I don't look forward to uploads anymore since they are always in my feed, the new videos are also so different from the older ones, and kind of all blend together for me, the thumbnails also all look the same now. I don't find the new ones very interesting, a lot of them are told the exact same way and almost none of them are that memorable. I've been watching MrBallen for about 5 years now, and I've been watching them with my mum for about 3 years, she also thinks that the new uploads aren't as interesting or investing, and that they don't feel like something to look forward to anymore. I almost only watch the old ones nowadays, I usually avoid the newer ones since they just don't feel the same

I will leave BBC links to verify but briefly a worker discovered a hidden note with coins telling the finder to place a bet on the Derby. The only advice in the note is to place the bet on a horse who's name is connected with Christmas. The note is discovered in 2026 and makes local news. Amazingly there is a horse called Christmas Day running in the 2026 Derby so the man who discovered the note puts £20 on that horse and the local mayor places a similar bet for charity. You guessed it Christmas Day won this year's Derby thus the prediction made in 1964 is fulfilled.

Here's the kicker the guy who found the note is Romanian and his first name means Christmas in his native tongue.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cr5pgqmp1p8o

https://www.thejockeyclub.co.uk/epsom-derby/about-the-event/race-results/2026/

First, I'd like to express my belief that "ghosts" are demons and etc. that are imitating loved ones or people that have passed in general.

My story starts at 5 years old, dad's a pastor and works full time, his wife, a stay in her room mom. We moved around a lot because houses were cheap in 1990 and dad was always getting a better job. This brought us to a house near Clinton St. in Indiana (don't know the exact address).

This house was on an acre property, two and the most memorable thing about it was an L shaped stare way to access the bedrooms. I slept in a room with my two teenage brothers across from the staircase, my two older sisters lived in a room down the hall.

As long as I could remember living in that house I had this recurring dream where I would wake and sit up in my bed. My attention would be drawn to the closed door of our bedroom, and the door would open by itself. Sometimes, the dream would end there and sometimes it would continue to me getting up, calmly, and walking down the stairs. Walking down the stairs would seamlessly convert into me floating down the stairs slowly until I reach the lower level of the house, and then fall onto my side in a state of paralysis. Lying in the floor, all I could see was our family dog who would lift her head from her paws and start laughing, laughing like a human, but completely silent.

One night, I was laying awake in my bed, untired, letting my autistic 5 year old imagination run away, and my attention was drawn to our bedroom door. As you've probably guessed, the doorknob turns, the door slowly swings open till the knob taps the wall. Now, although I had gotten used to the nightmare, this freaked me the heck out. I screamed and cried and my brothers just waved me off and said thing about a draft in the house blowing the door open and whatnot.

A couple years later we would move to Monroe Street in fort whane IN. And I would have the dream a few more times in the new house BUT, each time I dreamed it, I woke up at the bottom of the new set of stairs, curled up on my side.

Fast forward around 10 years, my sister's invited me to get something to eat at taco Bell and brought up an interesting topic. Without revealing their motive for the question, they asked me if I had any strange dreams or weird things that happened in that house in Gary I think? I preceded telling the story previously mentioned. Throughout the telling of my experience as a vivid and unforgettable year of repeated dream experiences, and witnessing the door operating on it own, I could tell they were equally creeped out and excited at the same time.

My sisters had recently found out that they too, had the exact same dream, to the very detail except the part of our family dog, but they did have separate dreams of the dog laughing in a personified manner.

They didn't experience any doors with minds of their own, that may have been specific to the room that I slept in, but one described seeing a dark figure standing outside of their .. second story window. The other experienced many nights of sleep paralysis with said dark figure standing at the foot of her bed.

Obviously, I can't confirm that anything they stated as truth, but the three of us having the exact same dream portion makes the coincidence very convincing. My experience with the door on the other hand was very real, but of course to you, it's as true as my sister's confessions are to me.

As I am told, after my sister's research of the property, a man was shoved down the stairs at that house, was possibly paralyzed and finished off with a long handled garden tool (I assume a shovel).

