And That's Why We Drink - E271 A Top-Heavy Brain and a Beer Can Easter

Episode Date: April 17, 2022

Happy Easter! Did you know the best way to praise Jesus is to sing Leona Lewis's Bleeding Love to him at a sleepover? Em's childhood self might object... This week, in episode 271, Em is also bringing us an interesting topic in light of Easter: the story of Barbro Karlén, a Swedish writer, mounted police officer and notable believer in past lives as she believes she was Anne Frank in a previous life. Then Christine brings us the chilling and tragic disappearance of Canadian teen Mekayla Bali. And tune in next time to see if Em's sleep self hid Easter surprises in their own apartment... and that's why we drink!If you have any information on Mekayla Bali's potential whereabouts, please email [e-mail] or call 1-306-641-9436. 

oh hello christine are you surprised i was surprised because for some reason in my mind i thought i might have to press record and it just happened for me so it worked out anyway well it didn't just happen for you eva did it but yeah it did it was the gods um yeah eva again our god okay honestly that's true uh how are you christine you've got you've got a little like like fancy shirt on today oh i do uh it's a maternity shirt oh well it fooled me if what they were trying to do was make it look like you're going out on a night on the town. Wait, did my delivery arrive to you? Uh-oh. I just realized I never checked.

I did have Starbucks sent to you. What? And the guy said he dropped it off. So now I thought maybe you had it, but I guess not. Oops. Well, hang on. This is not the time to be bringing it up right when we start recording. I'm sorry. I should have you had it but I guess not oops well wait hang on this is not the time to be bringing it up right when we start recording I'm sorry I should have thought about it

it's certainly the time let me go check my door oh my god what in the world Maria Hercine Schieffer oh my god I was so nervous he gave it to the wrong person why did he why did you do this? What did you do?

Because I felt bad because I'm the reason you had to wake up really early today. Oh, relax. I mean, don't keep giving me gifts out of pity. You sent me a bunch of vomit emojis, okay? If you didn't think that was going to spiral me into chaos. I really didn't know it was going to spiral you, but it worked out really well for me. Oh, this is one of my old school recipes. I haven't had this one in so long. Yeah, I hadn't had coffee before I ordered it. So I reverted back to like the early days of our Starbucks ordering with the chocolate

dipped things. And Christine, you little shifter. I am so glad. I was so nervous. I wrote in there like, please deliver to my friend like a giant weirdo. And then he responded like, I hope your friend really enjoys it. And I was like, who? You sent it to the wrong person, but I'm glad it's here. This is so nice. Oh my gosh. I was not expecting this. You know I love a good gift and you know

when I can eat it also. Oh, my gosh. Okay, I'm just glad it's there. I'm just so glad because I felt really bad making you wake up early to record. Oh, well, I feel bad because then we ended up recording at, like, almost a normal time because I had to push it. So now I half owe you something, I think. Okay. Okay, sure. Where's my latte?

Ah, this is so nice and for those who um don't know i have a weird obsession with the chocolate dipped cookies at um starbucks and like we've had like business meetings with like like high up people who have like offered us snacks at those meetings and it was the chocolate chip cookies from or the chocolate covered cookies from starbucks yeah and um it took everything in me to like act professional in these meetings when there was a plate of them i thought you were gonna say i took everything with well and i was like i did i did at the end can i take some of these home it's weird we never heard back from those people okay yeah don't make me feel bad. Just kidding.

I just saw a plate of them the whole time, but I gotta be honest. It was like having a meeting with dogs when they're in a circle surrounding a bowl of peanut butter. I was not fully paying attention to really important information. Ah, but you got me two of them.

And I'm really, thank you. Wow. I, this is the beginning of a good day. Wow. Oh, good. I wanted to make sure I didn't send you into a sad day because you were tired and, you know. This, it can't be done now.

That's for sure. Oh my gosh. Wow. Okay. Well, I, why do you, this is why I drink and it's what I drink also so for those who want to know my my old school recipe i used to get um uh an iced green tea which i still actually i have one in my fridge right now so it's not too old of a recipe um by the way a venti well i usually get

a trenta on a on a on a extra stressful day because i'm like i need the extra gulps but uh i get iced green tea. And these days, I've only been getting it with some sweetener in it. But I also used to add two scoops of like the strawberry puree or whatever or two pumps. Oh, it's so good. The strawberry iced tea. Oh, good. I'm glad I I'm glad. I hope it's to your liking. You put me in a very silly mood, Christine. I'm very excited. Wow, you got me going. As you know, when we logged on, I was in a very silly mood.

So I'm thrilled to hear. They made it perfect. It literally tastes like a strawberry threw up. That's exactly what I wanted. Yum! That's what I told them. I was like, please follow my instructions. Exactly.

Put it together with the chocolate-covered cookies. You got a little chocolate-covered strawberry situation in the in the mouth oh la la we're having a good time okay our own edible arrangement why on earth do you drink besides pleasing me i gotta tell you i since we are recording this i my scheduling has been very difficult lately because my brother and his girlfriend are jet setting around the country and so he and I are having a hard time squeezing in recordings and much like you he tends to sleep in um as I used to before I had a hellion in my belly and now I have to wake up at like seven in the morning um and so it's been a little bit chaotic trying to schedule everything and so today we decided to schedule now.

And this actually worked out great in a selfish way for me because Leona has a pediatrician appointment at 2 p.m. And Blaze and I were going to go together as we have in the past. But he's bringing her now. And he honestly is, I think, relieved because it's very difficult for me to deal with her getting shots because it's just awful to watch her be all happy and like friendly and bubbly and then they like stab her with the needle which is one of my biggest fears anyway and then I have like a panic attack and last time I just sat in the car and like it was just really bad so anyway I think this is for the best uh Blaze is gonna take her and handle the emotional trauma of it.

And then I'll see her afterward. I also feel like going to a medical facility for Blaze is like going to the bar with the bros. I feel like he's like, I mean, Dr. Blaze, he is not a doctor. But before I get more emails, but Mr. Medical Blaze, who, by the way, was the only one who could diagnose me with SVT apparently. So you tell me if he's Dr. Blaze or not. Um, I feel like him finding out that like, you're not going with him to the hospital is kind of like a dude finding out that like, he's like having like a surprise, like night with the boys. And it's like, Oh, like I'm with the boys and it's like yeah oh like i'm sure it's the same i'm sure they're gonna do shots they're not gonna do

shots but they're gonna watch his daughter take shots you know what i'm saying yeah it's terrible because they put it right in her little leg in her thigh and it just like looks really freaking painful and the last time it was really sad because they gave her one and she like was really she was like, what the hell? And then was like, OK, I'm all right. And like recovered and didn't cry and was really brave and looked at me and I was like, good job. And then they gave her another one. And she's like, what the hell? Like, I thought you were going to tell me it was over.

Yep. And then she had a breakdown and then I felt terrible. Anyway, it's just it's just rough for me in a selfish way. So so that's why I drink. I'm drinking my little sparkling water because my boxed wine is not ready for consumption yet. I need to give it a couple more hours. I also was going to say because it's nine in the fucking morning, but then I remember not for you. It's actually lunchtime. Very least afternoon. Yeah, it's at the very least. So anyway, that's why I drink. But I'm excited because you did tell me you have something interesting, a story that I will like. I have a very good story. And also before we get away from

Leona and medical stuff, I don't know if this is a good sign or not to you. But I had another doctor appointment yesterday. And the nurse that was helping me was named leona no wait really yeah i've never met a leona before well i have now i can say did you say anything i wanted to and then i was like hmm but she might have bad news after she's announced herself maybe i'd like let this let this linger her face okay i was like maybe i hold on to the fun fact until i find out that like we're in a happy zone you know maybe uh maybe it's a sign for something i don't know what yeah anyway i thought you would like to hear that i do because i've never met a leona so that's kind of if you're a listener named leona let me know i'm very curious if your last name is lewis um let us know about please sing it to us i would us know. I would love to have some,

to have some drinks with you. Sorry. She's like, no, I wouldn't though. Have I told you, I think I've told you that like the Leona Lewis bleeding love song. That was like how every like child,

my age in my area when we were younger, got like forced into like youth group and stuff like that. I, uh, like if I was staying at a friend's house house i had to go to their youth group and all that yikes and there was a a youth group or like i don't know i don't know all the right words but it was a church thing for kids and they had like a whole like meeting or like the topic of the day was that they played, uh, Leona Lewis's bleeding glove.

And then they talked about how that's how you should feel for Jesus. Oh my God. Oh my God. And I was like, Hmm, I am not going to come back here. Whoa. I was like,

this sounds gross and like super toxic. So I'm just going to bounce. I'm pretty sure that song came out when we were like 17 uh oh yeah well however old we were it was like the hottest craze and obviously they were like trying to be topical and i was like this is not the vibe you know that's so funny because that song uh i used to despise that song do you know why because you would scream it to jesus no uh no because it says things about veins oh well it is talking about bleeding so i feel like she i have such a thing about veins and i i used to hear it on the radio and be like stop it i feel like if you're writing a song with the

word bleed in the title it would be inappropriate as a songwriter to not incorporate words like veins is this what you said in youth group because no wonder you were not invited back i wasn't welcome back for a lot of reasons but let's put it this way i was certainly uh i didn't i was very secure in my boundaries way back then and i had no problem standing up for myself i kind of i missed that part of me it's kind of disturbing because the lyric, I mean, I, I now have a new appreciation for Leona Lewis for multiple reasons. And I think, um, she has lovely music, but at the time I was like, I cannot stay in the song. Cause she'd say like, I keep on trying to close my veins and I would like want to throw up. It just freaked me out so much. Um, but yeah, I'm looking at the

lyrics now and I'm like, you cut me open. I keep falling in love with you. Like, why are you talking to Jesus that way? But I guess. Yeah, I was gonna say, you know how like in a fortune cookie where you say like in bed at the end to make it funny. You should just read those lyrics and add Jesus. That's fun. That's a fun game.

Yeah. Anyway. Anyway. Leona the nurse. Love that. So happy. Also, we were nominated for People's Choice. fun uh that's a fun game yeah anyway anyway leona the nurse love that so happy also please uh but we were nominated for people's choice i don't know if this comes oh my god before then but we we're not it comes out literally this weekend homie for oh so never mind it's too late or next weekend or something like that okay well it's too late anyway we were nominated for third webby we're

very very very honored um super honored it's crazy wild i don't know how many people have been nominated three times but i feel like we're like i mean we're one super grateful but two like i'm shocked that we get to be a part of that yeah it feels very it's an honor so um if you have voted thank you very much we just post about it on social media and stuff so yeah and just i don't i'm I assume we're always on the same page, this kind of stuff, but I never address it because I'm always afraid of jinxing it. But like, I always have a panicky feeling that like, you know, tomorrow's gonna be the day like we had a great run. It's been five years. And like, I always freak out the like, everyone's gonna get

tired of us like that. And oh, yeah, it always a nice reminder like, oh, people are still supporting us. Yeah. It feels really good. I never had this complex until some news outlet wrote about us and called us an oldie but a goodie. And it really rocked me. I want to say that's true, but it's not because we've always had this complex that we were going to like run out of. And that happened pretty recently. So I know you're attributing it to that but you've always been slightly terrified i've always been

scared but that really that really felt like home yeah like the first the first nail in the coffin if you will i was like oh god we're being called old now yeah yeah yeah yeah anyway i yes so thank you so much it really did um take me down anxietywise a few notches to know that people are still out there and do really love the show. And I don't know what I'm talking about because every time we go to one of your towns, everyone is just so lovely and excited. I get in my own head. I think COVID also made it harder to kind of see the support from, especially when it's just social media that can kind of zap your self-confidence and all that good stuff so it you you said it perfectly so anyway yes thank you so much to everyone who voted and we very much appreciate you and it feels good to still be acknowledged for all of our hard work so yeah okay so let's get into this and i want to start it off by apologizing if anyone hears a weird humming behind me they are doing roofing construction right now at my place so

like forget it there's nothing i can do about the weird sounds just be lucky because emmy called it humming or no purring to me and eva like 10 times and we were like purring like we thought there was a cat it sounds like a godzilla-sized cat is taking a nap upstairs is what it sounds like oh cool okay well also really quick i just realized this episode comes out on easter um and as someone who is very concerned with easter because of only the chocolate um oh right i'm gonna eat some of these cadbury eggs while you talk but i'm gonna be really quiet so i just want to promise you well also hear a noise of me eating it it's um it's the roofers upstairs at m's house i'm gonna be like are there a bunch of like oversized cats in your mouth chewing or something by the way since it is easter go listen to some leona lewis and really

praise jesus as you do so uh by the way speaking of easter that makes this story slightly funny in a dark way um at the end so just because on a christian day of course this would be the story i talk about okay okay uh i don't know if that gives you any inkling to what's about to happen but this is the story of barbro carlin what's that it's a person oh i thought it was gonna be a demon uh her name is swedish she's uh no demons involved in this i didn't mean because of her name i thought you meant because it's a christian holiday you said oh no you'll you'll quickly see where the uh the irony and christianity happens i see okay so um barbro carlin is a sw a Swedish woman who was born in 1954. She also, interesting to note, was born to Christian parents.

