MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories - Meant to Be (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

Episode Date: September 16, 2026

Today, I’m going to tell you four stories about people who went through incredibly strange experiences – and came out of them believing that everything that happened, had a purpose. You can WATCH all new & exclusive MrBallen podcast episodes on my YouTube channel, just called "MrBallen" - https://www.youtube.com/c/MrBallenIf you want to reach out to me, contact me on Instagram, Twitter or any other major social media platform, my username on all of them is @mrballen Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today, I'm going to tell you four stories that are about people who had really incredible experiences, some incredibly good, some incredibly bad. But in all of these experiences, the people in these stories came out of them believing that everything that happened had a purpose. But before we get into today's stories, if you're a fan of the strange, dark, and mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right place because that's all we do, we upload two, three, even four times every week. So, if that's of interest to you, please offer to get the follow button a nice ice-cold coffee. But don't tell them it's just watered down mud.

Okay, let's get into our first story called Cab Trouble. On the night of October 23, 1975, a middle-aged man named Mike Crane closed the garage door of the taxi cab company that he owned in Boston, Massachusetts. He was getting ready to head home for the night, but as he went around checking that all the doors were locked and that the lights were off, the phone in the office began to ring. And so Mike was a little annoyed because it's late. He wants to go home, but still he went over, he answered the phone, and it was one of his drivers.

And the driver said that his car battery had died on the road, and he now needed a jump. Now, Mike did think about just calling a tow truck because then he could just go home. But this particular driver was really young, and he was new to the job, and so Mike felt bad, leaving him stranded out there. So he said, all right, I'll be there in a minute. He grabbed his car keys and he hit it out the door.

A few minutes later, Mike was driving a spare taxi cab down a dark side street full of apartment buildings on either side until he saw the broken down cab on the side of the road. And his cab driver was outside, waving him down on the sidewalk. So Mike pulled over, he popped the hood of his own cab, he got the jumper cables out and he went out and he connected them both to the broken down cab and his own. and then once they were in place, Mike got back in his own cap, and he started the engine. Then he rolled down his window, and he was about to lean out and tell the young driver what to do next when there was this flash of movement outside the passenger side window that caught his eye.

And he squinted into the darkness, and he saw there were these two men, sort of shady-looking guys, leaning up against this wall of an apartment building across the street. And they weren't doing anything. They were just standing there. And all of a sudden, Mike, who was a very practical, no-nonsense person, had what he could only describe as a vision. In this vision, he saw those two strange men walking across the street and coming over to the driver's side window of his cab. And then one of them asked Mike for a cigarette. And while Mike was distracted fumbling for his pack of cigarettes, the second man yanked open the door and put a knife to Mike's throat.

And as soon as he saw that, the vision faded, and it went back to, you know, the two guys still standing across the street. It was just this vision that Mike's had sort of inexplicably. But to Mike, the vision was so clear, so vivid that this shock of fear coursed through his body. It was like it had been beamed into his mind from somewhere else, like a movie projected onto a screen. I mean, he had never experienced anything like this before. In fact, really, he didn't even believe in the idea of psychic vision.

But for some reason now he had a feeling in his gut that he had just seen a glimpse of his own fate. And what he'd just pictured in his mind was literally about to happen. He just knew it. But before Mike could figure out what to do with these thoughts he was having, the two men across the street, they began walking in their direction, just like Mike had envisioned. And as soon as this began happening, Mike's heart began to race. He looks out his windshield and he sees his cab hood is still popped. He and the other cab, they're still connected, so he couldn't just drive away without first getting out

and disconnecting and shutting everything. And then also he didn't want to just abandon his other driver whose cab didn't work right now. Like the battery was still dead. It had not been jumped yet. But then Mike remembered that he had a gun in his briefcase, which he kept with him because he had to carry these large sums of money around town for his business. And so just before these two strange, men crossed the road and came to his window, just like in the vision, Mike quickly fumbled and opened up his briefcase, pulled out the gun, and positioned it under the window aiming outside

where the men couldn't see he had the gun. And at the same moment that Mike has this gun in position secretly, one of the men came around right to the driver's side of the window and he leaned into the window sort of conspicuously. And just like Mike envisioned it, he asked Mike for a cigarette. The second man was positioned behind the first man, and he was sort of near the door handle, right where Mike had originally seen him in his vision. And even though Mike couldn't see a knife in the guy's hand, he just knew it was there. And so he knew he had to act right now. So Mike raised the gun out of hiding and aimed it at the two men and shouted at them to drop the knife. And the men, they froze in confusion. And Mike suddenly wondered what on earth he was even doing.