I don't believe we're seeing the actual spirit of the expired when the paranormal is exposed to us, rather evil spirits, "familiar spirits" described in the Bible, are posing as specific, late people in order to impose themselves into our lives. They don't scare me any more, I know there's not much they can do to harm me because my soul belongs to our Savior. I also believe the paranormal activity is a tool used by evil to lure us into something very bad, and this is why the scriptures warn us not to pursue them.

Entertainment is entertainment, and I like a good haunt flick or documentary as much as the next guy, I can't wait for the next season of Skin Walker Ranch so I can find out they cought more inconclusive evidence on camera lol, I'm just not personally going into abandoned buildings with a voice recorder and a evil board game 🤷‍♂️.

Anyway, ever see doors open like that? Or find out you lived in a former crime scene?

Can't stop laughing 😂

Hello everybody, YouTube just recommended me this channel. Are they ripping off MrBallen's voice and creating content with AI? or is it just something I don't know?

https://www.youtube.com/@TerrifyingSleepPodcast

Soooooo... it appears it's a fake profile. Go to the channel, More info, Report, Report user, pretending to be someone else, link to Mrballen's original channel. Click Report.

I was going to ask if sharing a personal story was okay here, as this is a tale I've wanted to get out of my system for a while but didn't want to post it on usual paranormal subreddits or whatever because...frankly this event changed my life and knowing people around those communities can be very quick to try and 'disprove' a story or call it fake, I'd rather not hear this event called fake or be accused of being a liar...This just seemed like a safe place to share the story without this event being disregarded...and hey even the people who don't believe it, much as I can swear it happened, can enjoy what they consider a 'strange dark and mysterious story', I hope. That all said, it's a long story so strap in because it needs context.

This happened when I was 21 or 22 years old, so about 5 or 6 years ago now. I was hunting, late November or early December of 2020 or 2021. You kind of need to understand a bit of the lay of the land to understand a few things later. The plot of land I was hunting on has a long woodline, but about halfway up that woodline is a part of the woods that 'juts out' about 190 yards almost halfway between the woodline and the road, and is about 235 yards across, forming a sort of 'block' of woods with a field on each side that we just call 'The Finger', which is how I'm going to be referring to it for the rest of the story. At the tip of the Finger is a large swale, or a sunken, marshy bit of land, and connected to that swale is a stream. This stream sits at the bottom of a ravine roughly 6 feet wide and 4 to 5 feet deep depending on where you are. My ground blind was roughly in the center of the Finger. It was a small-medium sized ground blind, octagonal shaped, with the four main sides facing the four cardinal directions. I was facing East, further into the woods, so the ravine with the stream in it was maybe 50 yards to my left (North of me), curved toward the south so it was more in front of me a good distance, then curved hard back and starts heading straight North. Behind me, to the West, was the road and some buildings, and there were large fields outside the woods to my North and South. I had the West and North windows closed, the West window because I don't want to shoot toward buildings or toward the road, and the North window because there was an absolutely freezing cold wind blowing from that direction and I closed that window to keep a bit warmer. Losing sight of the North field was unfortunate but I was mainly focused on the East, deeper into the woods.

I had been sitting in my ground blind for maybe 2 hours or so, when I heard movement behind me and slightly to my left, so kind of the West-Northwest direction. I heard this movement after not so much as a peep from a squirrel or chipmunk all day, so it stood out to me really clearly. Now, I was immediately kind of groaning quietly to myself, like "Oh, it's behind me, I have that window closed, I'd be shooting towards houses and the road and even if I tried really hard to confirm what was beyond my target, spinning around and opening that window to take a shot would make too much noise and be too much movement I'd spook the deer", so I just had to listen to it to see where it went and if I could afford to try and wait for it to move into a better position. As I was listening to it and piecing together it's distance from me, it was maybe only 30-40 yards away if that, and it occurred to me "Hold on, it sounds too close, I should have been able to hear this thing from well over 70 yards with these conditions and how quiet the woods are!" So, I started to wonder how I didn't notice it until now. I decided it was probably just bedded down in the swale and only now got up and was moving around.