Basically, as soon as she could start talking, Barbara would tell her parents memories that hadn't happened. Oh, hell yes. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I put my eggs down. I'm excited. By the way, I got so excited for you that my heart started having a little skipped beat for a second so oh shit i'm gonna send you a note

i have a heart monitor on right now so i'm supposed to tag every time that happens excuse me you were so shocked that we were called oldies and then you're like hold on let me check my heart monitor real quick let me let me tap on my heart monitor so i have to press this button and then i have to carry literally button and then I have to carry literally a whole second phone around for 30 days non-stop and it doesn't even have snake I asked it literally has one screen and that's it but I have to press a button every time my heart skips a beat and it like I have to fill out like a little like survey of like symptoms so anyway you got me all excited because this is I feel like this is at least um a good one to talk about

i think it's got a good banter and something you're really gonna like if you can't tell we're heading towards reincarnation i'm so excited because i'm currently reading a book i don't even know if i told you this but i'm reading a book um called erasing death and uh i'm very excited because that's exactly what this is about oh wait no i already read erasing death i'm reading surviving death right now oh is that is it a series no this one is the other one was by sam parnia this one is the one that they based that netflix series off of ah the one did you ever watch that no oh well it's very good anyway so this is one of my like current obsessions but i i'm like a chapter in so i don't know anything i'm very excited about one erased death and one survived death who do you think did it better currently um i think jesus is the reason for the season so he did a pretty good job he actually destroyed death and came

right back he rolled a big rock away with his own two hands i feel like i'm gonna be smited today of all days so uh yes uh she was telling her parents that there were certain things going on that didn't make sense in her life. And not only that, but she was telling them that they weren't her real parents. And her real father was going to come back any day and take her home. Oh, that's kind of sad for her parents. It gets even sadder. Oh. Oh, that's kind of sad for her parents. It gets even sadder. Oh.

She would also tell them that her name was not Barbara, but her name was Anne and would tell them all about her life as Anne. Barbara Anne. Sorry. I'm sorry. Her father was actually the Beach Boys. All five of them. All four of them. So eventually, here's the thing, though.

She told them her name was Anne. She then started giving them more details and eventually told them her last name. Do you want to take a shot in the dark of what the last name was? Oh, Lynn. Frank. Oh, no. Who had only died nine years before Barbara was born. Oh, no, Em.

Oh, no. And now you see where the irony of it being Easter is. I don't know about this. This is wild. So the parents were like, my kid keeps saying, since she literally could speak, since she was like two years old, she's been like, they're like, Anne Frank, Anne Frank. Who the fuck is Anne Frank? Oh, they didn't know, right. Because keep in mind, Anne Frank only died a few years ago and her diary had only come out two years

into finding out that the full name was Anne Frank. Wow. The diary was only out for two years and it had not yet been translated to Swedish. Oh my gosh. So they had never heard of Anne Frank or it hadn't blown up yet, which is wild to me that there was ever a world where people didn't know who Anne Frank was.

Fun fact, apparently I didn't know this. The Diary of Anne Frank is the second best selling book after Happy Easter, the Bible. Yep. I did know that. And I'm pretty sure also there was some controversy surrounding the release of her diary because her uncle released it. Yeah, so the only information I know about that is that her father originally didn't want it published at all.

And this is information that I got from her cousin who lived with the father for years after he – so Anne Frank's father was the only one in the family who survived the Holocaust and was able to come back. Someone they knew was able to save Anne's diary. I guess they had gone to the house and were trying to find keepsakes in case the family survived and they found the diary. find keepsakes in case the family survived and they found the diary so when Otto Frank came back from Auschwitz he ended up getting her diary reading through it and he didn't want to publish it but he let some of the close family friends read it and they were like this is a fucking historical document it has to be published and then he remembered that one of Anne's big dreams was to be a published writer one day and And so then. Okay. All right.

Well, that adds some context. Yeah. Um, and I only know that from the person that Otto Frank lived with for the rest of his life when he came back. So I feel like that's a pretty direct source. How do you know that person? Oh, like I did research. Oh, I was like, what? You never told me this. Okay. No, no, no. So, uh, Anne Frank's cousin ended up being the person that Otto moved in with when he came back from Auschwitz. And that cousin did interviews talking about the book. I see.

Okay. Interesting. Um, uh, have you ever read it? I haven't read it in a long time, but I think all of us kind of at some point in high school had to read it. Um, I think I, I think all of us kind of at some point in high school had to read it. Um,

I think I, I think actually I can say with pretty solid confidence that I didn't really understand what I was reading. I think it was given to me when I was not mentally mature enough for it. So I haven't read it properly to answer your question. Yep. Um, but,

uh, so anyway, they kept saying, I don't know who Anne Frank is. You've just got a wild imagination. Um, obviously they thought everything was just her telling stories and they didn't believe her. Um, this is a quote from Barbara though. Um, she said, I tried to find out how strange it was that I was living in two worlds at the time. I knew my name was Anna I was living in two worlds at the time.

I knew my name was Anna Frank, but they insisted on calling me Barbro. And my parents insisted, uh, that I call them mom and pa, but I knew they were not my real parents. It was very difficult. It was a very difficult situation to grow up like this because I had no one to talk to. And even though my parents were very loving and caring, they didn't want to deal with this. That sounds traumatic. And she's a literal child, like not even in school yet. You wouldn't even understand at the slightest what was going on.

Yeah. She said that a lot of her life, she was just scared. She was like, why, why am I having these thoughts that aren't lining up and where are my parents? And I mean, imagine being three, being like, where's my dad? Traumatized. And someone else is like,'m your dad i mean traumatizing yeah and so for years she would keep telling them her real name that her dad was going to come get her um even though she knew that they didn't want to hear it she just kept saying it and at the time while growing up um in hindsight barbara's parents did notice some very peculiar personality traits about her. Mainly that since birth and all the way through adulthood at some point,

Barbara had a constant, very upsetting fear of men in uniforms. She used to have a constant every night nightmare since she was a baby, all way through her childhood all the way through her teen years and even into some of her adult years of men in uniforms quote running up the stairs and kicking in the door to a place where she was hiding in the attic oh my god um barbara was also terrified of uniforms in general even as an adult to a point where she said that if she got pulled over by a cop and like asked just to show her id which was a very triggering experience having to show military personnel her identification um she said it felt like she without question was going to die. Um, she also was terrified of taking showers. I'll let you marinate on why a shower might trigger her. Um, she's also terrified of getting haircuts, which was something that all the people that

were brought into concentration camps, they were, um, forced to have their heads shaved and so that's part of the experience and then she also her entire life had a incredible aversion to eating beans which is what her family lived on in the attic for two years so they were like okay all that's like odd and she keeps saying she's anne Frank and like, we don't know what to do. So at six years old, they decided to take her to a psychiatrist. And at this point, she felt so shamed by her parents of like,

hey, like, don't talk about this. We don't want to talk about this. But she was already kind of playing the system. And she was like, I'm not going to say shit to the psychiatrist if I know that a doctor is getting brought into this right so she said nothing and the therapist went back to her parents being like there she's fine so whatever a year later at seven or eight she couldn't remember the official age she picked up a new passion you want to guess what that passion

was writing oh interestingly it was because this is where I think like banter can get involved because it's this whole thing is just full of theories at this point. Sure, sure. She picked up a new passion, writing, which became a lifelong passion. And she interestingly only became interested in writing because she felt like she couldn't talk about her past memories as Anne Frank so it's almost like which came first like did Anne Frank cause her interest in writing or is she interested in writing because of her memories of Anne Frank or sure so kind of a weird we'll never know which instigated the other. And so she got more quiet about her memories out loud. But once she was seven or eight and learned how to write,

she said it felt like a massive relief. Quote, quote, because I could tell the paper everything that I couldn't tell anyone else. Because once I wrote it, I could throw it away. So she would just like write herself affirmations that she wasn't crazy and then throw them away before someone found out. Oh, my goodness. At seven years old. Yeah.

Yeah. And also you got to remember that's the 50s. Like even psychiatry was not something you just necessarily did. Yeah. something you just necessarily did uh yeah and remember her parents were christians which is another thing that is very ironic about this of like yeah is that was that a sole choice of like i tried out being jewish and that didn't fucking work so like do we do something else this time or like but i guess my thought like why if reincarnation of past lives are real, why would this, of all souls, why would this soul, like, take these memories with them? It sounds like really traumatizing.

And, like, what's the point of retaining all these memories, I guess? So at the end, she has a guess about that. Okay. And one thing I really do like about this story, and by the way, I'm aware that we're talking about the literal Holocaust. So when I say, when I like this topic, please understand um and that we're getting not that it's Anne Frank but that we're getting a full true behind the scenes backstory of what someone who has these memories is like or like what their lived experience is because I feel like a lot of times when we talk about reincarnation we only get like the cool facts and the similarities but

we don't see like hey this really fucked up my childhood i didn't have a childhood and like it gave me so much trauma but like i didn't even deserve in this life didn't deserve in the last life but like it makes no sense in this life and i yeah i have nightmares and so you should read well i guess not read the book but is there an audiobook version uh actually yeah probably most likely but also the series on netflix is really good and they do go into specific cases and like one of the first ones in the book at least is about a family a christian family whose son keeps saying he was you know in the war and uh the dad has a really hard time trying to navigate being a Christian and accepting that his son has lived a past life.

And so it's really interesting to hear. Yeah. Like that backstory of like the conflict within the family, the conflict within their own like religious cells. Yeah. So, yeah, it's I think it's a really fascinating. I also think it's super interesting. I don't know. I feel like we've told a lot of stories, either listener stories or reincarnation stories.

I feel like we've talked about it a lot or even like our listeners who have written in stories about like their kids saying spooky things. But it's good to know about these other people who are adults now and can know how to verbalize what they were going through. Because maybe it's like kind of funny that like your kid thinks XYZ, but like, just be prepared for some of the trauma that might be showing up and like, and what weird ways that happens. So in that way, in a very subtly silver lining way, it feels like this is like a really cool story as a psa for others that might go through it you know yeah especially because she's so willing to share yeah yeah and if it's truly anne frank i mean she's still doing like some really cool work out

there by being like hey like this is my story in terms of reincarnation and if you've got some reincarnation going on like all right you know let me tell you what's going because she said that she originally never planned on telling anyone obviously that she was anne frank she was like i'm not going to be that person and claim that but i think she realized that other people might be going through the same thing and it was almost a disservice to not be public about it so yeah, yeah, I mean, in that way, it's like she's just a good, solid person. I'm always really skeptical. I think a lot of people are when people people say, you know, I was Cleopatra in a past life.

I was King Arthur. I was yada yada. Because it just seems to almost take away from the history. I don't know. there's something kind of like icky about that to me um but i am i'm so i'm always a little skeptical but i feel like i uh i might be more open-minded about this one i don't know i feel like for this one because it was she was so young why on earth would she just pick that name out of a hat? And on top of it, like Anne Frank wasn't even a famous person yet as far as she was concerned, as far as a three-year-old was concerned with parents who had never heard of her. So I think that's already a good sign that she's not fucking around here.

It's not like when she was like 30, she was like, oh, wait a minute. I have a repressed memory. Yeah. So here's when she found out who Anne Frank was. So at seven or eight, when she was reading or writing, she was writing herself little notes about being Anne Frank and kind of writing down memories of like anything she could remember and kept it completely to herself. She'd been shamed enough by her family. But one day in school, her teacher brings up ann frank in class and oh boy and that was the first time she realized that ann frank was a famous person

and she was like how the fuck does my teacher know about me oh my other personality or like yeah me yeah or like my deep family secret my big shameful secret how does the i feel like i mean imagine your your biggest darkest secret your parents have shamed you out of and like your teacher just starts talking about it in front of everyone. But so she was like, how does this person know about me? Like, it doesn't add up. Like how to, how does she know Anne Frank when I've never said that name to anybody. And so she was shocked and she realized at this point, oh, this is a famous person. So whatever's going on, it's just not wise to go around claiming that I'm her because people will think I'm crazy. So she is going on, it's just not wise to go around claiming that I'm her

because people think I'm crazy. So she's a smart, very smart cookie, a smart child for self preservation reasons. I mean, I truly and maybe she was just going off of survival, but it good for her. I mean, I probably would have not read the room like she did. And that's me. Yeah, exactly. So at 10, she goes on a family trip um where they go to a bunch of several major cities including amsterdam where anne frank lived and i don't know i i didn't seem to um i didn't i didn't understand if her parents wanted to go see the anne frank house because now anne Frank is famous or if they were like my kid keeps calling herself Anne Frank we should go see who this person is I don't know

what if which scenario it was but they did see the Anne Frank house as a tourist attraction uh on the list and they were like okay let's go there by the way at this time when she was 10 the diary had been translated into Swedish so the parents had an idea of who Anne Frank was. Okay. Um, so when they got to Amsterdam, the parents wanted to see the Anne Frank house. And just so everybody knows, apparently the streets in Amsterdam are particularly difficult to navigate. I guess the, a lot of them are circular and there's a lot of like twists and turns and backs, back streets and things like that. So especially if you've never been there before, a lot of people will take cabs or just trust other people to direct them. And the day that they plan to go to the house, Barbara's father asked a cab to take them there. And Barbara, who was 10 years old, never been to Amsterdam, said, we don't need a taxi.

It's not that far from here. It's like 10 minutes down the road. Oh, my God. And then I guess she said it so confidently. The parents were like, okay, you want to show us how to get around? Sure. Like, whatever. And so within 10 minutes, Barbara had gotten them to the house by taking shortcuts and

all these random turns that only a local would know and said, like, oh, it's right here. It's right around the corner. We're about to be there. And sure enough, they turned the corner and the house was right there. And at the front door, she looked at her parents and went, it's so weird.

It does. It didn't look like this before. And then she even mentioned that the front steps had been changed. Oh my God. Which ended up being true right um and although she was super excited on the way to the house as soon as she walked in she began having this crazy panic attack yeah i imagine um like super clammy super sweaty her like hands were ice cold her own her own mom was freaked out because i guess like um barb Barbara went to like go hold her hand and the mom was like, oh, my God, are you OK?

Wow. And I guess the way she described it was like, I didn't want to be there because all of a sudden I ever she said every room that she went through, all of a sudden it clicked in her head because they were identical to the nightmare she'd been having since she was a childhood. Oh, honey. Oh, no been having since she was a childhood. Oh honey. Oh no. And, or since she was a child and a quote from Barbara is when I came into that house, it was the most horrifying feeling I've ever felt.

And I guess she said that she didn't want to be there because she, in every room, she could basically predict what the next room was, but that was going to come up. But she felt like she needed to be there because in a lot of ways it was in every room she could basically predict what the next room was that was going to come up. Oh, how spooky. But she felt like she needed to be there because in a lot of ways it was super validating for everything happening to her. Right. And so she said that the house looked exactly like it did in her dreams ever since she was a baby.