I mean, he really had no reason to believe these guys actually meant him any harm, other than the fact he had had this vision, which he couldn't explain. But then, the second man, he reached through Mike's window and he dropped something into Mike's lap. And then both of these men turned and they ran away. Once these guys were gone, Mike, who's got this incredible surge of adrenaline going through his body, he like can't believe this is real. He picks up the item that's been dropped in his lap.

And it's a knife. And Mike was so shocked that he had been right, that this vision had been right, that he began turning the knife over, just to make sure it was real, that it wasn't like his mind playing a trick on him. And as he rotated the knife and just sort of looked at it from every angle, he saw something on the knife that was so crazy he just couldn't believe it. To Mike, it felt like the last of many signs that his vision was real. And wherever it came from, it was meant specifically for him.

Because what he saw was his own name, Mike, scratched into the handle of this knife. Our next story is called Everything Happens for a Reason. On the afternoon of June 6, 26, a man in his 50s named Adam Sandbeck sat in the passenger seat of an off-road vehicle called a side-by-side, which is basically like a golf cart with a powerful engine, big tires. and a roll cage. And next to him was his best friend Mike, and they were driving down this wooden trail in northern Minnesota. There'd been a rainstorm in the area recently, so the ground was pretty muddy, and their side-by-side was absolutely filthy. But Adam loved it, because driving on difficult terrain was exactly what they were here to do. So he and Mike had known each other since the second grade,

and they'd been making the 100-mile drive from their hometown of West Fargo to these woods for years, because the trails out here were perfect for off-roading. And every single time Adam and Mike came out here, they did basically the exact same things. They always stayed at the same RV park, they always took the same trails, they always drove the trails as fast as they could, and each man always drove his own vehicle.

But today, for some reason, they had decided not to do the same old thing they always did. As soon as they'd got into the woods, Adam had had this strange feeling that they should change things up. And Mike said that actually he was thinking the exact same thing. So now they were taking only Mike's side by side instead of riding separately like they always did. And also instead of just shooting through the trails as fast as they could,

today they were riding at a nice, leisurely pace so they could actually talk and explore some new trails together. And as they rode along, actually taking the time to look at the towering pine trees and beautiful landscape around them, Adam noticed the entrance to an old maintenance road. Now, Adam and Mike had driven past this entrance for years and never gone down it before. But for whatever reason, looking at it now, Adam had that same strong feeling that he'd had earlier. Couldn't really say why,

but he had this sudden urge to mix it up and go down this road and see what was down there. And so moments later, Adam and Mike were making their way down this maintenance road, which was even muddier and more treacherous to drive on than any of the other trails. So it was thrilling, but also it was like kind of a sketchy ride. And in fact, the mud got worse and worse the further they went, and there was a big fallen tree they had to get around and like enormous potholes created by the recent storms.

I mean, this was a treacherous ride, really. But then, at some point, their side-by-side rounded a corner and Adam saw something really weird in the trail up ahead, a minivan. And this was just like a netherousy. normal, everyday minivan, the kind of car that absolutely should not be driving around the wilderness on rough terrain. In fact, as soon as they saw it, the first thing Mike said out loud was, how did this thing even get this far out here? Like, this is crazy it even got this deep into the wilderness here. And so as Adam and Mike slowed down for a better look at this minivan,