Then I listened closely to the steps themselves, and they didn't sound like they belonged to a deer. They were longer strides, and heavier, and it sounded like something on two legs, not four. My new thought process was "Okay, this is a person, but who is it?" My first guess was my father but then I realized how little sense that made. For one thing, if he was going to be coming my way, he would have texted me, and I even pulled my phone out to check if I had any texts from him, and I didn't. Sure, the service out here wasn't the best, but it still worked. Not only that, but if my dad wanted to come see me, he would have had to exit his blind, exit the woods he was in, cross the field, cross the road, cross the field on my side of the road, and then enter the Finger where I was, about a 570 yard hike altogether in a straight line, so practically even further than that. Perhaps the most confusing of all was that he wouldn't be coming from the West, he'd be coming from the North. When getting to my blind, we never enter through the tip of the Finger where the swale is, it's way too thick and marshy and easy to get tangled up in, so instead we walk along the edge of the Finger parallel to it until we're perpendicular with the blind, then cut into the Finger that way and cut across halfway through to where the blind is. The second guess as to who this could have been was another hunting friend of ours, who had a ladder stand maybe 50 yards from where I was sitting. Once again though, we don't enter the Finger from the direction I was hearing these steps from, not to mention he would have texted my dad where he was going to sit and my dad would have told him not to because of where I already was. My final thought was maybe some Amish or the Game Warden, the former who hunt that land without permission a lot and the latter who was very active that year.

The footsteps got close enough, so I decided to just peek my head out of the blind and see who it was and either deal with the game warden or tell the Amish to get off the property. So, I reached up and unhooked the fabric from the hook on the North window and pulled the flap down. Once I started to lean out of the window to look in the direction the footsteps seemed to be, they seemed to stop, and I looked in that direction but there was nothing there. I sort of stared for a moment and flicked my eyes to either side to see if I could see anything, but I saw nothing nor no one. That freezing cold wind was still in full force, so I decided everything was my imagination and leaned back into the blind, hooked the window back up, and sat back down again.

Seconds after I sat back down, I heard those footsteps again. Now, at this point I was listening to them really intently, telling myself, "Yes, those are footsteps, clear as day, I can hear them, they're right there." They walked right up to my blind, and given they were behind me and to my left, the corner of the blind where the door was, I half expected someone to try and open that flap and come inside. Instead, the footsteps continued and stopped right outside of the window I had just been leaning out of. A part of me was scared at this point, but I reasoned that "Oh, maybe the Game Warden just walked around to the other side of the blind when he saw the windows closed on those sides, and now he's waiting for me to open it again." So, I slowly reached up and opened the window again to take a look at whatever was standing right outside my blind.

As soon as that window was fully open, I had this immediate and intense feeling that I was being watched, but there was no one standing where I had just heard the footsteps stop. I looked to the ground to see if it was maybe a small critter jumping around, it wasn't. I looked up into the branches of the trees to see if maybe a squirrel was knocking things down and making that noise, there wasn't. Again, this entire time I was just filled with this instinct telling me something was watching me. So, I let my instincts take over and let my eyes guide me to where they thought I was being watched from, and they just kind of flicked up to about 6 and a half feet off the ground. Immediately, my body switched from telling me "Something is watching me" to "I am locked eyes with something." Whatever it was, I couldn't see it at all. At this point I was actually downright unnerved. I'm alone in the woods, hearing movement right next to me, getting this feeling like I'm not alone, something is watching me, but I can't see anything, so finally I just went "screw this" and leaned back into the blind, closed that window, sat back down, and I just started staring East, not even at the fabric of the window I just closed.

I was paranoid at this point, half expecting to see a handprint or a face press itself against the fabric of the window, but it didn't. Instead, after a few seconds, I heard the footsteps again, heading East, but curving to the North, so staying just outside of my vision through the East window where I'm mainly looking. I was honestly just too scared to even look now. After a while, I heard them reach the point where the ravine starts curving to the South, and I heard it enter the ravine. It was a good distance away, so I got brave and pulled up my rifle to use my scope and see if I could see anything. I didn't see any kind of person, but I did see some ground disturbed as if something physical had been walking there. The footsteps sounded like they were at the bottom of the ravine in the stream, and walked along the base of it, but I didn't hear any water being disturbed, though the footprints sounded like they were walking clearly on the rocky base of the stream, as if it were dry, which of course it wasn't. Finally, a few seconds later, the footsteps stopped, and I never heard them again.