And when she got to Anne's old bedroom, she got really excited because I guess she remembered as anne frank she had put up a bunch of newspaper clippings of pictures of like movie stars at the time and she she put them up on the walls and i imagine like if you have felt lost your whole life and you finally found your bedroom yeah yeah like it must have been in such a dark way such as a feeling of safety of like i'm home yeah or like at least it makes some sense like i yeah yeah yeah um i don't know how to how to verbalize what she probably felt but i i imagine it was in you know terrified in one way because it's some way terrifying in one way because of your nightmares and your memories but also it's like i finally like i was i'm finally

back where i thought i was supposed to be or something yeah yeah um and so she was really excited to see her bedroom she was like i want to see all the pictures that are still on the wall and or when they got closer to the room she saw something on the wall and she went oh look the pictures are still there and the mom was like what pictures like what first of all what are you talking about what pictures did you expect to see there and second of all the wall is bare there's no pictures there oh and i guess in her excitement she assumed like she must have just seen something out of the corner brian thought the pictures were so but they weren't and uh she looked at her mom and she was like i know pictures are supposed to be there like like dude i put them, I put them up myself. Yeah. And so

the mom now really getting freaked out, went to one of the staff members and asked if there were pictures that used to be on the walls. And the guy said, yeah, and Frank put them up, but they recently took them down because so many people were touching them that it was starting, they were starting to get worn down. So we're getting them framed and putting them back up later. Oh, my goodness. Okay okay and that is what made barbara's mom after all these years believe her um really to a point where she told her you're not alone um so this and told her i think in the house was like i understand i believe you and all of this was so overwhelming first of of all, your mom finally believes you. So

you don't feel like gaslit anymore after like 10 years. And now you're in a place that's full of nightmares while also feeling like you're in the right space. And like, so she just couldn't handle it. So she was like, you guys keep going through the tour. I'm going to go sit outside. And when she walked away on the way out, she had some sort of weird, I don't know what happened. I don't know what happened, but she saw a man in a green uniform that nobody else could see. Uh-oh. And she said, quote, I swear to you, he was so real like you are to me now. I know he was there.

I fell down on the floor and I was laying there. And when I looked up, I could see all these tourists standing there looking at me. And there was no man in a green uniform oh shit so that makes me wonder was this like could this have been such a strong past life moment that she either triggered a powerful flashback so it just felt I was thinking like did it feel more real because this time it wasn't a dream it felt like it was happening in real time or in the paranormal world was this such a strong connection that she like such strong connection to like the spirit world that she was finally actually visualizing it yeah or like was this had she accidentally like conjured a spirit from that time because she was her soul was in a place with that memory and it

was so powerful like a ghost showed up or i wonder too since she said oh the photos are still there maybe she could still kind of see the layers of like when she was actually there and then the current version of it maybe it was layered it's like maybe she's in between two worlds and she can see both both timelines or yeah and i mean even even the thought of like a ptsd flashback also have been described as, you know, hyper-realistic and stuff. So it could also have been something like that. Yeah. Which also like, then that's a, uh, a very interesting piece of, of conversation of like,

so could you have such strong memories of your past life that you, you're literally reliving trauma today which is which i guess you're still doing with the nightmares and everything but like to have something as real as thinking a person is in front of you is as like a full-on flashback from the war yeah yeah that's frightening i mean and that's kind of what happens with that kid i was talking about in that early chapter of the book where he keeps having he keeps reenacting his own plane crash and like oh my god terrible nightmares and it's like his parents are like what on earth you know and it's terrible because like they're little kids yeah they shouldn't be having to constantly be thinking about their own

death you know um it's kind of i i feel like when i've heard people say like oh my kids have you know they remember things from their past i wish they were able to give me more it's almost like maybe this is for the best that they only have like tail maybe they only have like three good memories of that time and that's all they need you know because like maybe they're gonna have some flashbacks that make no sense and also that's a great uh i don't know if like there's no really sound reasoning to this conversation but i feel like if we wanted to get off on a tangent about like generational trauma like think of spiritual trauma like the fact that it's like fully carried over into her current life and just because it was so

important to her soul i mean they've proven that trauma can impact your dna and stays in your DNA. So I can only imagine if, you know, your soul is constantly surviving. I feel like I can't imagine why it wouldn't be able to carry some of that. It's just such a deep conversation with no real answer because there are none. So that day after she had all these experiences in the Anne Frank house, which like, wow, amazing that there, you could literally go to your own house and like relive it if you wanted to, with all these questions in mind. Um, that was the day, not only that her mom believed her, but it caused her mom to become much more spiritual and a big believer in things like

reincarnation and all that her father on the other hand he admitted that like something's up i don't get it and it's you specifically and you're the only example that i'm willing to allow to be open minded but for for any other circumstance he didn't want his faith challenged i think so he was i think barbara said that the best way she could describe it was that he just always seemed annoyed by it that like it was constantly making him second guess or it was challenging him to second guess he didn't want to be challenged yeah interesting so now that the mom was super supportive and barbara found some peace in that she honestly like at the time,

kind of closed the chapter of that life, closed that part of her life, or I'm not knowing how to use words today, but she couldn't, she decided that she was over it. She was like, I made peace with it. I got to go to the house. I got some answers. I don't want to talk about it anymore.

That's fascinating. So it was almost resolved her. Yeah. Interesting. Okay. And she ended up just focusing on her writing, which again, like is just so wild that like, like interests like that would carry over in another world too. Um, so she used her writing as an outlet to process her, uh, memories as Anne Frank. Um, but she had no interest in discussing

them publicly. She would just write them for herself. And she just felt happy to know that she wasn't crazy. And in her writing, she particularly enjoyed poetry and had notes all over her room, interestingly, about reincarnation and spirituality. But I imagine if you've had an experience like the Anne Frank House and you're Anne Frank, of course you're going to write about things like reincarnation and spirituality and what it all means. To try and understand it all means to try and like understand it. Maybe. Yeah.

So at 11, there was a family friend that came over and I guess saw some of the notes that she had written down. And I guess they were notes about poetry. And he liked them so much. He asked the family, can I publish some of this for her? Can I or can I give I have a friend that's a publisher. Can I give this to him and see what he thinks? And so they were like, yeah, go for it. Like, she's just writing all the time.

Might as well take a few scraps and see what happens. And a year later, by 12 years old, her first book of poetry was published. Whoa. And it was called, I'm sorry for the dialect. I don't speak sweet Swedish, but, uh, Manasken Pa Jordan, which translates to man on earth. And here's the thing. Talk about living out a, the success story that Anne Frank might've wanted by 12 years old. Not only was this her first book published, but it like blew the fuck up it

became one of the most popular books in sweden really apparently she was even like as a child to promote this ended up on like tv programs and like it within the next five years she had published even more books either nine or ten in total all before in total, all before she was 18, all before she was 18. And during this time as a writer, Barbro realized that her past life memories were fading away. And so I think it's kind of interesting that maybe it was like, Anne Frank like had her, it was almost like she had made peace, like she did what she wanted. or got to live that dream of being a republished author yeah something like that and even even more fascinating slash spooky is by 15 um no new memories were surfacing in fact uh a lot of the memories were that she had even had up until 15 were fading away.

And she almost couldn't remember Anne Frank anymore. And the same nightmares stopped coming. So she had those nightmares all the way until 15 and 15 is when Anne Frank died. Okay. Wow. Oh, I just got goose came.

I wasn't even thinking that I was not even thinking that I was thinking, you know, so many times this seems to be a running theme that as kids get older they lose those the clarity of those past lives and they just seem to kind of disappear but yeah I hadn't even thought of the 15 correlation yeah and so she all these memories the nightmares they all went away when she was 15. And so that makes me think, could Barbro have not had any more memories after 15 because Anne didn't have any memories after 15? Or did Anne Frank feel like she got her second chance to, you know, have 15 years and then she moved on? And so when she, you know know got her second chance and was able to fade

away like all of the attachment to barbara took you know left her body or did ann and barbara's core memories detach from one another once barbara outlived ann's lifetime and so was it just like the standard like as kids grow older they lose their past life memories yeah so we do know um those were just some of my theories that in the middle of the night i wrote down like a crazed person but we do know that her memories to anne frank didn't officially detach they kind of just went into hiding because uh later in life barbara barbara had something happen to her that brought them back up. Oh, interesting. So they were more like now repressed. Yeah. So then that gives me like secondary questions where I'm like, okay, well, if it wasn't the situation where you're a kid and the feelings or the memories go away,

why did Anne Frank feel like this was a time where we could close that chapter? Or do all kids have the ability to bring it back and just haven't had an experience like Barbara did? So it's, who knows? Well, I also think... I know I gave you a heavy topic today, sorry, but it is so fascinating. It is. And I wonder too, I mean, I think memory without past life experiences, memory is such a fascinating concept that we still don't, scientists still don't understand. So it makes you think like, even if your own childhood memories become, you know, your

childhood memories become faded as we grow older, but you can repress things, especially if they're traumatic and you can, they can be retriggered later in life. So we don't know where they go in your brain, but like maybe it's something similar where it's just like a normal memory that you can kind of pull back later. Yeah. Great point. So, um, so they end up coming back later, uh, because something happens. So when Barbara was, um, by the way, for people wondering if I'm pronouncing her name like Barbaro, it's because it's spelled like that. So I feel like I'm trying to subtly emphasize the Barbaro. It's not Barbara. So at 15, the memories start fading away. She

focuses on her writing, and she has written like nine or 10 books by the time she's 18. Then she has a son a year later. And by 24, or sorry, by 23, she was like, I need a side hustle, I need something that I can financially depend on for my kid. And even though I'm having fun writing books, and I'm getting some success from that, I need to, like, just be more mature about this and make sure that I'm always financially stable for him. So here's an interesting thing, despite her like wild anxiety about uniforms. Um, she did have for her whole life, which I had yet to mention this whole time through her life. She's also loved horses. Oh. oh and so she was like despite the fear of uniforms but for my love of horses i need the money so i'm gonna become a mounted police officer oh my okay because she wanted to conquer her fear

of uniforms i was gonna say maybe it was a way to resolve that yeah interesting yeah so that was 100 it she's this is a quote from her. I can ride and get paid for it and put myself in a uniform and maybe I can be normal, which is so sad, but she, she goes on in that sentence to say, uh, I could accept that uniforms aren't like killing machines. So, um, and she ended up doing that for 15 years and she said she really liked it because the part of the, uh, business she worked in was she trained the horses. That's very cool. So I think that's, you know, horses are very therapeutic to work. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's so, and also I was going to mention that later that it's so interesting that horses

are known to be like a therapy animal and it's i in the in the cosmic world i wonder if there was a plan of some sort of like you're gonna be a person who remembers a lot of your past trauma but we're gonna put you in a world where like you also have some sort of therapy to rely on because like writing and horses right a path for healing that yeah that's interesting riding and horses are both known to be like great outlets and so it makes sense the writing one in a few ways but the horse one too is almost like the world was saying like we're going to give you spaces to like feel safe and like process this again if you're like more of a cosmic believer

or trying to think in that way which i'm trying to do i'm like desperately trying to solve this mystery i know so she ends up doing that job for 15 years and while she was there eventually at one point she starts having a horrible time with this one co-worker and she said originally that there was no reason why she didn't like him but just his voice or seeing him fucking terrified her and it just triggered something inside of her and over time i don't know if he could like read the room that she didn't like him or something but uh eventually he really showed his true colors and became a very dominant and um dark person to work with. On top of him being scary, this guy and a second co-worker both started causing really serious trouble for her at work.

And it became a really just dark space for her to be in. So this one job that she really liked, and she was already conquering a fear that she thought she never could. Now she didn't want to go there. Um, and I don't know what the situation was, but in interviews, she keeps it pretty vague and says that it was a very complex and dark experience. And she felt like they were constantly like on a crusade to be against her. Oh my God. So they were super aggressive and awful to her and their treatment jogged old memories and her same nightmares started coming back oh no okay and she felt like i want in an interview i watched she said she felt like she was being traumatized during the day as well as at night so there

was no relief from it because she'd have these nightmares and then be like super jittery and scared and terrified and then have to go into work and deal with people in real life who made her feel like the nightmares not a safe place anymore right and so it got and i think she does talk somewhere about in more detail what the situation was but in interviews she was just kind of keeping it like more short but i guess it was so bad that trigger warning, she ended up feeling like she just couldn't take it any longer. And she was having some ideation.

And one night she just begged for an answer. She was just, why is this happening to me? Why did I not get to have a childhood? Because I was just always so constantly thinking about this. I thought I finally got away from this. I got to have my own life and I was just always so constantly thinking about this. I thought I finally got away from this. I got to have my own life and I was doing better. And now all of a sudden these memories are coming back. Like what the fuck is going on? Um, and that night, I guess she said that she felt like something happened when she was thinking like that, where some,

she felt like you're about to get an answer. And that night she had the same nightmare, but this time it was a nightmare with answers that she needed. And basically she found out that the two people she was working with were also reincarnated from that time as people she had to deal with as Anne Frank, if you know what I'm saying. Oh no. What the fuck?

This experience, by the way,bara to write another book and this is the book where she publicly came out as anne frank so oh my gosh i am freaking out this is so grotesque and scary so the book is called and the wolves howled and uh if you wanted to read it it's where she is now not keeping it a secret. So and this is in her 40s at this point, or late 30s, early 40s. So that whole time she had kept it a secret, except from like close friends. So or maybe not even that maybe it was just her parents, but she never talked about it publicly up until this book that came out decades after she had had to deal with all of this. And she's she even said in her interview, she was like, if you asked me 10 years ago, if people would know I was Anne Frank, like, no way, I thought I was taking that to the grave.