Adam saw there was a huge puddle that was right next to the van, and he noticed there was something oval-shaped that was poking up out of this puddle. And so he told Mike to stop, and then the friends, they hopped out of their vehicle and they walked over to get a better look. And as they got close enough to actually see what this oval was poking out of this puddle, like when they realized what it was, they both just froze. They couldn't believe what they were seeing. Because the oval-shaped object was a woman's face with only her nose and lips and her eyelashes just barely poking up out of the water. And so instantly, Adam and Mike are like,

we found a dead body. But just as Adam was about to ask Mike, like, what do we do? The dead woman opened her eyes and the waters like sloshing on her face and she began desperately choking out, help me, help me! It would turn out the woman was 68-year-old Catherine Wessner and her van had gotten stuck in the mud days earlier after she had taken a wrong turn and got lost. And then when she got out of her van to try to get the van unstuck,

she'd stepped into that puddle next to the van, which actually was like this very deep mud pit, and it was so thick, it actually sucked her down and trapped her like quicksand. Now, at first, Catherine was only partially submerged in the mud, and she just spent a long time screaming for help, but nobody heard her. And as the hours turned into days, it started to rain.

And Catherine couldn't move, and then the water level slowly began to rise until she was completely submerged with just her mouth, her nose, some of her eyes and the fingers of one hand barely sticking up above the surface of the water. And so when Adam and Mike found her, she wasn't dead, but she was very close to it. And in fact, all it would have taken is a little bit more rain or if she had just sunk a little bit lower than she would have drowned. But the two men found her right in the nick of time, pulled her out, and they saved her life. Catherine was taken to a hospital and is expected to make a full recovery. She offered Adam and Mike a reward, but they declined. Instead, they said they were just really happy that they had decided to do things differently that day. If they had followed their normal routine like they had for years and years and years,

there was no way they would have made it to that spot in time to save her life. And so in an interview, Mike said that, well, everything happens for a reason. Our next story is called Life's Work. On September 8, 1941, a scientist named Alexander Shukin hurried up a flight of stairs in a large building in the Soviet Union. In his hands, he held a box of samples, which he needed to file safely away in his lab upstairs. So Alexander worked at this world-renowned lab and research facility in the city of Leningrad, which is now called St. Petersburg in Russia. The facility was located in this huge old palace in the middle of the city, so it was massive,

and it had a ton of space and labs and storage facilities that housed all the amazing work that Alexander and his colleagues did. And what they did is basically they were leading the entire world in genetic research. And Alexander considered this both his life's work and also essential to the future of humanity. And right now, this work was all at risk. So at the time, it was the middle of World War II. And just a few months earlier in June, the German army had invaded the Soviet Union and surrounded the city of Leningrad. Now, they hadn't actually attacked them yet, but Alexander and his colleagues wanted to make sure all their research and specimens stayed safe for when the Germans did eventually invade.

And so earlier that morning, many of Alexander's colleagues had moved into the facility. And they planned to basically live there and continue their research until this whole thing was over, like until World War II was over. And so now Alexander got to the top of the staircase and he rushed towards his office at the end of the hall. And once he was inside, he set that box of samples down on his desk and began flipping through his notes. And as he was doing this, all of a sudden, outside he hears this deafening boom. And then the whole building began to tremble. And so Alexander, he ran to the window and what he saw terrified him.

Outside, there were dozens and dozens of German planes soaring through the sky, dropping bombs all over the city. So Alexander, he looked out and he's hearing explosions, he's seeing flame and smoke and fire everywhere. And he knew that finally, the attack had begun. Over two months later, on the evening of December 24, 1941, Alexander, who was still alive, he was sitting at his desk in his office, bundled up in layers of sweaters and scarves, just trying his best to stay warm. In front of him were a few packets of the specimen that he'd been testing.

His hand shook so hard he could barely write down his notes, but he forced himself to keep going. He knew at this point he was very sick and he probably didn't have a lot of time left. But he needed to finish this research, which he was so sure was going to change. the world. So by this point, things had gotten very, very bad. The city hadn't fallen to the German army yet, but they were still surrounded and were enduring relentless bombing from German planes. And it was winter, so temperatures had dropped well below freezing, and there was no electricity or coal or firewood in the city, so the research facility was completely unheeded. And also, all the bombing had blown out most of the windows, which let even more cold inside.