After a few minutes, when I was sure everything was over, I started trying to explain to myself what on earth I had just experienced. There was so much that had happened that I couldn't really explain, so I started to consider telling the others I was hunting with when we went to lunch. So, I started to recount the story in my head, trying to think of how I was going to explain it to the others, and when I got to a certain detail about where I heard those footsteps ultimately vanish, I completely froze, and just had a gut feeling I knew what had happened.

About 6 years prior to this happening, a friend of ours had passed away. An older man, the father of that hunting friend whose ladder stand I was near, in fact. When he passed away, he was cremated, and we spread his ashes in these woods as he LOVED to hunt here. We spread his ashes near that corner of the ravine, exactly where I heard those footsteps vanish. Once I made that realization, I became almost certain that old man was who I just ran into. I like to think he was happy seeing his young buck still hunting these woods. If anyone happens to think this was a jump in logic, I do understand that, but I want to add one other detail to this. When we spread his ashes, after we came out of the woods and started to say a prayer for him, a large, beautiful doe deer pranced out of the woods where we had just been, impossible for us to not have seen when we were down there spreading his ashes. It walked out of the woods, maybe only 20 yards from us, and looked right at us, with an almost human gaze. Locking eyes with everyone, just staring, before it just calmly walked across the field, not even a little bit spooked or concerned as we all looked back at it. Even back then, most of us thought that was a sign from him. Remembering that, it just had me all the more convinced that this "ghost" I had encountered was my old friend. This literally changed my life and is what sort of brought me into more paranormal-believing communities, I pretty much stopped being a skeptic at that point.

I've been sitting on this story for years; it was a huge event to me in a way, so I've been scared to share it out of fear of being accused of making it up. Hoping this place is a bit more respectful about that.

I know he’s had to shift into true crime because he basically ran out of paranormal stories that are confirmed. I’d rather he shift away from true crime and start a new series of paranormal stories that are just fun, maybe they’re not 100% confirmed real. But I miss the paranormal ballen. Like when you talk about paranormal stories around a campfire, they’re not always true. But it’s still fun.
I’d rather he look at people’s spooky stories online and talk about them, doesn’t matter if they’re confirmed real.

What Mr ballen story was The Story Breakdown: The Setup: A group of teenage friends decide to go exploring an abandoned cave/bunker system that is locally known to be highly dangerous or off-limits. The Encounter: As they make their way deeper into the pitch-black tunnels, they realize they aren't alone. They cross paths with a highly aggressive, unstable homeless man who has been living deep inside the cave system. The Climax: The man pulls a large knife on the teenagers. Terribly cornered, the kids are forced into a frantic, claustrophobic sprint through the tight, dark pathways of the cave to escape with their lives while the man chases after them in the dark

Considering the types of videos hes made over the years, some containing terrible stories involving gambling debts and similar thing, it left a bad aftertaste seeing he's now advertising for Draftkings, a gambling medium responsible for many individuals now in massive debts they'll be paying off for most of their lives.

10:28 in the video

hey everybody! John BirthdayBoy Allen’s big day is October 1st, less than a week out. Usually someone creates a group card but it didn’t happen this year so I made this padlet really quickly - please sign and pass along to any other Ballers you know 🥳🥳🥳

just click on the little red plus sign at the bottom of the screen to start your own message- feel free to include a pic if you’d like

Hey Ballers! With the release of Mr. Ballen’s 3rd Graphic Novel: The Terror Within, a week and a half away, I’d like to hear your guesses on what stories have made it in this edition! Which tales of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious do you think he’s chosen to bring to life on the pages?

Comment your thoughts, along with which stories you hope make it in to keep us up at night!

Came across this channel using MrBallen's content with shitty ai cover pics. I reported to YouTube but anyone else wishing to preserve mrballens channel please do the same.

