting on how creepy it was.

[252] And what started as just kind of a friendly discussion about the general creepiness took a term when they realized that they couldn't hear any wildlife, no crickets, no animals, no anything.

[253] And normally at night, because they were out here all the time, it was humming with life.

[254] And so Shelly had this high -powered flashlight that she always had out with her, and she starts scanning the property, not knowing what she's looking for, but it just seemed really odd that they couldn't hear any wildlife.

[255] But after she scans across the whole field, she doesn't see anything, and so she puts her flashlight down and just starts talking to Eric about whatever they normally talked about over coffee at night.

[256] Eric would say in numerous interviews that, for whatever reason, when she put that flashlight down, he suddenly felt like they were in danger.

[257] He's looking out, he doesn't see anything, and then all of a sudden he just says you know what we got to go inside i don't know what it is but we got to go inside and shelly's like come on i want to stay out here for a little bit longer we'll go in in a few minutes and eric stands up and he's like no go inside and he tries to grab her to kind of push her into the house and she's kind of fighting against him and then all of a sudden shely stops and she goes did you hear that and eric immediately knew that whatever it was it's the reason he had that sudden feeling of being in danger eric turns around and he can't see anything because it's too dark Shelly grabs her flashlight and she begins scanning the tree line and she gets to the field and gets about halfway across the field right in front of them and she stops.

[258] Because right in the middle of the field are three creatures that look like wolves.

[259] These huge creatures that are looking right at them.

[260] Two others join them.

[261] So there's five wolf -like creatures that are staring at them right from the middle of their field.

[262] She says to Eric, what are those?

[263] And Eric, who's an experienced hunter, he has no idea.

[264] He goes, I think they're bears?

[265] they could be wolves, we got to go inside.

[266] And so Shelly's just holding the light and they start charging directly out there so fast that she wasn't able to keep the light on them.

[267] They were already halfway across the field.

[268] They go inside, they shut the door, and they lock it.

[269] And without saying the word, the two of them make their rounds across the entire bottom floor, lock every window, close, every blind, make sure everything is shut.

[270] There was something different about these five creatures.

[271] The way they started running towards them, it just felt like they were targeting Eric and Shelley.

[272] And so even after the house had been secured, they didn't feel safe.

[273] And so they're standing in the middle of their cabin.

[274] And Eric's saying, my guns are in the barn.

[275] We have no protection.

[276] And Shelley is like, whatever you do, do not go out there.

[277] We don't know what these are.

[278] Could be a bear.

[279] It could be a wolf.

[280] We don't know.

[281] Don't go out there.

[282] She goes upstairs.

[283] She shuts off all the lights.

[284] She makes sure all the windows are shut.

[285] And then she goes to Chelsea's room, her daughter.

[286] And she wakes her up and she says, hey, come here, do you got to look at this?

[287] And they go to the window and they kind of like poke their head into the window.

[288] window because they don't want to like totally open it up and stare out because they don't want the creatures to see them but they're kind of poking their head out the window and she's like look and standing on the gravel are these five creatures that are just standing in a row looking directly at the house it was like they were waiting for them to come out the front door they were just patiently standing there looking at the house it did not look like normal animal behavior at all and as she's looking one of the animals looks up at shelly in the window and the creature stands on its two legs.

[289] It gets on its hind legs and looks at her and Shelley gasps and falls over because the creature's like eight feet tall.

[290] And so Shelley's on the ground looking at Chelsea and she can't believe what you just saw.

[291] It's like her brain can't process that this creature one had even seen her.

[292] They barely had their head up in the window.

[293] But that it stood on its hind legs that it was so big.

[294] What are they doing sitting in a row right on the on the outside of the house waiting for us?

[295] What's going on here?

[296] And so Shelley tells Chelsea, get in your bed.

[297] Don't go to your windows.

[298] Don't also remembers that she hasn't heard her two dogs and she's worried they might be outside.

[299] And so she starts quietly walking all along the top floor looking for her dog.

[300] She's calling to her two dogs and they don't come out, goes into the master bedroom and finds her two dogs hiding in the corner of the room next to each other.

[301] Like they're startled by whatever it is outside.

[302] Meanwhile, Eric was pacing downstairs thinking he needed to go to the barn and he needed to get his guns to protect the family.

[303] But he knew that between his own disability, you can barely walk very fast and he'd have to unlock the barn and then he'd have to pull down the gun case, unlock that, all the while he's exposed to these animals that are out there.

[304] And so the next best thing in his mind is maybe he could run outside, get in his truck, and back the truck up to the front door, and then he could get his wife and his daughter to come out, jump in the car, and they could drive away.

[305] So he just goes to the window and he pulls the blinds aside to look outside, and those five creatures are now gone.

[306] They're not sitting on the gravel path right in front of the house.

[307] He doesn't know where they are, but they're not in front of the house.

[308] And so he closes the blinds and he's like, well, I don't know where they are.

[309] It's too dangerous to go out there.

[310] He starts pacing some more and he goes back to look and he sees them back in the field where they first saw them, all five.

[311] You can see all five.

[312] They're facing the house still, but he can see them because the moon has now popped through and he's got illumination on the field and you can see all five.

[313] And he's like, okay, maybe if I just keep my eye on them, I can open the door, run out, get the car, back it up without them seeing me. And so without telling Shelley, he opens the door and he goes on to the front porch.

[314] and he sees them out in the field.

[315] He's got a good line of sight on them.

[316] Quiet as he can, he walks down the steps and he makes his way over to his truck, which is about 10 meters away.