And so whatever happened with these two men, and then this like really powerful dream that came out of it, pushed her to tell everybody the truth. So I feel like some people might be like, well, what are the odds? That's so absurd. But I feel like if you do believe in the concept of like a soul's journey and that, you know, there is that theory that souls come back to learn lessons, to grow, to and oftentimes are in each other's spheres over and over again in different relationships so it's not like totally absurd that two people who like knew each other yeah like maybe there was some reason these they needed to be resolving something new or especially like it, like in my mind,

like I feel like you and I knew each other in a past life and like nothing, even that traumatic maybe happened. I don't know. Like for something for like literally Anne Frank and Nazis, like of course there's going to be some sort of powerful thing that has to carry over in my mind. Totally understand why that would, that dynamic would,

would last several lifetimes or yeah and i i mean even like you said even relationships that are just kind of like inane like friends siblings parent you know child and then over time those souls just kind of keep coming back in each other's circle yeah it also makes me wonder though too i'm like it just gives me more questions because i'm like why on earth would the world make that poor soul run into nazis again you like you know but like why would it have done that the first time you know what i mean yeah exactly yeah it's like you would think like i'd get a grace period before i had to deal with evil in the next life like

honestly like you would think oh in her next, Anne Frank is just going to be the queen and just deserve love and like happiness and happiness. Right. But I feel like and if this story is true, I mean, I guess it makes more sense in terms of trauma. But it's still sad to know that Anne Frank came back and had to suffer in a different way. And it's like, are you fucking kidding me? That's not how we wanted this to play out no and i feel like it's definitely not like instant karma but i do wonder if over time because you know some people theorize too that we choose our lives you know after in the in in the in between we choose our next life we choose who our parents are we choose who so it makes you wonder like maybe there was some sort of sole purpose of like we're going to do this one more time or we're going to do this again. Oh, it's so fascinating. Oh, my gosh. So this is about a short paragraph, but I didn't want to paraphrase. So this is how Barbro describes what happened in the dream and what she thinks it means for her to have been Anne Frank. Okay. So again,

she had that really wild dream and encouraged her to write this book and come out publicly as Anne Frank. So in my dream, and also if any of it sounds a little broken, English is not her first language, you know the drill. But I, I tried to keep it as verbatim as possible. In my dream, I could see that those two people that were persecuting me in this life, they were in my past life. And things happened in my last days as Anne Frank that explain why things happened as they did in this lifetime, because there was unfinished business. And when

I realized that it gave me so much strength that I could stand up and say, well, last time you managed to kill me and this time you will not because remember, she was having some ideation. Oh, my God, you're right. And so it gave me so much strength that I could stand up and say, well, last time you killed me and this time you won't this time I have the choice to stand up and say, I will not allow you to kill me. In my past life, I didn't have that choice. And after that, I came to the conclusion that the reason why I've had these memories

must have been because, first of all, I wouldn't have survived this thing without those memories because everything would have seemed totally meaningless and evil to me. The second thing is I wrote my book where I go off and say I was Anne Frank. And that's not the important message, but the important message is that if you know where I go off and say I was Anne Frank and that's not the important message but the important message is that if you know that you've had a life before

that it could be things that happened to you in your past life or it could be karma or it could be people around you that affected you at the time this is the reason why things happen now you don't have to remember your past life but I think it makes it easier for you to know that you had one to me it definitely saved my life to see the connection and to know that I was the one to make the choice in this life. What I've, I'm getting ghost cam central. I just, I love the notion of it gave it, it gave it context and reason. It wasn't just, they were evil for no reason and ruining my life like it it gave it some layers and meaning and it's like you get a second chance at fighting for yourself yeah and that's

what what made it easier to address that's just so interesting and it's almost i mean this is kind of i think it's fucked up but maybe in like a poetic way which hey she liked poetry so i don't know but i think it's maybe it was i don't want to say meant to be or intentional but it feels like it was it's more important that the people she had to face in this life were people she knew in the past life it wasn't just a random mean person on the street yeah exactly like it like there was a meaning symbolism there was a symbolism to it yeah um and so by the way after she after this experience where she finally like had her aha moment of why she'd been having all these experiences her whole life to like lead up to her being able to stand up for

herself when the time came um after this clarity she never had any more nightmares no more anxiety found total peace and then ended up moving to the u.s for a fresh start wow so in 1995 i think this was when the book was being published before it had officially come out where she was announcing i am anne frank um there was a man that heard about her named Buddy Elias, who was a famous actor in, I think, Switzerland at the time. And he also happened to be the president of Anne Frank's foundation. Oh. He also happened to be the cousin and only remaining living relative of Anne Frank.

Oh, boy. And apparently, according to him, him and Anne were super close. They played together. Anne Frank mentions him a bunch of times in her diary as burned. And this is the cousin where after her father Otto got out of Auschwitz he lived with Buddy until he died. Right. So he happens to know barbara's uh barbara's publisher who i guess under the radar wasn't supposed to but told him about barbro because i think he was

he was like conflict of interest he was like yo like i know you run anne frank's uh foundation and you're her cousin i just wanted to let you know that like i kind of fucking know your cousin and she's alive uh so i think because they knew each other he like let it slip even though barbara didn't want people to know that yet so buddy ended up saying um yeah i certainly want to meet this person one because i'm fascinated but two who the fuck is claiming to be my cousin that died in a horrible tragedy all these years ago? I would be, my first instinct would be defensive, like, are you kidding me? You know?

Yeah, yeah. And so, and I'm sure she wasn't the first person to claim to tell her that I'm a huge fan of her poetry from when she was younger, can I take her to dinner? Don't tell her that I'm related to Anne Frank. I don't want her to know anything. And so they instead said, like, oh, a fan of your poetry wants to meet you in town or something. So Barbara agreed to meet. And according to both of them the second that their eyes met they fell into each other's arms and cried and they both have said

at separate times that they had an instant soul connection and knew each other immediately now i'm crying i mean especially for her to just think it was a fan of her poetry like she didn't know that this guy was related to Anne Frank. And for him to be like, oh, I'm just going to test and see the test the waters. And then like instantly it's like, never mind. I don't need to test it. Yeah. He said he's just looking to her eyes and they just like fell into each other and cried.

I think that's the most. I don't know. I think that I feel comforted hearing from a direct relative of anne frank saying like hey i also believe this just because it makes it feel less kind of like the stranger is doing this and yeah yeah well he ends up getting like and remember he's like a famous actor so he ended up coming under fire so badly like tabloids were fucking canceling this guy okay because he was also at the time he was around like 70 70 or 75 ish and he um he was a famous person who ran the anne frank foundation who was related to anne frank and was and publicly backed her and said i support this book this is my

cousin anne frank and everyone started thinking probably like oh this senile old man who oh like who runs a huge foundation full of money for anne frank is getting swindled and so like oh yeah i mean it is sketchy if you just hear it in that out of context yeah so he ended up getting like canceled to a point where even barbara was like you're getting death threats you need to stop publicly supporting me just don't talk to the press anymore and that's what he ended up doing because he almost had like a heart attack like he was like he was getting through the being put through the ringer so okay but anyway so they fell into each other and hugged and cried and

they talked for hours that night and buddy has again openly stated to the press that he is convinced without question that is his cousin anne frank wow and she even uh before she put out her book because i guess this all happened when she was in the middle of writing it she gave him the manuscript and asked for his approval before publishing it to be like it i want you to know the like if you're uncomfortable with this, we're not doing that. That's cool. And he said like you, I mean, she was literally coming out as Anne Frank's next life, like Anne Frank 2.0. And he basically said like, this is this, you got to do it. So he was super encouraging and supportive. again got in a lot of public trouble about that um and until 2015 only a few years ago when buddy passed away the two stayed super close friends they talked

what at least once a week and they would stay with each other when they were in town um and i have to think barbara must have finally felt like she knew somebody from her past that she could talk to about that stuff and then also like she i'm sure she like could research it and just go to a library but it must have been really nice to hear from her cousin like what was my dad like for the rest of his life because frank never got to know like right like the missing pieces you couldn't find on on the internet or like tell like like what would he say about me? Right. And like and Buddy has been open in interviews, too, of like how Otto handled the the next coming weeks after he finally came out of Auschwitz and he was looking for his kids and he was like all these horrible things. But like it must have been really powerful to be able to hear your cousin talk about your dad because you missed out on the rest of his life.

And so in some ways, I feel like that was probably really relieving. Maybe just to like look into the eyes of someone who sees you, sees you. So if anything came out of it, at least the cousins were reunited. If anything came out of it, at least the cousins were reunited. And before I close out, I want to give a recap on just some of the similarities that people over the years saw of Ann and Barbara. So first of all, one point of evidence that they are the same person is obviously all those crazy memories and nightmares that she was having. Plus basic interests. Both of them loved to talk about spirituality. If you look at Anne Frank's writing, she also liked spirituality. She loved nature. She loved animals. And Barbara wrote a lot about spirituality, had several animals and worked with horses her whole life. And she was

like a champion equestrian, like did like was huge with horses they both had the same phobias um uniforms showers haircuts eating beans um and weirdly their resemblance is very similar oh interesting it i was watching an interview um last night of barbro and i maybe it was because i was primed to think like this but i i kept like trying to envision like if you put anne frank's face in one of those generators to see what she looked like as a woman it would look very similar to how barbara looks and also the fact that they one died and one was born within 10 years of each other at 15 bar 15 Barbara's memories

faded which is when Anne Frank died their talents they were both famous for their writing as young teens they both had their work translated into multiple languages and interestingly both of their writing often talked about good and evil so there's a very famous quote from Anne Frank on good who said in spite of everything I still really believe that people are really good at heart. And without even meaning to, if you go back and look at some of Barbara's writing, this is what she says about about good. The more people there are who believe in good and in the good force within themselves, the greater the possibility of keeping evil under control. Wow. Wow. I mean, that's a powerful thing for a kid to be writing, you know? Yeah. And then for someone else to be trying to make it as their own writer and still the same information's coming out. Yeah. And I think that's really powerful too, that if it is

the, in fact, the same soul that like, despite what happened to Anne Frank, that same belief in good is persisting. Like, she still believes in the good of humanity after all that. I mean, that's really powerful, too. Literally into her next lifetime. Yeah. That is probably the most inspirational part of all of this. And also the fact that they were both famous for works that they wrote as teens. It's it's interesting to note just in like a spooky, ooky way of just that the only thing Anne Frank really wanted. She even wrote about it in 1944 that her, quote, greatest wish was to be a journalist and later on a famous writer.

greatest wish was to be a journalist and later on a famous writer. And so not only did she, by the way, succeed in that without having to have another life. I mean, she literally wrote the Diary of Anne Frank. So wildly famous, but she never got to be around to see the popularity of her own writing. And I would argue that this time around with Barbara, it was under different circumstances she got to be a famous writer on her terms right first of all it wasn't her literal

fucking diary which is like so intimate but also it wasn't about nazis and tragedy it was about things that she wanted the world to know her for so it i feel like that was even though she became a famous writer as anne frank from her diary that was not the condition she wanted to be a famous writer for or in. So she finally got to have her second chance at that with Barbro. You know what makes me think about when you watch shows about ghost hunting or what have you and they say, you know, sometimes spirits stick around because they have unfinished business. or what have you and they say you know sometimes spirits stick around because they have unfinished business and it makes you wonder you know if if that's also the kind of thing you can accomplish in your soul's next life what would i wonder why you would get stuck as a spirit here do you know what i mean like i feel like you hear that in both ways like oh a spirit is stuck here

because they have unresolved business but then a person can be reincarnated to kind of complete their business yeah i don't know it's just i wonder if it's a karmic thing of like you i mean i always refer back to my beliefs growing up which again really doesn't fall under any category i just listened to what my mom said and you know how how religion works for most of us i I think, as a child. The religion of Linda. The religion of Linda, which to this day is still like the most sound belief system I think I have, which is just that she always called it her bubble where people, you go into this life as like a group of people that mean something to you. Or maybe you get to select before you get here which friends you're going to reunite with in this life as like a group of people that mean something to you or maybe you get to select before you get here which friends you're going to reunite with in this life and maybe you take a break from some others and you see them in the next life or however it works but whoever you

like sign up to go into this life with if they die before you they stay as a ghost and like you know watch over you until everyone in the little like task group has died and then they all reincarnate together so that way it helps explain why there are ghosts and reincarnation where it's like you get to be a spirit and quote haunt the place until everyone in your your little group came down and you're here temporarily until yeah i see that's interesting and then there's that other thought of you know a spirit being here because they didn't go to the light and it's not because they were forced to be here but it's because they're resisting moving on and maybe that's part of it too like yeah they could go they could move on and do this in the next life

but they're like stuck here well also maybe if they're resisting it i mean imagine living like anne frank's life and like maybe you know where you don't know if how much how many similarities are going to be in the next one maybe you don't want to start another life maybe you're like this again yeah you're like i saw like this one was really rough like let me just have a fucking break in the void you know yeah that needs to be on my shirt my void um but yes it's it's so fascinating to be like i mean this whole conversation i know it's like under some really dark undertones here but the concept of reincarnation i think we could just go on forever it really is fascinating i and i'm i'm now re-inclined to continue this book i feel like i've kind of keep putting it aside because, you know, life and sleep are important.

But it's a really good book if you guys haven't read it. I've watched the series too, and that's really good. And also Erasing Death by Sam Parney is one of my favorites. And it's kind of a similar idea. Well, wow. So as for Barbra, she is currently 67. She has a son named Eric. At one point, she lived in Northern California. I don't know if she still does. Again, she was a champion

horseback rider. She's obviously recognized as an author in her own right, but also by many, including past life researchers and other Holocaust survivors, she is recognized as being the true reincarnation of ann frank to a point where at lecture she has been introduced as the reincarnation of ann frank and as the author of the diary of ann frank oh my wow i was not expecting that that's pretty wild at in at one lecture she ends up getting asked by someone this is the only question i wrote down but i thought it was such a good question um at a lecture bar she ends up getting asked by someone. This is the only question I wrote down, but I thought it was such a good question. At a lecture, Barbara was asked by someone if she carries any baggage about owing her past life, the adulthood she never got to experience.

And this is just a quote from Barbara that I wanted to end on where she said, yes, because I know that I wanted to write books. I know that I wanted to be famous. I'm not famous, but I've written my books and I've pursued that. And I've gotten my message out to a lot of people about what's important in life and that you have to believe in the good forces. And that was very important to me as Anne Frank. And I have been able to succeed in that. Wow.