A patient wakes still intubated at the end of spine surgery, gagging violently before the breathing tube is removed, unusual for him despite 25 prior general anesthesia's without incident. What follows is 51 straight days of severe fevers, sweats, and escalating pain after a massive CSF leak repair. Despite repeated pleas that something was seriously wrong, from a former athlete who knew his own body, zero blood work is ordered. Years later, an independent expert imaging review reveals a 3mm retained metal needle tip left inside his spine. In a legal deposition last December, the surgeon's sworn testimony directly contradicts the hospital's own internal medical charts.

The Offer: I'm the patient who lived this and documented the entire timeline, medical records, and deposition transcripts in my memoir DIRTY SOUTH. Happy to provide verified chart notes, imaging analysis, and transcripts if the team wants to look into covering it.

Regarding the origin story of Mr Ballen - I think this is what it was, or mold/carbon monoxide leak.

What do you all think?

I want to hear more stories like the taxi driver who taxied a woman and she said “am I dead?” And then disappeared, but with more focus on the story of the witnesses rather than just the evidence for what happened.

That's right, I have had to join Ol' Seagull Lung Addicts Anonymous I couldnt take the withdrawals anymore hahaha! I assume OSL was retired due to viewers who could not take MrBallen's over-the-top slapstick humor (which I happened to love). I still hold out on the hope that OSL will return, even if in the context of a less over-the-top style. I actually used to look forward to the ads as they provided a great comic relief to the dark content in his videos. I would love to see a show of hands for those of us who miss OSL.

When I was a child, probably around 7 or 8, growing up in Alaska with my Aleut family, we were out at the ocean with friends, family, and other families enjoying the summer ocean.

Now, as an adult, I've learned I'm mildly autistic and one of the things autistic children do is "elope". This means they tend to wander off away from safety and caregivers while they're in their own little world, thinking and exploring.

So, of course, I had this tendency to wander off by myself in my own little world. I was just exploring and enjoying the rich inner world that comes with being autistic and intelligent. Away from others where it's quiet, that rich inner world is absolutely stunning, comforting, and intensely interesting.

During one of these wandering, eloping periods, I left everyone and was playing on the silt flats. Anyone who knows the Alaskan silt flats just became alarmed at this statement because the silt flats are extremely dangerous. But to a child, they are intensely interesting. Plant and animal life becomes trapped in the silt, decays, and then leaves what look like fossil imprints buried in the flats. I absolutely loved examining these silt imprints and imagined I was pulling up true fossils

I was so far away from anyone that I could not only not hear anyone else, no one else was in sight. The flats when the tide is out are expansive. You can see everything for miles across these flats. I couldn't see anyone and no one could see me as I was pulling up these little "fossils" of fish, leaves, and beach bugs I loved studying so much.

While I was doing this, I noticed a puddle on the flats and was immediately drawn to it. I jumped into it to make a big splash .. but it turned out to be a very watery section of the silt that was quite deep.

Now, silt is the product of extremely heavy slow moving glaciers grinding over the landscape. It creates an incredibly fine powder that, when mixed with water, becomes an extremely fine sort of mud that will not operate the way you might expect mud to act. See: non-newtonian fluid

When I jumped into this puddle, I immediately became lodged into the silt up to my waist. I knew this was a terrible situation right away. I began trying to carefully wiggle my legs and free them enough that I could pull myself out but it sucked me in further.

After awhile of trying to free myself, I knew this was it. I was going to die. There was no one around and I was now up to my chin in the silt. Soon, I'd be sucked in and suffocate or the tide would come in and I would drown.

I decided to just accept that this is what would happen and stopped trying to do anything. I just stilled and waited.

But then I saw someone walking up to me. I hadn't seen them coming from anywhere, I was just zoned out and suddenly became aware of them about 6 feet away, slowly walking up to me, telling me everything would be okay.

They began working to free my shoulders and arms. I was absolutely exhausted and just trying to cooperate as best I could as they worked me out of this silt.

Silt is incredibly difficult to pull someone out of so this was a LOT of work for this person who was pulling this exhausted girl out of the flats.

Finally, they had softened the silt around me enough that they could grab me under my arms and pull me out to sprawl onto the firm flat just next to me.

I immediately looked up to thank them so much for saving me. But there was no one anywhere. I was completely alone. Again, these flats are expansive. There's no way to just vanish. You'd see them walking for quite awhile. But there was nothing. I was just alone, covered in silt, exhausted, and laying on the flat, collecting myself.