[317] And as he's getting closer and closer to his truck, he's got his eye on the creatures that are in the field.

[318] They haven't moved.

[319] They apparently haven't seen him.

[320] He gets to the driver's side of his truck, and he's got his keys out, and he's kind of fumbling to hit the unlock button, and then his motion sensor light kicks on.

[321] And he's so on edge being out there.

[322] When the light kicks on, he drops his keys because he's so startled.

[323] And the first thing he does, he looks towards the field.

[324] and he sees that one of the five creatures is now standing on its hind legs, looking at him directly.

[325] Before he even bends down to get his keys, he sees them all running towards him.

[326] He reaches down, he grabs his keys, he runs back to the house as fast as he can.

[327] And he gets inside and slams it right as he can hear them crossing the gravel right in front of the house.

[328] And he hears them bound onto the porch and start running around the wraparound porch.

[329] He's too scared to even look in the window, so he ducks down to get out of view.

[330] Shelly, who is upstairs, can hear everything going on, and she yells, Eric, what's going on?

[331] And he goes, stay up there, stay up there.

[332] Shelly, Eric, Chelsea, everyone's just frozen waiting, knowing that these creatures are right on the other side, walking along this wraparound porch.

[333] And after a while, he hears the footsteps of these creatures leave the porch and go back onto the gravel area.

[334] And at some point, he pokes his head up and he looks, and all five are sitting there just facing the house, waiting for them to come out of the house.

[335] And so he scurries up the stairs to where Shelley and Chelsea are, and they just are so scared.

[336] So they decide they've got to call the police.

[337] If nothing else, the police will drive up and their vehicle might scare away these creatures.

[338] But on the phone, Shelly lets on that what they're really scared about is some thing on their property.

[339] In fact, it's five creatures, things running around outside their property.

[340] And immediately, the police officer who's responding to this, he's like, all right, well, are you sure it's not a moose?

[341] Are you sure it's not a bear?

[342] And finally, she's like, no, can you please just come over here?

[343] And he's like, listen, ma 'am, just keep your door shut.

[344] Keep your windows shut, and I'm sure it'll be fine.

[345] And ultimately, that's what the call ends.

[346] They're on their own.

[347] The family felt helpless, and Eric especially felt really frustrated because he can't protect his family.

[348] He doesn't have a weapon.

[349] He can't get to his vehicle.

[350] They're just trapped.

[351] And so they decide the only thing we can do is barricade ourselves inside of the house.

[352] And so for the next 30 minutes, they put heavy furniture in front of all the doors and the windows.

[353] They blocked everything as best as they could.

[354] They got kitchen knives, and they got an axe that they had inside to chop some wood.

[355] As they go upstairs, they lock themselves in the master bedroom with their weapons and their dogs, and they get on the bed and they just decide, all we can do is wait until the sun comes up.

[356] During the time they were barricading their house, they would look out from time to time and they would see the five creatures just sitting on that gravel area right in front of their house just waiting for them.

[357] When they finally went upstairs and barricaded themselves in that room, they immediately heard the creatures move off of the gravel, and they heard a couple of them at least walk onto the porch and start pacing around the porch.

[358] and it's totally silent besides the sounds of these creatures.

[359] And they were clearly communicating with each other.

[360] They were bumping into walls and then they were howling at each other.

[361] There was clear communication happening where they were trying to coordinate some sort of attack on the family.

[362] Now, the way the house was set up is there was a second floor roof, and then the first floor was a little bit wider than the second floor and had its own kind of separate roof.

[363] And after a while, the creatures stopped walking on the porch.

[364] They left the porch and it's just silence.

[365] and then they would hear them jump onto that first roof.

[366] The scary thing about this is that if you walked around the roof, you could actually look into the second floor windows.

[367] And so they're laying there, and periodically they'd be looking out their window.

[368] There was windows in either side of the room they were in, but there was a thin curtain between them and the window.

[369] And so from time to time, these creatures would walk past their windows, and they would stop, they'd put their paws up onto the window, and they would look inside, but there was a very thin sheet between them and the glass.

[370] So they couldn't see the creature and the creature couldn't see them.

[371] All night, they're listening to these creatures running around.

[372] And sometimes they'd hear really loud scratching, like they had figured something out and they were trying to burrow their way into the house.

[373] But after a whole night of this, they never actually broke the glass.

[374] They never got inside the house.

[375] As the sun started to come up in the morning, the creatures jumped off the roof and they could hear them running away.

[376] And for about an hour, they didn't hear anything outside.

[377] The suns come up and they felt safe again.

[378] And so they left their room.

[379] They go downstairs.

[380] and they finally open it up and all over their property are signs of huge creatures that had been on their property.

[381] Massive footprints with huge claws at the end.

[382] They found tufts of hair that had gotten caught on fence posts and even scarier as they found all these points on the house, in particular on the second floor when they were walking on that roof where there was clear markings that they had tried to burrow into the house.

[383] There were these deep -seated scratch marks into the side of the house.

[384] The front door had been scratched apart.

[385] I mean, it was very clear that whatever these creatures were, they were trying to get into the house, but they had just been unsuccessful.

[386] This experience was so traumatic for the family that they sold the house and they moved very quickly after that.

[387] And they have not experienced anything like that since they left.

[388] Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin podcast.

[389] If you got something out of this episode and you haven't done this already, on the next hot day, go over to the Amazon Music Follow Button's house and ask them to get you a nice cold drink.

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[398] So, that's going to do it.

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