And which really ties it all up, I think, of like... Powerful. If Anne Frank wanted to come back for anything, it was just to tell people to believe in the good. And this, I think it was like a 2010 interview. But just to remind you like how not so far away this history is, she said in the 2010 interview, which kind of jarred me she said it has sometimes struck my mind that if i hadn't died in my past life i'd be 80 right now wow and that was in a 2010 interview just to let you know that anne frank could very well still be alive today if what happened didn't happen so history is not as far away as you think folks that's i think that's another takeaway for sure um and that's the story of

barbara carlin wow wow wow wow wow i know we started really well where you gave me snacks and like i was in like a great mood and then i was like oh it's easter let's talk about the holocaust clearly right clearly i subconsciously knew you'd need some sustenance you know well i feel bad because i knew you probably needed some and just didn't even think to do it. I got my mini eggs. I'm good. Wow. That was probably one of my favorites you've ever covered.

You know what's so funny is last night I went to bed thinking, I think this is going to be one of Christine's favorite stories I've covered. It is. And I just, I'm going to think about that probably for the rest of my life it wasn't it wasn't like certainly was not a funny story or wasn't there was very little room for levity uh which is shocking because usually in my paranormal stories i feel like we can find some levity in there obviously we don't want to joke too much about no cost but um it was i kind of like our conversation episodes though like i kind of like the ones where you can just kind of theorize and and think and wonder and i don't know yeah i

just i well i went to bed knowing like this probably won't be like one of our light-hearted stories but it certainly will be like one of the most fascinating ones well good for you i mean not good for you thank you finally that's all i ever wanted i'm out i see you i'm no more need for this podcast no more need for the friendship what i meant was good news for you is that i have another sad story okay not much room for levity so yay yay my story's never really ever room for levity is kind of a relative term but i feel like my story's never really um call for for jokes anyway so um it's certainly harder with yours yeah so this isn't news to you that uh but i don't know i mean it's it's it's another one we can speculate and theorize because it is a missing persons case oh okay okay i don't want to say i love missing persons cases

but i do enjoy um cracking a mystery i just wish it was a fake mystery i know i i wish all of these were fake i wish none of this ever happened i I always say that too. I'm like, if true crime ended tomorrow, I'd be thrilled, even though I'd be out of a job. Yeah, I'd be, honestly, I'm totally okay with it. I'd be like, totally worth losing my job over. Totally. A thousand percent. Which probably sounds like the most duh statement ever, but I assure you there are people I know who don't feel that way.

So yeah. To be fair, we don't enjoy talking about true crime in the way that some people might think. Like we like talking about it as, you know, as much as the next person, but we're not craving for there to be a new serial killer. You know what I mean? No, no. We're good to never be able to cover a topical story. That's the dream to get all of these solved and move on.

Yes. Agreed. So this is the story of Michaela Bali. Okay. Have you heard of her? No. All right. So we're in Canada. Am I like one of the odd people out for not knowing that name? I doubt it. Okay. I don't think so. So 16 year oldela bolly was said to have last been seen between 1 p.m and 1 45 p.m at the ufc bus depot in yorkton saskatchewan canada on april 12 2016 she was seen ordering lunch at the trail stop restaurant attached to the bus depot ever since no one has heard from her there is There is no CCTV footage of her getting on a bus. She hasn't posted anything on social media.

Her bank account doesn't show evidence of activity. And she can't have gone too far because her passport was left at home. Whoa. So she just fell off the earth. Just vanished. It's been five years now since her disappearance. I guess now 2016. Six years six years six years my math is bad it's been six years since her disappearance and uh as outlined by the town's local newspaper the

regina leader post despite the hundreds of tips six thousand posters across canada and the u.s and at one point a fifty thousand dollar reward michaela has not come home safe. So as I tell the story, you know, like we were saying, the dream is to be able to find some answers. And if you do happen to have any information, I'm going to repeat this at the end, but you can email miraclemicaela at gmail.com or call the following number 1-306-641-9436. We're going to repeat the information at the end and I'll give you some more details, but just wanted to say that up top just in case. Okay, let's crack into it. Yeah, hang on. Well, let's hang on. Crack. Crack into it. Wow.

Sorry. I've been looking at them for a while, but I just needed a taste. I should have waited to crack into my little bubbly, but too late. We're having a good time. Okay. So, Michaela Margaret Kim Niebergall was born July 2, 1999, in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. She was raised by her mother, a consultant at the Ministry of Social Services named Paula Marie, and grew up with her mom, her aunt, her maternal grandmother, and two younger siblings. For whatever reason, we don't know why, but in 2015, Michaela, her mother, and her siblings changed their last names to Bali. B-A-L-I.

Huh. Interesting. Yeah. So Michaela was known to be a pretty shy, quiet girl. Her mom once said she wasn't a disobedient kid at all. She made being a parent super easy. It's probably why I have two more children. Which is very sweet. I saw a TikTok recently that that was like hey uh as the oldest you shouldn't feel special because your parents had like you weren't enough for your parents and the top comment was like yeah but i'm the only reason they wanted more like you know and i was like that's a good point well i i've also i see all the tiktoks where they say like good luck because if your first one was amazing your second one's gonna be a little monster so uh i do want to heavily remind you of that the next time you look at leona and you're

like i could do that again i just want to be like you're gonna maybe i don't know maybe yeah those little monsters someone's someone's gonna be tricky eventually if you have enough of them one of them's gonna get you and you're gonna be like why did i i should have stopped while i was ahead what happened listen to fungal m i know i have a scorpio on my hands oh my god the day Why did I? I should have stopped while I was ahead. What happened? I should have listened to Funko M. I know. I have a Scorpio on my hands. Oh, my God. The day. Christine.

Christine. I'm actually going to be the terror, isn't it? You'll have just manifested me to be the monster. What a twist. Unsurprising. So she was a high school junior at Sacred Heart High School. She was part of the drama club, and she was a high school junior at Sacred Heart High School. She was part of the drama club and she was also a talented musician. Thanks to Michaela, the house would be full of, according to her aunt Rhonda, such beautiful

violin and piano. As her mom Paula continues, she was musical and she just got into drama in high school. So music was kind of a way for her to step out of her shyness. But yeah, really a very typical girl. Probably one of the most interesting things about Michaela is she's so average, very sweet, shy, introverted, very dedicated to her family and certainly loved her siblings. She has a younger brother and sister who are incredibly important to her. And I really like that line because, you know, you think like, oh, average, that's a negative thing. But no, I feel the same way.

I feel like it's to let you know the like this was completely unexpected she wouldn't just like fly off the handle and and leave like this is super out of character like she loved her family she just loved to be home she wasn't a common a common kid yeah she wasn't a thrill seeker i feel like that's just a really powerful thing. What does Michael Scott say? My mom always said, it's great to be average. That's why God made so many of us or something.

I forget the line, but... Okay, so Michaela had a good group of friends. One of them named Madison remembers Michaela to be caring, loved music, was very conscious about what her needs and her friends' needs were. So one of the greatest stories, in my opinion, is she wanted to surprise her Aunt Rhonda, so she got an accordion and learned how to play Happy Birthday on the accordion. She'd never played it before, but she learned how to play it to surprise her aunt on her birthday, which I just thought was really cute. Very sweet. And then Shelby Natick, one of Michaela's friends, met Michaela on their third day of ninth grade. Right away, Michaela kind of welcomed Shelby into the fold.

Shelby said, Michaela came up to me, poked me on the shoulder and was like, hey, come sit with us. So we became like a big group of 10 of us. So she was very just warm and welcoming, very open. And according to CBC News, she told her friends she wanted to be a teacher or a vet because she loved children and animals she was a big fan of the hunger game series even before everyone else knew about it so before it was cool trendsetter not a common kid last i checked yeah wait a second She liked fantasy video games like League of Legends. She had a dog named Angel. She liked to train the dog to do tricks. She this is kind of a fun fact. She photographed wildlife and landscapes and then would submit the pictures to be featured in TV weather reports. average. So interesting. Wow. That's so fun. I feel like if like I met her and that was something she said to me, that would be the thing I 100% was hooked on. I'd be like, tell me everything.

You would hyper fixate on that alone. Yes. 100%. Yeah. I would fixate. I would hyper fixate on the following statement, which is the last bit here, which says her mom told police she loved to play Man Tracker. Do you know about this? No, but I have a lot of ideas of what that could be. What is Man Tracker? Okay, apparently it's an extreme hide-and-seek reality show. And I, of course, was like, I must look into this because I've never heard of this show. But she liked to play this game with her brother Joshua and sister Eliora. So, of course, I went and looked up what Man Tracker is.

It's a Canadian reality. This is according to Wikipedia. Man Tracker is a Canadian reality television series, which premiered in Canada in April 2006. The episodes feature Terry Grant, an expert tracker called the Man Tracker, who pursues two individuals in the remote canadian or american wilderness the pursued referred to as prey must elude capture while attempting to reach a finish line within 36

hours oh shit that's terrifying i appreciate that she loved the thrill i feel like she probably loved the drama of the show i I would have been open to her being like let me just show you a clip on YouTube real quick because it's I would probably watch that show but I would be way too scared to participate in the show I think no no way no way would I participate I'd be like that is all you my friend that's terrifying um but it sounds fascinating I'm kind of like interested I think it's on Discovery now. It said online where it was streaming. So maybe we'll watch it. She sounds like just like an all around just like dope person, which I'm sure that's interesting down to earth.

I'm sure that's what I mean. Most, if not all people who like have had their life taken early or went missing or something horrible happened to them. I'm sure they were all dope people in their own right. But I do appreciate that this isn't just a classic, like she lit up a room. Lit up a room. Right. Exactly. This is like, I feel like I know a little more about the type of person she was.

I feel more, she feels relatable, which is not that there's more or less, I don't know what I'm saying, but. No, but i agree because like you know with she lit up a room obviously you know it's a cliche but it makes sense but for for some people but i like how honest her mom was of like oh she just she was a homebody she liked to be with her brother and sister and play silly games like she was into weird shit she's weird shit she wasn't like the type to you know with her big smile walk into a room and be the life of the party like i just kind of like the honesty there and i feel like

you're right it makes her more easily connected i don't know or easy to relate to yeah i i agree um so at lunchtime on april 11th a day before michaela went missing she had hopped into a car with shelby and her other friend, Oksana Yakuchuk, to grab lunch at a fast food restaurant. So, Shelby and Oksana distinctly remember and this is the day before Michaela disappeared, remember Michaela speaking about going

somewhere like Moose Jaw, Prince Albert, or Saskatoon with her family. At that lunch, Michaela had also briefly spoken about a boy called Josh, but when Shelby asked for more information, Michaela had also briefly spoken about a boy called Josh. But when Shelby asked for more information, Michaela didn't reveal much. And like I said, Michaela was known to be kind of quiet and shy. When it came to gossip, apparently she would just sit in the corner and listen to everyone else's gossip and like occasionally put in her two cents.

But she was not the type to like bring the drama to the table. So even though she mentioned a boy named josh uh they didn't really pull much else out of her unfortunately okay so josh was not the only kind of romantic relation mikaela had recently mentioned earlier that week a friend called amy lang said that m Michaela had been speaking about meeting with someone named Christopher. So at that lunch, Michaela had also spoken about moving out of Yorkton to somewhere like Saskatoon because it had more opportunities than their town of Yorkton, which she described as being full of, quote, old lady closed doors. Oh, OK. So she was kind of eyeing like other other parts unknown to move to sure um

michaela's friends never thought she was really serious about it it was just kind of like how a high schooler's like oh i dream of moving here or there or i'm gonna go to new york one day yeah out of this small town you know making fun of their own hometown. This one horse town. This one old lady clothes shop town. This town ain't big enough for me and that old lady and her clothes. All those moo-moos. Yeah. Yeah. So after the lunch, the girls returned to school where Michaela had her Christian ethics class.

How fun. Did they listen to Leona Lewis? Yes, they did. They analyzed the lyrics about the veins, all that good stuff. Notably, her teacher noticed that Michaela didn't seem quite herself during that lesson. She seemed a bit down. And that's always kind of hard because I feel like it's also easy to see that in hindsight almost. And she could have just been having a bad day or something.

She's in Christian ethics class. I would be down too. You know what I mean? I'm certainly not spirited. I'm certainly not up. Yeah, I took that class. I didn't. Trust me, I was not in a great mood. Anyway, so after school was over from 435 into the evening, Michaela sent a string of text messages. So this is kind of the order of events here. Okay okay the first text was to her friend oksana michaela asked if she could give her a lift to the bank the following day and that it was really important that she get a ride between 5 30 and 6 michaela called td bank customer service three times during the exchange she checked her account balance and transferred 25 dollars

the conversation about money is important to the case because, I mean, we'll see later why money plays into this, but it's worth mentioning that fairly recently, Michaela had told Exana that she had $5,000 in her bank account. But later when police looked through her bank accounts, it seemed she had been lying and she had nowhere near $5,000 at any point in her bank account. So a little bit odd. Huh. Okay. From 8.50 p.m. until 9.30, Michaela texted one of her ex-boyfriends who remains anonymous in the news reports. The ex-boyfriend told police that she had been messaging him about being unhappy and wanting to go to Regina. She then messaged Amy Lang saying she needed help. But when Amy asked why, Michaela didn't respond. She also messaged Shelby Lang saying she needed help but when Amy asked why Michaela didn't respond.