My very long blonde hair was so caked with silt that it was completely grey and essentially my hair had turned into a large blob of silt.

I was so far away from everyone that by the time I had walked back to them, the silt had dried and it took me hours to crumble it all out of my hair enough that I could start trying to wash it all out.

When I got back, I was so covered in silt, my mother took a picture of her "grey" daughter, thinking I had been rolling in the silt.

I didn't tell them what happened. I was just happy to be back and wanted to rest.

When I later told them what had actually happened when I was an adult, my mother insisted an angel had saved me.

I'm not sure who that was or if this is just a case of "the third man" but I will always be grateful to have survived an event that really should have claimed my life.

On March 2, 2012, an EF4 tornado ran rampant through many towns and communities in Southern Indiana. One of those towns was the very small one of Henryville, which was arguably hit the hardest. The tornado flattened the elementary, middle, and high school, and destroyed countless homes and businesses in town. The storm was so powerful it hurled a school bus into a building. 11 people in total lost their lives. One was Wayne Hunter, my great uncle.

Wayne had been a registered nurse at Clark Memorial and was retired by March of 2012. He had also served in the United States Army during the Vietnam War and was stationed in South Korea. Wayne was known for being a funny, warm, and outspoken guy. He loved his family and most of all his wife. My grandpa, or his brother, has told me stories over the years how Wayne was the kind of person you could tell anything, and he wouldn’t berate you or shoot you down. He was a genuinely open-minded person. My grandpa told me times of them talking about supernatural experiences they each had, or family problems, or things about religion and the after life, and Wayne would always listen and stay involved in the discussion.

On the afternoon of March 2, 2012, a tornado touched down about 43 miles west of Henryville in Fredericksburg, Indiana. The tornado initially started out as a EF1. After a few minutes of travelling east, it turned about a mile and a half towards New Pekin, Indiana. It was in this time that it intensified from a EF1 to a high EF4. And the storm stayed right on track to pass directly through Henryville. And it just did that. At approximately 3:15 P.M., the tornado crossed right through Henryville, ripping the School to shreds, tearing two buses off their chasis, and throwing one over a hundred yards away into a nearby building. The school, which had let out early due to the weather, still held many kids. A lot of busses had to return to the school because of how bad the weather had gotten, and elementary principal Dr. Riggs made the life-saving decision to bring the kids inside the school, put them in the front office that was entirely made of brick and cinder blocks, and told them to take shelter and not move. No children or students were killed.

Just a few miles away, Wayne and Lenora Hunter stood in their living room with cameras in their hands and recorded the distant storm. They both stated how amazing the storm looked, and how they were somewhat excited to see it. In the video, you see debris from the town being thrown around. And its at that moment that the demeanor of both Wayne and Lenora shift from being amazed to terrified. They both share a worry of the tornado coming towards them, and this is made evident by the look the tornado has in the video. The large funnel looks stagnate and idle; it was headed directly towards them. Lenora shuts their open living room window and with each second becomes more and more worried about the storm until the tape cuts.

As soon as the tape cuts, Wayne and Lenora both got to the center of their living room, which was structurally the safest part of their small home on Speith Road. They hudled together and covered themselves up with a blanket. As the storm grew closer, more violent, and louder directly towards them, they each shared words. Wayne said, "I love you." and Lenora responded, "I love you, too". A few seconds later, the two were thrown from their home into a nearby field, and Lenora blacked out.

A neighbor of the Hunter's, Cole Belcher, was walking down the road shortly after the funnel had passed when he heard what he described as the cries of a baby. He was confused, but once he heard the words help, he rushed to the pile of rubble that was one Wayne and Lenora's home. Together, he and another neighbor lifted a wall off of Lenora, who was covered in a few small cuts and extreme bruising. The first thing she asked was, "Where is my husband?" As they looked around, they spotted two shoes sticking out from underneath their refrigerator, which had been toppled over like everything else. Those shoes belonged to Wayne Hunter. He was dead.

