Key Takeaways
- MrBallen, a former Navy SEAL, transitioned from military service to a successful storytelling career following a medical retirement in 2017.
- His post-military life involved financial uncertainty and mental health challenges, including severe sleepwalking episodes.
- MrBallen's storytelling craft focuses on true, strange, dark, and mysterious narratives, often from victims' perspectives.
- The episode details a chilling true crime story from 1986 involving a family experiencing escalating 'paranormal' activity in their Massachusetts home.
- This culminated in a home invasion by a costumed intruder later identified as Danny LaPlant, who had been secretly living in the family's walls for six months.
- The podcast explores an unexplained incident of a Mexican pilot whose plane was allegedly controlled by an external entity, delivering an alien message.
- MrBallen recounts a personal paranormal experience involving a recurring apparition during a snowboarding trip to a New Hampshire cabin.
- He later experienced further unexplained phenomena, including footsteps and electrical issues, in a Civil War-era rental cabin in Tennessee.
- MrBallen expresses a belief in paranormal phenomena, emphasizing humanity's limited understanding of existence.
Deep Dive
- John B. Allen, known as MrBallen, retired medically from the Navy SEALs in 2017 due to an injury in Afghanistan and mental health issues, leading to financial uncertainty.
- He had not shot a firearm in eight years, attributing this to focusing on entrepreneurship and his wife's past concern about his severe sleepwalking episodes.
- His sleepwalking episodes are frequent, involve disorientation and attempts to leave his room, necessitating safety measures like door alarms.
- MrBallen collaborated with a former investment banker, Jordan, to organize networking events for veterans before transitioning into content creation.
- In Pepperel, Massachusetts, in fall 1986, Frank Bowen and his daughters, Tina (15) and Karen (9), grieved the recent death of his wife from cancer.
- Frank took extra work shifts due to financial strain, frequently leaving his daughters alone at home.
- In September 1986, Tina and Karen attempted to contact their deceased mother using a Ouija board in their basement, but the planchette remained immobile.
- Later that night, sporadic tapping began throughout the house, unsettling Karen, and Tina initially dismissed it, but the tapping intensified.
- The sisters interpreted three distinct taps as a positive sign from their mother, leading them to investigate sounds from the basement door.
- For an hour, the girls communicated via taps at the basement stairs before the sounds ceased.
- Their father, Frank, dismissed the tapping as a coping mechanism for their mother's death, despite the girls' excitement.
- The tapping sounds became more frequent and localized to the girls' bedrooms at night, intensifying their fear that the source was malevolent, not their mother.
- The girls investigated the basement, with Tina armed with a knife, but the tapping stopped upon opening the dark basement door.
- While ascending the basement stairs, they discovered 'I'm in your closet. Come find me' written in red on the wall, prompting them to flee to a neighbor's house.
- Frank arrived, checked the house, and found the message written in ketchup, dismissing it as his daughters' elaborate coping mechanism for grief.
- He reiterated that therapy was necessary for their psychological distress, not a paranormal event, and group therapy sessions began.
- After a period of peace following therapy, Frank, his daughters, and a friend returned home to find lights on, a radio and TV playing, and furniture moved.
- While Frank searched the house for an apparent break-in, he discovered the words 'marry me' written in shaving cream above a front window.
- A closet door opened, revealing a man in a dress, clown makeup, and carrying a hatchet, who directed Frank and his daughters upstairs.
- Frank protected his daughters by slamming and holding shut a bedroom door; one daughter, Tina, escaped by jumping from a second-story window to a neighbor's house and calling the police, who rescued Frank and the remaining daughters.
- A police officer discovered pennies glued to the ceiling and rearranged furniture in Frank's house, prompting a thorough investigation.
- Investigators could not find evidence of how someone entered or exited the house, but discovered Danny LaPlant, 16, living in the walls of the basement.
- LaPlant had harbored resentment after a perceived rejection from 15-year-old Tina Bowen, living in the family's walls for six months, spying and manipulating events to mimic paranormal activity.
- Following his release on bond, LaPlant infiltrated another family's home and murdered three of the four members by drowning the children and strangling the mother; he was later deemed highly sociopathic.
- The guest recounts a story about a young Mexican pilot named Raphael who, during a solo flight in the 1980s or 90s, lost control of his aircraft in fog.
- The plane inexplicably climbed and ascended until Raphael passed out.
- Raphael awoke to find the fog gone and his plane flying level over water; air traffic control contacted him, revealing they had been speaking to him for an hour and inquired if someone was with him, which Raphael denied.
- During the lost hour, a recording captured a voice, identified as Raphael's but altered, speaking in Spanish to air traffic control, claiming to be from another planet and using Raphael's body as a 'microphone.'
- The voice delivered a message about Earth's self-destruction through nuclear weapons and warned of intervention.
- Anomalies included Raphael's lack of memory, the plane's fuel levels (more fuel than expected for the reported flight duration), and the recorded message.
- This case is reportedly buried in a Mexican library archive, requiring a handwritten letter and interviews for access, and was discovered by a Spanish-language researcher named Sam.
- The guest recounts a snowboarding trip with friends Nick and Wolf to Nick's family cabin in New Hampshire, located on an old, abandoned ski resort.
- The cabin was uniquely constructed, with half on stilts and the other half built into the mountain, featuring a wraparound porch and an open floor plan.
- On the first night, the guest, unable to sleep in the dark, windowless cabin, heard footsteps outside on the porch.
- The footsteps entered the cabin and approached their room, intensifying the guest's fear and leading to speculation about an intruder.
- The guest describes seeing a tall, dark figure enter the pitch-black room, walk past his bunk, bend over his bunkmate, and disappear into the floor.
- After the figure vanished, the guest believed he slept for about an hour before waking up and hearing Nick's mom in the kitchen.
- He hesitantly asked Nick's mother if her older sons had visited, and she confirmed they hadn't, adding, 'It was just my husband. I heard him last night too.'
- The guest felt his appearance and probing questions clearly indicated he had a frightening experience, seeking to ascertain if it was related to her son.
- On the second night, the guest again experienced the tall, dark figure entering the room, walking past the bed, and vanishing after bowing into Nick, intensifying his fear.
- Despite the terrifying experience, the guest remained in the room, struggling with exhaustion and the reality of the recurring apparition, feeling obligated to stay for the family trip.
- Upon waking, the guest encountered Nick's mother, expressing hysterical fear; she revealed she also heard the sounds, attributing them to her husband, which contradicted the guest's perception.
- The guest expressed a strong desire to leave the house due to the frightening experiences but grappled with the social implications of abandoning the family trip and appearing insensitive to their grief.
- On the third night, the guest again heard footsteps on the porch around 3 AM; this time the presence moved to the second floor, causing him to fear it would descend through the ceiling.
- Upon waking early, the guest heard Nick's mother crying on the stairs; she pointed to a coffee table where 'I love you' was etched, claiming she did not write it.
- The guest questions whether Nick's mother fabricated the ghost story out of grief or if something genuinely supernatural occurred, noting he is not a sleepwalker and the event was corroborated, leading him to end his relationships with Nick, Nick's mother, and Wolf due to the trauma.
- Later, during a 'Vigilance Elite' survival series event at a Civil War-era cabin in College Grove, Tennessee, the crew experienced strange electrical issues and heard distinct footsteps from the loft area, prompting them to pack up and leave.