She also messaged Shelby something about a boy and about feeling so bad for someone that she was crying. Oh. So we don't have the verbatim text messages of this but we do have the gist if you will of all these messages so that's kind of the gist of what was sent not verbatim but that's kind of the order of events um and oh i also wanted to shout out um voices of justice podcast which is hosted by hosted by sarah tourney oh i love sarah tourney yeah she's great and just such a cool uh just a cool powerful awesome badass woman and um i have been meaning to listen to her podcast for ages finally listened to a few episodes and uh listened to her episode on michaela and it was just really well done so um unsurprisingly really well done but so i wanted to give that a quick shout out i also listened to an episode of dark poutine uh one of my favorite

true crime canadian shows yep um and so anyway just a little little mini shout out here but april 12 2016 has started out the same as any morning this would be the next day her mother paula remembers we kind of do our hair and makeup together and just chat about our day there wasn't anything that stood out in my mind or in hindsight that anything was out of the ordinary but But at 6.41am, Michaela texted her friend Oksana again saying, can you take me to the bank? Oksana passed on the offer, later explaining, I said the bank doesn't open till eight or something and she texted at like seven o'clock, so how can I take her to the bank? To this day, Oksana feels that despite it being Michaela's decision, I'm kind of kicking myself over it. I feel like I just should have followed her and I should have just taken her to the bank. Well, I mean, I, well, I understand the guilt, but

it's always such a weird mix up in my head of what I would do. I mean, obviously I would feel guilty no matter what, but I feel like in times like that I'd be like oh she wasn't showing any signs she clearly didn't want people to know so like I can't fault myself for not knowing if she was being sneaky but it's also like but but then you question yourself of like I should have known her I thought I knew her better that I would have picked up on that or or maybe she's having I mean maybe she wasn't being sneaky maybe there was something else going on we don't know about. I could almost assure you if someone texted me at 6.41 a.m. and said, can you take me to the bank? And the bank wasn't even open, that I would say, no.

I'm sorry. If you texted me to do anything at 6 o'clock, I'd be like, no. And so I don't fault this high schooler who still feels guilty for not taking her friend to the bank and maybe thinks that that could have stopped whatever happened and honestly like it let's say that person decided to like send a second text and be like isn't the bank like not even open right now right like i'm i have a personal feeling not knowing either of them that like that maybe some excuse would have come up of like oh yeah but blah blah blah blah or oh blah blah blah like i think no matter what the answer to the what ifs are that the answer would fall into the category of she would have had an excuse or there would have been a reason or something if she didn't want you to know you wouldn't have found out or yeah or i

mean i don't know i don't want to say she was being sneaky and intentional to trick everybody but maybe there was maybe she was being threatened and felt like she couldn't I don't know I don't know what's that the scenarios are it's it's so hard I think in hindsight and and feeling like oh if I'd only done this maybe the whole trajectory would have changed and you know but again like maybe not like you're saying, maybe not. Or maybe, like how she asked her friend for help. And her friend said, What do you need? And she didn't respond, you know, maybe like that, where you just never even got around to it. Like, you know, there wasn't that you couldn't have stood a chance for? No, yeah, you don't know. Yeah. And so I think that's probably a hard thing to have to

live with. And I don't fault her for that guilt, but also I don't fault her for not taking her friend to the bank before school. I feel like no way I'd barely make it to school on time as it is. So Michaela's grandmother, Margaret, said she dropped Michaela off at school, Sacred Heart, between 810 and 820 a.m. 8 10 and 8 20 a.m the school wi-fi shows that Michaela had signed on at about 8 0 8 a.m and Sarah Turney made a good point of you know maybe it was like an automatic connection like when you pull up to the school your phone connects or your computer connects or what have you so it it has been proven that she signed on to school Wi-Fi at 8.08 a.m. At 8.21 a.m., Michaela put a binder inside her locker. It was just a binder for school.

You know, police found nothing suspicious in it. But then five minutes later, she left the school via the back entrance. Hmm. Okay. So the ex-boyfriend mentioned earlier texted Michaela because she didn't show up for class, the class they had together. And she did reply to that text, but we don't know what she said. Michaela left school and this is where things get pretty wild. Like this is where we follow her kind of all day or all morning.

And nobody can quite figure out what's going on so mckayla left school and headed into town and were able to follow her movements by cctv cameras she was first spotted at the super c convenience stores before being then spotted on the phone uh approaching a td bank at 8 51 a.m in the police investigation into the case they tried to track down who she had been speaking to via her phone's account. However, it turns out she had been contacting people through social media apps. So either Facebook or Kik or WhatsApp. And so those are a lot harder to subpoena the records. Oh, OK. I feel like that's something you totally knew and I'm learning for the first time.

Oh, well, fun fact. And they're much harder to subpoena because they're, they're, I feel like that's something you totally knew and I'm learning for the first time. Oh, well, fun fact. Um, and they're much harder to subpoena because they're like private. It's not just like a phone company. You can pull the records. Um, a lot of them are either private apps and they're known for that. Um, and they're known for like keeping your information secure. And so it took approximately 10 months for them to pull that information. And she was actually calling people, like you can call people through whatsapp kind of like internet calling and so she was doing that which made it harder to figure out who she was on the phone with a teller at the bank opened the shutters for michaela at 8 55 a.m so michaela hung up the phone call she was on and proceeded to withdraw

55 from her account she then headed east toward her next stop, which was Terry's Pawn and Bargain store, so like a pawn shop. She arrived at 9 a.m. and she had two silver rings and she asked the owner of the pawn shop, Terry Hedden, if they were worth anything. And according to Terry, silver value is really low, so it just wasn't enough value in the

ring to even bother making an offer on it she was quiet didn't seem to be in any distress or anything so uh sorry i just got a text from blaze he's at the pediatrician saying leona's head circumference is now 95 percentile yeah well it was 93 It was 93rd percentile at the last appointment. Sorry, that's the least shocking thing you've told me all day. Oh my God. That kid has got the biggest melon head I've ever seen in my life. I was like, maybe it'll be more average this time. No, it got even higher percentile.

Anyway, I'm sorry. I just saw that flash above my screen. One day it'll stop growing. You'll see. I hope so. Maybe not. I don't know. She might just fall over from her neck.

Just top heavy. I don't know how she holds it up. Anyway, so basically the pawn shop, Terry, who owns a pawn shop, was like, there's no value to these rings that was worth making an offer on. I also heard in the Dark Poutine episode that you had to be 18 to pawn something and she wasn't 18 anyway. I also heard in the Dark Poutine episode that teenagers were apparently known to go to like a pawn shop like this to look for, you know, some cheap technology or things that they might want to pick up. So another theory is like maybe she was also looking for, I don't know, a second cell phone or who knows.

Like maybe she was there looking for something. But it is determined that she was trying to sell her rings and she did not accomplish that. So Michaela is next spotted around 9.15 a.m. entering a combination Tim Hortons and Wendy's. Oh, okay. I didn't know they had like a collab situation. Entering a combination. Tim Hortons and Wendy's. Oh, okay. I didn't know they had like a collab situation.

Fun fact, your newest collab influencer trend. Well, I know there's like the Taco Bell KFC collab. I didn't know that Wendy's and Tim Hortons had a collab. Pizza Bell. There's also a, what's the other collab? Pizza Hut Taco Bell.

And Fredericksburgburg we had a long john silvers and a and w oh that was a unique one that's fun yeah what a twist anyway trying to find levity wherever i know that's the thing it's like my favorite head is huge and i like long john silvers i used to get fish sticks and root beer floats at the same time. Yum. You never know what you'll learn on this podcast. Okay. All useful information. So she goes to this combo Tim Horton Wendy's and she buys a hot drink using cash because we can see this on camera.

And she sits at a booth facing away from the counter and the entrance. For the next 13 minutes, she sits scrolling on her phone and occasionally looking toward the entrance with what seems to be a pretty full backpack next to her. Now, this is significant because, as her friends will attest, Michaela usually took a purse to school, not a backpack. So it would be odd that she had a backpack full of stuff. And it's not packed to the brim, it is like it looks heavy i feel like i mean i don't know anything yet but i feel like she was being threatened by somebody you think like well but then why would you be out and about you know like in public i don't know i don't know i think i also just have a big fear of like you know i don't want to cast blame on something on someone that when i don't know the whole story but it feels like i don't know i feel like no how old was she 16 i feel like either she

either it's complete dumb luck that she's like ctv isn't catching her at certain points or she knows to face away from the camera or things like that or she's like an evil genius at 16 or maybe she was being threatened by someone older who told her what to do oh she's not facing away from the camera we could actually see her the whole time oh i thought you said she was facing away she's facing away from the door of the building so we can we can kind of watch her and the only reason that's relevant is because you can see she keeps checking the door to see, presumably like she's meeting someone. So we at least think she's in cahoots with another person. We feel safe saying that?

I would say because she keeps checking her phone. She's on the phone with someone. We don't know who. She keeps checking the door, the entrance to the cafe. So it seems like there's someone involved who isn't a friend or who someone that we know of identify exactly someone we don't know of um so she keeps looking for the entrance she has this big heavy backpack even though she usually takes a purse to school and on cbc's news interactives website you can actually watch the footage of michaela at the tim hortons um i always find it really i've watched the footage and i always find it really um just kind of chilling to watch just people's last known whereabouts.

You know, it's just something kind of deeply unsettling about it. But you can watch her just be on her phone. And this has led to theories regarding the backpack. You know, one theory of that is she was looking to leave town um either for a trip or for good who knows but yeah why would you take a backpack with you if you were usually just needed your purse um and on the cctv footage that you can watch you can see her taking her phone apart and putting it back together again and what in the world wow she's really this is i don't know what to think it's mysterious and you know there are a couple things, a couple thoughts I had. And then Sarah

made some good points to which a couple thoughts I had were, you know, replacing a SIM card. This is 2016. So I don't know, you know, what kind of phone she would have had six years ago. But you can replace a SIM card. That's a possibility another one that sarah mentioned is uh she was like you know that feeling when you're like is my phone broken i'm not getting a message you turn it off and turn it on again to see if like messages come through maybe she took the battery out put it back in and was hoping like the messages she was waiting for would come through something like that maybe she was just and my other thought was maybe she was just fidgeting like sure you know i fidget all the time maybe the case was coming off maybe who knows um but so nobody really knows why she took it apart or if

that means anything but you can see her doing that at one point then she leaves the tim hortons at 9 23 a.m and what's strange about this is that on the tv footage you can see her leave through the front exit before turning around going back inside and exiting through the back exit and going north just kind of odd so weird i like i really don't want to say a missing person like i i really do i don't want to make any claims so like oh she wanted this but it does sound very like like a lot of strategy feels like it is being involved in this. It sounds like she had a

plan we just don't know what the plan was. I don't know if the plan was under duress or if it was something she wanted or like I just so who knows if the plan went wrong yeah yeah it feels like she either she was directed to do this stuff or really just is so calculating in some way.

And that meant, I feel like calculating has like a, a bad tone to it. I will say though, even though it seems like these are all very intentional moves, um, as we go on, it kind of starts, it feels a little chaotic. Like she didn't really know because like spoiler alert, she goes back to school. Then she goes back to Tim Hortons. Like it seems a little bit like this isn't as calculated. Like she went to the pawn shop, but didn't successfully sell her rings. Like I think in which case I'm, I'm going to ask, do we find out at any point if there was any, maybe underlying mental illness that,

um, no, there was nothing that we have any proof of. She didn't have. Well, well, OK. Perhaps a little bit, but in a way that maybe. Isn't directly related to this. OK, I'll get there. I don't want to misquote it, so I don't want to throw it out yet, but I will get there. Yeah.

OK, so next, Michaela reappears on cctv camera at a home hardware store at 9 42 a.m um she heads back to the tim hortons at this point which she re-enters at 9 49 a.m and she had left at 9 23 okay so 26 minutes later she's back uh she's on the phone again but police were not able to find records of this call or what app she called on, and we have no idea who she was on the phone with. Wow. Very frustrating, I'm sure. This time at Tim Hortons, she sits in a different booth and faces the front door window. She stays here for another 10 minutes, scrolling through her phone, occasionally talking to someone on her phone.

Then she puts on her headphones at 10.03 am and at 10 12 she texts her friend shelby hey i need help oh and then follows it up about 10 minutes later i think it was 10 or 20 minutes later with the text never mind i figured it out so shelby actually left her phone at home that day and uh i'm almost comforted for shelby that uh she sent the follow-up of never mind because i feel like it would be so alarming to just see i need help and then never receive you know what i mean and then not know what happened i feel like that alone could have completely twisted the narrative absolutely if it weren't for that secondary text that follow-up yeah i agree everyone would think she was in danger.

Something like really ominous. So she followed that up by she didn't get a response from Shelby, then followed that up by never mind, I figured it out. She leaves at 1025 a.m. via the front exit before returning within two minutes and sitting down at the same booth still on the phone. Then at 1043, she gets off the phone and approaches an older lady sitting at a nearby table she's sits opposite the woman opposite the woman they chat for about two minutes and then michaela returns to her booth to check her phone pick up her backpack and leave via the front entrance now they were able to find the woman who spoke with Michaela that day and she did come forward to police and explain that Michaela had asked for help renting a hotel room and the woman wasn't

sure if Michaela needed money to rent a hotel room or if she just needed someone who was 18 to rent the hotel room but the woman said she was not comfortable with this and she said no and so Michaela just went back to her table so we don't know what that means yeah but it's another big clue also so awkward to just like shamefully have to walk back and now sit in a room with the person I feel like yeah I feel like I would have if I got told no I would have just never gone back to that Tim Hortons in my entire life I would have probably set it on fire and run away. I'm just like, no, I know. And that's another thing that she's described as like shy and keeps to herself. And so the fact that you would approach a stranger and ask for help getting a hotel

room seems like quite a bold move, you know? Yeah. Yeah. So it makes me feel like this, it was very wanted. move, you know? Yeah. Yeah. So it makes me feel like this, it was very wanted. I don't know. I just keep getting hesitant about, you know, I don't know who to place blame on if anyone. And so I don't, I don't really know what to say. And I haven't given you the full story, which isn't, yeah. So it's hard to, it's hard to say. So we're at the Tim Hortons and Michaela is leaving the cafe and she texts her friend Shelby saying, I'll see you at lunch. Okay. So by 1149 AM, Michaela had returned to her

high school and met with two of her friends. Oh, I really did think that the Tim Hortons was the last place we were to go see her. Yeah. It felt like that was the end of it. And then all of a sudden she's like, nope, back at school. Uh, which kind of weird that you would leave your school and then come back in the middle of the day, but whatever. Whatever. So she met with her friends Allie Clarkson and Juanique Buckle, and she told them that she was going to get a bus to Regina for a vacation. And from police conversations with Allie and Juanique, they thought that Michaela could have maybe had two phones on her. So one of the thoughts is they, from what we can tell, they believe she had two cell phones on her. Oh, okay.