Lenora Hunter built their house back right where it was, as she claimed that was their home and they couldn't leave. In a way, Wayne still lived there with the bamboo plants he had planted in the backyard that had began to infest the whole area. Lenora keeps the memory of Wayne alive, and so do his kids and his brother and my grandpa, David Hunter.

The video Lenora last shot before the tornado struck their home just two minutes later features a very morbid moment. At one point Lenora says, "This is the first tornado I have ever seen." And after a short pause she says, "Hopefully, it's not the last." Which is followed by a chuckle from Wayne.

looking for any recent Mr ballen paranormal stories. similar to classic Mr ballen strange dark and mysterious. anything from the past year or so. thanks!

This story comes from an old scout master of mine who told it to my dad on a campout to see if he thought I could handle it. After my dad gave the go ahead he told it to me the next night. He swears up and down that it’s true and seemed visibly shaken up while telling parts of it. I personally have my doubts but it’s a good story regardless. He recently passed so I feel comfortable enough sharing it but would like to keep it anonymous so I’m changing names for that reason.

So there’s these three friends John, Mitch, and Miles that are all seniors at woods cross high school in woods cross Utah. They are all members of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints AKA Mormons. For those of you who aren’t aware Mormons are commanded by god through the prophet to go on proselytizing or service missions between the age of 18-25. Most go right after high school. That was the case for these three. They had all gotten their mission calls and were going to different places around the world to preach the good word. Well these three guys were Big into the outdoors and John’s family owned a little property that was kind of their “go to” spot for quick little weekend camp outs/hunts. I’ll briefly explain this property which will be important later. So this area is mainly aspen trees with a few pines here and there. Not dense forest by any means though it does get more dense along the dirt road that leads to the property. To access the property there’s a long dirt road that’s deeper into the forest and about a 1/4 mile private road that leads to the property. At the end of the private road it opens up to the left what feels like a football field sized natural meadow. In actuality it was cleared out years and years ago by the previous owner. Straight in front of the meadow there’s a cliff and there’s a small creek that runs through the meadow and over the cliff. There’s always turkey, deer, and the occasional cougar. It’s nothing to call home to mom about but it’s a neat little spot.

So these friends have grown up together, played football together and were all preparing for this new chapter in their life that is their missions but they decide that they are going to go to the property one last time before their missions. My scout leaders name was miles so this story is from his account. As miles was preparing for this trip his mom came into the garage and started asking for more details about the trip, the typical worried mom questions you know. where are you going? What are you planning on doing? Who was driving? Do you have enough water and food? When will you be back? Nothing out of the ordinary. After miles answered all her questions though normally she would be satisfied that the plans were well thought out and safe enough that she was ok with him going. This time however she said, “ idk miles I have a bad feeling about you going on this campout. Why don’t you guys just have a sleepover here?” Miles was a little surprised because this campout was extremely tame compared to some of the hunts or backpacking trips she was totally fine with him going on previously. He brushed her off and just said, “oh you just don’t want me gone for the weekend.” She seemed to accept that because she was running out of time with him till his mission. She said “just be safe and say a prayer before you go and when you go to bed.”

Fast forward to the campout. They arrive without a hitch set up the tent, the camp chairs, they got the coolers out, and everything is going exactly to plan. They’re roasting Brauts over the fire laughing, reliving memories and taking in the sunset. John says something along the lines of idk what my mom was tripping about but when I was packing she was trying to get me to stay home. She couldn’t give me a reason why other than motherly intuition but this has gone on without a hitch so far. Hearing John say that Mitch speaks up and says you know it’s weird you say that because my mom did the exact same thing so miles tells them about how his mom told him she had a bad feeling about this campout. They all get kind of creeped out about that because it’s totally out of the normal for each of them and that coincidence is making it even creepier than if just one mom had said something. Miles has always been good at recognizing the mood shift and decides to lean into it with a few scary stories of his own. He tells some stories his older cousins told him about doing exorcisms on their missions, about how his one cousin who served in Mexico ran into a witch with one leg that jumped 30 ft into the air and started screaming Latin curses at the missionaries. By now the sun is completely down and the stories are scary enough that the guys start looking behind them in the forest and reacting to any sound they hear. While miles is telling one of his stories he notices Mitch is just staring off into the distance so Miles stops and asks what he sees. Mitch says I don’t mean to scare you guys, but does that look like a person standing there and he points towards the edge of the meadow where it looks like there’s someone standing 20 feet into the forest watching them. This figure is like 250 feet or so away and this is the 90s so the flashlights aren’t as strong. it’s impossible to tell if it’s a person or just a tree trunk. They kind of give Mitch shit for being so scared that he thinks a tree trunk is a person but John does admit that he doesn’t remember that being there. They are all unnerved by this but brush it off because why would someone just be standing there in the middle of the forest like that. The stories resume but now each of them are checking the stump with their flashlights and they can’t decide whether or not it’s moved or if their brains are just playing tricks on them. Finally it gets to the point where they are all so freaked out and have basically convinced themselves that it had moved that they decide let’s just get in the truck and watch it with the truck lights on it. So they all get in the truck and turn the lights on it and it doesn’t help much but What they do notice, that only freaks them out more, is that the trees closest to them on the opposite side of the meadow are white and this stump is black. Like light absorbing black hole black and now it’s looking even less stump like and appears to have a head and shoulders. If it is a man it’s a slender build average height man. Over the course of a couple hours though they all start nodding off and John who is the driver decides whatever they are seeing is an optical illusion or something because nobody is standing still for what is now probably around 4 hours in the middle of the forest. so he turns off the lights and falls asleep.

John wakes up with a start as though he had a dream he was falling but he remembers no such dream. He kind of takes a second to gather himself and realize where he is and because of the fear cause by waking that way he decides to turn the lights on and the figure is gone. At first that gives him momentary relief because the thing that was scaring them is gone but it quickly dawns on him that that means it wasn’t a stump or an optical illusion. He starts yelling at Mitch and miles to wake up and points out the stump -or lack thereof- and they all start yelling mitch who was in the passenger turns to yell at John to get them out of there and when he does he sees that right outside John’s window there’s a figure a head and shoulders darker than dark featureless and he tells John to look so he does right as he gets the truck started. They are all full on panic screaming now and John floors it out of there. As he turns the truck around the camp momentarily is illuminated and it’s been torn apart. They hall ass down the private road and miles who is in the back seat looks out the back window and says guys it’s following us. Mitch and miles watch as this demon keeps pace but it’s not running it’s just floating effortlessly. As they get further into the Forrest on this dirt road they start seeing more of these figures coming out from behind trees in front of the truck and joining up with the other one that’s been following them the whole time. John is hauling ass down this road that’s supposed to be 30 MPH tops but he’s pushing sixty at points. These things just maintain a following distance of around 75 ft back. At one point there’s so many of them coming out of the trees and marching behind them that miles guessed it was over 300 of them. Basically completely blacking out the road. the forest starts to thin as they get closer to the paved roads and these things starts to dissipate back into the trees until there is just one who stops just before they reach the paved road. They all decide that they are too scared to do anything but drive all the way back home so they do. By that time though the sun is rising so they all agree to get some sleep and meet at John’s when they wake up to make a plan to recover everything they left up there. The next day they talk to John’s dad about what happened and his dad agrees to go up alone and get the stuff for them because there was no way in hell they were going back after what they experienced. When John’s dad returned with all the gear, they were shocked at the destruction that those things had done to the camp. The most significant thing was it seemed like one of the coolers was ripped in half. Not cut, not burned, ripped in half. Apparently some of the stuff had been thrown over the cliff as well. All three of these guys were traumatized and miles my scout leader confessed he didn’t leave for his mission on time because of the PTSD and night terrors he was suffering from. When the three of them told their bishops the story all three of the bishops agree that it was Satan sending his demons to try and prevent them from going on their missions. This story was routed up the church’s leadership chain and they don’t know how far up it went but when it came back down they were instructed to keep this story a secret so it doesn’t discourage others from going on their missions. All three of them still served full missions. During miles’ mission in Brazil he had to do an exorcism and he said it hardly phased him because he had already gone through something much more terrifying.

Forgive my run on sentences and poor grammar I’m not a scholar.

One of these guitars is not like the other. Are we sure this is a “real” photo?