Which is very telling because we don't know what happened on the other one. Do you know what I mean? Like one of them could have been the one she was using to contact somebody else. Especially if it was one of those apps that didn't have, that are like more secretive. I hadn't thought about that before, but now that you've said it it makes kind of perfect sense because so far we have no record of her talking to anybody else but it seems like i don't know i feel like she didn't do this alone or there's somebody else involved because she's always on the phone or she's looking at the door like i mean she's doing something with someone we just yeah we don't know who it is so it could have been on this mystery phone okay so 13 minutes later at 1202 p.m michaela leaves again via the school doors and

there's a there's an image of her leaving the school and this would be the last confirmed sighting ever of michaela bali okay you can see her exiting the school and disappearing out of frame to the left which again is just kind of dark and sinister if you're thinking she was never seen again. Like, you just see her walk out of frame, and it's just, it just feels so sad because that's really the last time she's been caught on camera. I can't imagine being, like, her parents or her friends. Like, you know they've probably watched that footage so many times. A hundred times, yeah, exactly. watched that footage so many times. A hundred times. Yeah, exactly. So it got to 3.40 PM and Michaela's grandmother, Margaret, who was at school in the car park, getting ready to pick

her up, started to get worried when Michaela hadn't come out of school. And it was getting so late that Michaela had missed her 4 PM violin rehearsal, which was really out of character. She apparently had a recital coming up, according to her mother, Paula. And so, and violin was really important to her and it was not like her to just skip a music lesson see that also makes me think that either someone else is involved or something sinister is going on because if you wanted to like get out of town and like kind of get some like get ahead of everybody then you wouldn't miss something as crucial that would get people suspicious. I feel like if it was three o'clock when you left or whatever, and now you're missing your recital in an hour,

like just go to the recital and then leave. Yeah, it feels weird. Or maybe she was planning to go for a few hours, like leave the day for a few hours and come back for the recital or for the rehearsal. Do you know what I mean? Like maybe she's like, oh, I'm just going to meet someone for the afternoon and then had plans to come back. So either way, it's not a good sign that she missed it. Um, and apparently like this, I think this to me was extremely telling. I don't know if it's telling to other people, but apparently according to her mom, the night before she had been practicing for this rehearsal and for this recital. So like, she had the intention of performing as far as I am concerned, if you're, trust me, I played piano for many years, and practicing piano

was the last thing I wanted to do on any given day. And I'm no, you know, talented musician like Michaela. But I feel like you wouldn't be practicing the night before if you weren't intending to be there. Do you know what I mean? So no matter what the story is, in my mind at this point, it is that she wanted to, or maybe she never planned on leaving. I mean, she's already, she's acting weird. So I feel like it's easy to pry. Something was planned. It's easy to prime myself to think that like she was planning on leaving anyway or getting out of town or was or it could have been like she met someone online and planned on just going on a date and then they took her away or something went wrong so no matter what happened or no matter what the story is are we on the same page at this point that now it feels like something against her own choices happened yeah i think i

totally agree i think as far as my gut instinct goes it seems like even if she had something planned which it seems like she did it didn't go the way she intended um right or i mean i guess another possibility could be that she was planning to go to the recital in a few days or a few weeks or whatever, but maybe knew she would miss this one practice. Like maybe she planned to come back in a few days, but either way, it seemed like she had plans to be involved in this recital. So it's a little scary. It could have been like really well thought out where she just tricked everyone and she was practicing. Yeah, that's possible. And she just really liked to play violin and was like, I'm just going to keep, maybe, maybe. So Paula remembers the life-changing heart-stopping moment when Margaret, Michaela's grandmother, showed up at her work. Oh, okay. Wow. I know. Paula says, my mom has never come to my workplace,

so I knew something was wrong. Immediately, Paula went to the school and says, to be frankly honest, I was literally running around the school, looking under school buses, screaming her name. It was very traumatic. And this gives me goose cam every time because it just shows, like, how panic-stricken they were. Oh, my God. According to Global News, Paula says she realized Michaela wasn't making her own decisions when she didn't take money from the emergency slush fund that Paula has in the house.

So she explained, as a single mom, I always have a slush fund in the house, a cash fund, and Michaela had access to that. I remember going down the stairs and thinking that if she ran away, that money is going to be gone. And it was all there. And I think that was one of the pivotal moments in my life where you realize that this wasn't a teenager doing something senseless so that's a that's a great point but also like just gut-wrenching that like it was clarity for her that her kid might be in danger or probably was i totally agree that like maybe this was out of her hands um mckayla didn't respond to any texts or calls so So Paula reported her missing just before 8pm. And Michaela's aunt Rhonda remembers it was the most devastating day of my life. I've never

known anything to be as devastating as that. Your world just stops. It's quiet. The whole house just died. Everything was quiet, serene. It was just your life is over. You just don't have everything is gone. Everybody is so heartbroken and you don't have a funeral to plan. Like if someone was dead. It's not like that. You have nothing. They've just vanished. It's beyond heartbreak. It's beyond what anyone could ever imagine. So painful. something i mean i know we addressed this early on but this is not something in her character in michaela's character this had never happened before so they don't have the solace of you know maybe she's with a friend and she's just right like joyriding no like she seemed to just vanish off the face of the planet and by 7 a.m the following day michaela's phone had been switched off. It was confirmed or died, I guess, but it was no longer active. So RCMP. Sorry, I'm like, it's just in like, I can't imagine the headspace.

No, it's, it's, it's tragic. So RCMP Corporal Kim Stewart began working on the case from April 13th and started by contacting all the banks, phone companies, interviewing Michaela's friends, and launching a social media campaign for tips. There was a lot of information coming in, and Corporal Stewart remembers one of our members had a great big timeline that he had put down the hallway. It went all the way down, just trying to keep it all straight because we wanted as much information as possible. So, I mean, think about the timeline. It took us two days to just go through every step of the way. And so they had all that with images, CCTV, like, you know,

texted this person, texted that person. And it went all the way down the hall at the police station so that they could kind of follow her steps. Well, thank God that they at least had like, like some detectives who cared and were trying, because I feel like this is different than a lot of other stories where like, what was the last one where there was a serial killer and multiple people literally went to the police and said like, this is the person, this is his address. And he tried to kill me. And they're like, no. So like, yeah, at least something like this, like, I mean,

it's heartening. it's um encouraging a little bit to know that there are teams of people out there who are trying their best like building literal timelines on their halls and yeah it sounds like out of a tv show i mean you're right at the very least they took this seriously because a lot of times especially with missing person or with runaways they call you know teens who are missing are just listed as runaways. And I guess maybe the fact that she had this kind of docile background maybe helped them decide this isn't a runaway. But there is always that kind of icky thing of when a teen goes missing and they're like, oh, they just ran away and won't take it seriously. And so it is refreshing to at least see that they're taking this a little bit seriously. Yeah. So as days went by, officers apparently, quote, didn't feel good about the fact that there was no activity happening on Michaela's phone.

And on the Friday after Michaela disappeared, a petite blonde was spotted running from her boyfriend at the local bus station. This ended up being a false lead. It was not Michaela. It got three weeks past Michaela's disappearance, and officers were still working through hours of surveillance videos to try and piece this puzzle together. They were also still trying to work through the social media apps.

And her friends say that Michaela's predominant lines of communication were Instagram, Snapchat, and possibly an anonymous app called Kik, K-I-K. Yeah. Yeah. So according to Metro UK, Kik is a free instant messaging mobile app. So if you guys don't know what it is, its special feature is the fact that it preserves the person's anonymity and users register using a name and username without registering their telephone number.

This apparently, this app was branded as unsafe when it received one out of seven points on the electronic frontier foundation secure messaging scorecard wow i remember there being a time period where i feel like the generation under us was using kick i remember hearing about it a lot and not understanding what its purpose was i vaguely remember it being something in high school but yeah apparently this is another tragedy it's a different case but it's thought that 13 year old nicole level is likely to have met her murderer virginia tech student david eisenhower via kick in 2016 so it definitely has some like a sordid backstory um and apparently is not necessarily the safest way to be communicating, especially because it's anonymous.

Yeah, wow. Sergeant Donna Zawislock said police were finding it tricky to have to go through U.S. legal processes, because remember we're in Canada, to get information protected by social media companies that were under U.S. privacy laws. So Sergeant Donna commented, that is something as investigators we are dealing with more and more. People are constantly active on Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram. There's tons of apps out there that people can access and

communicate with. Yeah. And it was also discovered that Michaela had multiple Instagram accounts. So interesting. Wow. Something is going on, but I just don't know what it is. Well, I guess it's fair like i mean we have multiple instagram account i mean not personal ones i guess but like you know teens have multiple accounts like it's true you know so at first i was like oh that's not that weird but it goes like a finsta they have those right where it's like a fake fake insta or something so i don't know what it means but yeah they have one that's like a private and more private one than a more public one you know the teens these days but yeah so it's it's shadier than that though like you had the right instinct of something was going on because one account

contained a bunch of pictures of her with school friends her family like standard instagram selfies and it had not been used since her disappearance the other account which was also under her name and had hundreds of followers had zero photos but you know per maybe they'd been deleted or archived but most creepily under the bio like the about me section it just read goodbye isn't that spooky that's so weird and also like i just feel for this mother like who like yeah doesn't know what's going on she's so confused she's so scared is her kid in danger and then at the same time there's all these signs that imply like maybe i'm not in danger maybe i chose this but why wouldn't you let her at least know you're safe and okay and yep the conflict

there must be so devastating like you just want answers at the very least either you're in physical danger and there's nothing i can do about it as your mother or you chose to do this and leave me in like this like horrible mental state yeah like it's yeah yeah exactly it's just it's neither neither is obviously. And it's just no answer. No answers. Michaela is known amongst her friends to chat with multiple people she didn't know across Canada and the US. Her friend Shelby commented, I know she talked to like at least four guys that she told us of. They weren't from here. They were from the States or Manitoba, wherever else. or manitoba wherever else and in one of her instagram posts dated march 1st 2016 she posted a screenshot of her snapchat profile along with the caption looking for snapchat friends because i have none in real life add me please don't be a greasy fuck and send me gross ass nudes just looking for a friend and as much as she put that kind of warning, that caveat, I feel like that is the prime post someone who's looking to be a predator can pick up on and say, aha.

Well, aha, you're a teenager who is admitting that she is alone and doesn't have anyone that she'd be talking to if I were to do something. Actively seeking companionship. Yeah. And like you're saying, you don't have friends i can be your friend i can make you feel special since no one else is doing that so it's i mean i know that a lot of um predators have said that like they intentionally seek out people who isolated are isolated and if you're saying in your bio like i don't have friends and you know not to blame her or anything no no it would make sense why a predator would be attracted to what she said.

Pick up on that vulnerability. Yeah. And, you know, she did have friends. I think it was kind of one of those things like, I have no friends. Like, you know, you kind of joke about like. But yeah, I think that was kind of what was happening. And I totally agree that it looks like the exact kind of post that a predator would kind of pick up on and be like, oh, okay. And I have to pretend to be, you know, not a creep and I can do that and I can pretend like I'm their friend or companion.

Yeah. So that's exactly where my head went to. And if you remember back to the week of her disappearance, Michaela had told her friend Amy that she had been talking to a guy called Christopher and Michaela's ex-boyfriend also said that Michaela had told him about a guy named Christopher. And the ex-boyfriend said, oh yeah, Michaela said Christopher was visiting her as part of a trip he was making to visit his mother in Saskatoon. So apparently the RCMP identified and interviewed Christopher, as did police in the U.S., and they searched his house, but they found no evidence in his house, and they found no evidence in his house and they found no evidence that he was even in Canada when Michaela disappeared. So that was kind of a dead end lead.

Gotcha. Christopher himself assured, all I can provide for you is that she suffered with self harm a few years back. Back then I was helping those who struggled and I encouraged her to fight against self harm and to look towards God. And Sergeant Zawislak followed Christopher's statement with that information. There is no evidence to indicate Michaela was suicidal at the time she went missing. So that was, you know, obviously when he said that, they were like, well, let's look into that. But there were no signs that she had any ideation at the time she went missing. On April 11th, the day she did go missing mckayla had also been talking about a guy named josh and police were not sure of course in our generation every other person's

named josh and so let's say every like like i don't think this is i don't know anything yet to be able to discredit or uh take josh out of the picture but I will say there is the trope that like every problematic man out there, his name starts with a J. Oh, that's true. That is a trope. I was going to say everybody gets named Josh because it's just such a common name in our generation. But yeah, so they didn't really know which Josh she was talking to. There were multiple people in her life named Josh.

So one Josh that CBC spoke to disclosed, I only saw slash talk to her once a week when she was in Church Bridge at this youth thing. Then we were out of touch for a few years and then she found my number and we talked a bit more, but then stopped again. He said they stopped talking at least three years before Michaela went missing. So even though they were kind of acquaintances, that didn't seem to be a lead. they were kind of acquaintances that didn't seem to be a lead. There was, there was this part gave me the creeps.

This part gave me the creeps. There was a glimmer of hope. Uh, when Shelby noticed that one of the Snapchats she had sent Michaela on the day of her disappearance was opened about three months later. Oh, that is spooky, right? That's spooky. someone someone looked open it

i feel like that would especially as a mother who is desperate for any any sign that my child's okay i would have leeched onto that like it was no one's business 100 and the problem was it's snapchat it's really you know it, it's notorious for not being traceable, you know? And so even though it was marked as open, there was nothing really they could do. So the lead didn't amount to anything. And then she had sent more photos later and those were never open. So it's not like it happened again. It could have been a fluke.

It could have been a hack. It could have been Michaela, you know, who knows? I guess it could have been a fluke it could have been a hack um it could have been Michaela you know who knows I guess it could have been a hack but then yeah I don't know was it someone like or a glitch a glitch I feel like the police could have easily hacked into her well then it's not traceable either so I yeah I don't know that's if I saw that someone who I thought was missing who I knew was missing or dead and they liked my stuff three months later, I would be posting so many things to them. I'd be like, are you okay? What's going on? What's going on? And maybe like just give me one sign. Yeah. Accidentally scared them

back into silence. Yeah. Yeah. So we don't know what happened to that, but it is kind of like a, I don't know. It just gave me the spooks a little bit, creeped me out. Another line of inquiry was Rick Bright. He was a man who's believed to be Michaela's father. And according to Michaela's friends, the story around Michaela's father had always been a bit hazy. One friend said Michaela told them her father was dead, but another friend said Michaela had always said she wanted to meet him. So she wasn't totally upfront about the story behind her dad. Yeah, it might have just been easier to just tell people he said to avoid the topic. Exactly, exactly.

According to Paula, Michaela's mom, there's no evidence that Bright is Michaela's father. And despite the fact that Bright said he was never contacted by Michaela, two officers showed up at his house in Saskatoon to investigate, but there was no evidence to suggest that he was in contact with her or was involved in any way. Okay. There are various other past police have been down to track Michaela. The first one is that one of Michaela's classmates named Hannah Seymour remembers that in February, Michaela had gotten a surprise delivery during drama class. Hannah describes, I just remember on that Valentine's Day, she had gotten a bouquet of roses to school like a guy had sent her roses. She never said who it was. So we don't know who

sent them. The roses apparently had come in a cardboard box, which Hannah thought was strange, but she said perhaps they'd been ordered online. Yeah. But still, that is a little odd. Huh. Interesting. Yeah. And she never told anyone who they were from. It's too bad that she didn't tell.

It's just so frustrating. I feel like, well, I don't know what their dynamic was, but I feel like if my friend, if you got roses and didn't tell me who they were from, I'd be like. Spill it. I'm going to rip this information out of you. Yeah, you be like, spill it. I'm going to rip this information. You're going to find it. You're going to figure it out. I know.

So it's hard to know. Like maybe she did tell somebody and we just don't know who she told. And, you know, it's high school, too. It's like things get misremembered, you know? Yeah. So it's got to be frustrating. But police got to the bottom of the lead. And Sergeant Zawislak has said the person who sent those flowers has nothing to do with what happened to Michaela, but they never revealed who it was. So, you know, they did figure out the sender, but we don't know who it is and we don't know why they've been discounted as being involved.

Yeah, interesting they wouldn't say. I wonder why. Maybe they're a minor. Oh, I see okay maybe they were another teenager i don't know yeah um the police were also eager to speak to people who worked at the bus depot where she was last seen an employee said that she remembered speaking to michaela that morning between 10 a.m and 12 and michaela had asked her what time a bus was leaving the employee said 5 p.m and and Michaela decided against buying a ticket. So police also.

Yeah. So she didn't buy a ticket. So we know that. Police also interviewed Cheryl McDougal, who was waitressing at the restaurant, the Trail Stop, that was connected to the bus depot. And she remembers Michaela ordering poutine and looking, quote, normal for the kids coming in. So she just seemed like your average teenager. and looking quote normal for the kids coming in so she just seemed like your average teenager speaking to another customer at the trail stop restaurant that day they remembered seeing Michaela leave the restaurant with a man who had a tattoo of a cross with red flames coming off it okay well no comment well a sketch of the tattoo this this is not a dead-end lead by the way this

comment well a sketch of the tattoo this this is not a dead end lead by the way this well it's sort of a dead end but it we actually get answers about this so a sketch of the tattoo was released to the public and a man came forward to say that he thought he might be the person they were looking for can you imagine being like watching tv and being like oh my god fucking tattoo i'd also be parent i think about that an uncomfortable amount where I'm like, what if there is a news outlet somewhere or like, there's like press that I I'm unaware because I only have streaming. I don't have cable. So like, what if there's news going on where there's someone that looks eerily like me that's on the run and I'm always paranoid, I'm going to get like put in jail because they think I'm a different person. I'm so scared of it. Wow.

I'm so scared. And so if I ever like turned on the TV and they're like, we're looking for this person, I would be like, my real life nightmare is coming true because like I, either I tell the police like what this guy did be like, um, that looks like me,

but like maybe not me, but maybe it's me. But also I didn't do anything wrong. I, uh, I would be, I would be terrified. So this guy's like, um, that looks like me, but like maybe not me, but maybe it's me. But also I didn't do anything wrong. I would be terrified. So this guy's like, I can't imagine the, at least the one night of sleep he probably lost. Absolutely. I might go to jail by trying to be helpful. By trying to do the right thing. You're right.

Because we see so many of those situations where people are treated unfairly by, you know, the justice system, quote unquote. And it's like, do I want to get involved? But I also want to help if this person, if this will help the case. And you also don't want like your coworker to be like, holy shit, that's Doug's tattoo, you know? Right. Yeah. And it's not a good look.

It's like you're, you're better off like getting ahead of everything and like trying to control the situation. But then it's like, oh man, like I'm walking right into a trap here. Yikes. And here's what actually happened this poor guy so he went up and he's like um i think that's my tattoo uh so the rcmp of course questioned him and basically all that happened was he held the door for her as she walked out of the restaurant and somebody saw him holding the door and was like oh i guess this is notable which it is of course like if but um it turns out he literally had held the door for her and then they went their separate

ways but so thankfully that was i mean obviously not thankfully that was a dead end but thankfully he was removed from the situation unscathed at the very least like at least it didn't it end up badly for him for him yeah exactly so he basically held the door and didn't know what he was getting himself into. But, you know, that that lead ended up not panning out. But despite also contacting all the hotels in Yorkton and connecting cities, they could find no more information about Michaela. In August of 2017, the RCMP sent its dive team to search Hopkins Lake, which is close to Michaela's school. And they were they were very clear to say this is not linked to any tips that she had drowned or anything like that. They just wanted to check off all possibilities, such as an accidental death. So they searched the lake.

They did not find any clues, did not find her. And despite the police pursuing and digging into over 600 tips that came in, nobody can be sure to this day what happened to Michaela Bali on April 12th. Oh, my gosh. Wow. Yeah. Her mom, for what it's worth, believes that she could have been a victim of human trafficking, which unfortunately is all too real and prevalent in today's world. With this private messaging app, Kik, it's theorized that maybe she had been chatting with or being groomed by somebody that she trusted and met up with in April. And they had more sinister motives than she could have known. And Sergeant Zawislak has commented, do we have suspicion that something happened to Michaela that wasn't good? After all this time, I would say yes.

Do I believe that Michaela is out there alive and doing well she could be so she could be she could be she could be and so at least there's that bit of hope you know um Paula Bali Michaela's mother continues to run a campaign to hopefully bring her daughter home or at least find out the truth of what happened to her at one point a reward of fifty thousand dollars was being offered for any information that led to the finding of michaela and this included a twenty five thousand dollar donation from an anonymous donor every year paula bolly holds a vigil south of the high school sacred heart high school on the 13th of april in honor of her daughter and she has commented tragically i don't think there's ever a day that isn't a struggle. Oh, my God.

I can't imagine. It's heartbreaking. Every day she must just be sick. I just can't. Be sick. I can't imagine. And I also wonder, you know, to me, it's just such a mystery. Just plucked off the face of the earth. You know what I mean?

Like, no trace. And it's just how can that happen with a teenager who's so active online? It just disappear. It's scary. So, yeah, we don't really know what happened. I mean, I think the theory of human trafficking, unfortunately, makes a lot of sense. That's something that's increasing in Canada and around the world. a lot of sense that's something that's increasing in Canada and around the world um I believe and and with human trafficking a lot of times they use like people your age to like swindle you into like

because I know there's a I'm also on that side of TikTok where people will say that like a girl their age like came up to them I was like hey can I like borrow your phone or like hey I need can you take me to the I'm I've seen some really scary ones where um there's a girl that's like looks a little younger than than you and it's like hey there's a really creepy guy like following me can you please like walk with me to my car or to my apartment and then like you don't realize you're the one getting trapped and like it's just so so i could totally imagine someone thinking they just made friends with someone on kick or online and like oh let's go grab a burger together we're just like two girls out on the town it's and it's just a trap it's horrible and you know you wonder like well why didn't she say anything well you don't know you don't know

how this person could have manipulated by saying uh you know don't tell anybody because i'm in danger yeah you never know how somebody could manipulate you but they're good at what they do which is why it's so scary and so fucked up um you know there's signs all over that's like airports and things like that now too that say like if you see anything odd or even if you are being trafficked call this number and it's just really scary because they have ways of removing you from any sort of safety net or situation where you could contact someone, you know, and then control you with usually drugs. Also, in case anyone is on YouTube and needs the sign, like apparently,

like if you put your hand up and put your thumb into your palm and then close your fingers over your thumb, that's a universal way of saying help. So if you need that or if you see someone doing it to you, they are probably next to somebody that they can't openly shout for help next to. Well, fun fact, that happened in Kentucky a few months ago. Did you hear about that? No. God, no. Sorry. girl in Kentucky was driving or somebody was driving and saw a girl in the car window do that and knew it from TikTok and called the police and it ended up being somebody who had been abducted.

And it was it was somebody who had been abducted, I think, by, you know, a parent or, you know, it wasn't necessarily like a traffic. It wasn't a trafficking situation, but it was somebody who had people were looking for. and so it actually led to that person's rescue so yeah if you see someone put their palm up to you and close their fingers around their thumb please uh take it seriously yeah a worse thing that happens is that you make a false thing and it ends up being fine and everybody goes home and thankfully there wasn't anything bad happening but yeah best case scenario hopefully you at least i don't know i guess best case scenario is also nothing was happening right right i don't know it's worth you see something say something uh you said at the end you were gonna redo the number and the yes okay

so i have that right here i'm also gonna give a description description of Michaela. So Michaela is a Caucasian female with blue eyes. At the time of her disappearance, Michaela was 16, 5'2", and had long ash blonde hair. I believe her hair naturally is a red color, so for what it's worth, but she was known to dye it. She was wearing blue jeans, a burgundy jacket, a teal infinity scarf, embroidered burgundy suede boots, a ruby gemstone ring, and carrying a blue plaid backpack. embroidered burgundy suede boots, a ruby gemstone ring, and carrying a blue plaid backpack. Her right earlobe has a tiny scar on it, and Michaela reportedly had numerous scars on her body as well. There are photos also online of an age progression, so if you look up Michaela, which is spelled M-E-K-A-Y-L-A, if you look up Michaela Bali, B-A-L-I, you can see age-progressed photos with and without glasses to see what she may look like.

If you do have any information, even if you're not sure if it's important, it's worth trying to put it out there. So if you have any information to help the family or help Michaela, you can email Miracle Michaela. That's again, Miracle and then M-E-K-A-Y-L-A at gmail.com. Or you can call 1-306-641-9436. And that's the story of Michaela Bali.com or you can call 1-3-0-6-6-4-1-9-4-3-6 and that's the story of Michaela Bali and you know hopefully someday this will have answers yeah or at least answers yeah wow well no thank you for that um yikes yeah I just'm just thinking of, now that you've said human trafficking, I feel bad at the beginning where I was like, oh, it feels like she caused this. She wanted this.

She did this. I don't think you said that. I hope I didn't sound like I was immediately picking to blame the victim or anything. But there's just so many things that just don't make sense. I mean, I'm sure you and I aren't the first people to think like that but there's so many things that just they don't add up add up yeah and it and it really does to me feel like in a situation that you said of you know she trusted somebody who used who who somehow convinced her to stay quiet to not tell people for whatever reason um and you know told her and she felt safe with this person this is what it feels like to me um again you know

obviously i have no idea what happened yeah um and nobody can really know but i think it just has the feel of somebody predatory taking advantage especially with these kind of apps that can't be traced. And with the fact that she coupled with the fact that she was looking for friends online, you know, and we just hear those stories and it's, it's sad. It's sad. So that's our show. Yeah, that's our show. When does this come out?

In two weeks, Easter, remember? Oh, right oh right right right easter are you doing anything for easter now that you're back with your family leona's first easter so we're probably just gonna do a little baby easter egg hunt and you know give her colorful toys i think that's about as far as it'll go i saw something on um tiktok instead of like hiding eggs and making like adults do like egg hunts you just hide like cans of beer everywhere so maybe you should make blaze do that hey now that i can get behind okay all right i made a new plan thank you you're welcome i mean your your baby uh precious as she is is not going to be

very fun on easter like in terms of like traditions so it'll be fun to dress up and hand her stuffed bunnies so that part part will be fun. That's true. But then I'll do the activities. She probably won't enjoy Easter herself until she's like kind of a little more aware. Until she can eat chocolate. Yeah. I have a feeling not being able to eat candy yet kind of sucks on Easter. Yeah. Yeah.

I don't know what I'm doing either. I think I have another doctor's appointment. I don't know. On Sunday? I don't think so. On Easter Sunday? Not on Easter Sunday. No, Easter Monday, I think. have another doctor's appointment. I don't know. On Sunday? I don't think so. On Easter Sunday? Not on Easter Sunday. No, Easter Monday, I think.

Oh, well. Wow. What a holiday. I know. Actually, now that I've said that, I'm like, I'm pretty sure I did have something I was doing Easter. But I don't know. I'm still alone. Allison is not coming back until, like, mid-May.

So I guess I'm going to do whatever I want for Easter. All alone, all tragic. All tragic. I'll update you on whether or not I hide things for myself and do my own little Easter egg hunt. That could be fun. Honestly, if Sleep Me does hide things, it will be a very long game where I just overtime find things.

Take an Ambien and see what happens. hide things it will be a very long game where i just over time find things take an ambient and see what happens well you know hey we don't know how fun this easter is going to be or not it'll be it'll be fun let's manifest it and that's why we drink