But the bigger issue was that Leningrad was running out of food, and rations had dropped only about 300 calories per person per day. For reference, that's like a fraction of a fraction of what someone needs to survive on. And so people all over the city who were still alive at this point were now starving to death. Alexander himself was so thin and so weak that he could barely stand anymore. And his hands had turned black from the cold. But even though Alexander knew he must be near death, he and the other scientists that he worked with had never been more dedicated to their work.

And so as the bombs continued to explode all around them, they'd sworn to keep up their work and protect it at all costs, even if it killed them. So Alexander finally, he reached out for one of the specimens on his desk. And as his brittle black hand wrapped around it, his breath got shallow and his vision began to blur he gripped it tightly in his hand, and then he closed his eyes. A few hours later, early in the morning on December 25th, the head of the research facility, Nikolai Ivanov, walked down a long hallway toward Alexander's office. Like Alexander and literally everyone else in the city, Nikolai had been unbearably hungry

for months. But now, he had a good reason to finally be hopeful. A city official had just knocked on their door to tell Nikolai that, Everybody was getting an increase in rations, four extra slices of bread per day per person. This was a huge increase, and Nikolai was so relieved he could almost cry. And the first person that Nikolai wanted to tell was Alexander, who he knew was incredibly sick from starving. I mean, Alexander had been on the verge of death for weeks now. And so if anybody could use that bread, it was him. And so he reached Alexander's office and he knocked on the door, but there was no answer.

So we tried again. But when there was still no response, Nikolai just pushed the door open. And there seated in his chair behind his desk was Alexander. But his eyes were closed and he wasn't moving. Nikolai ran over and he shook him, but Alexander was stiff and cold. And Nikolai knew he was dead. But as Nikolai stood there, you know, dealing with this tragedy, he noticed that Alexander was holding something in his hand.

It was a bag containing a few of Alexander's specimens. And seeing that made Nikolai both unbearably sad and just incredibly proud. Because Alexander had died of starvation with a pack of almonds in his hand and surrounded by a giant assortment of other foods. The research facility where Alexander worked was called the Plant Institute. And it specialized in the genetic testing and storage of crops like rice, peas, corn, wheat, And nuts. So while Nikolai and Alexander and their other colleagues literally starved to death, there

was an enormous amount of food all around them. The scientists had spent years collecting a lot of these plants and seeds that weren't found anywhere else in the world. And the samples had the potential to do amazing things like create new medicines or super crops that would potentially eliminate famine. So Alexander and Nikolai and all of their colleagues, they had all done. decided it was more important to die protecting their work than to consume it. The siege of Leningrad lasted over two more years and didn't end until January 1944

when Germany was defeated by the Soviet Union. At least 19 scientists at the Plant Institute died during that time. But their work survived. And by the 1970s, a third of all Russian farmland was made with seeds and plants from the Plant Institute's laps. So really, their work had survived generations and was providing for millions and millions of people. Our next and final story of today's episode is called a custom bed. One winter afternoon in the 1960s,

a saleswoman was working behind the counter of a furniture store in Faja, Italy, when the bell above the door jingled, and she looked up to see a customer come inside. He was an older man who was dressed head to toe in black, and he walked right up to the saleswoman, and he told her he was looking for a very specific kind of bed. And the woman told him that, you know, unfortunately, the store didn't carry anything like what he was asking for, but if he was prepared to wait, they could potentially make a custom bed for him.

They could work with their vendors and make this thing for him. It would just take some time. And the man said that was fine, that he was not in a hurry. in fact, he told her he'd already waited for many, many years, and he could wait a bit longer. After that, he handed her a piece of paper with a drawing, showing exactly what he wanted, along with his name, his address, and a telephone number. And the saleswoman, I mean, she was happy to take the order. It was unusual, but her pay was based on commission.

So if this kind of strange customer was willing to spend all this money on this bizarre, custom piece of furniture, well, she was going to make that happen and she was going to get paid for it. However, after the saleswoman took down all of his information and wrote down the specs of what he wanted, she looked up thinking the man would still be there. But he wasn't. He was gone. And in fact, she hadn't even heard or seen him leave. I mean, she realized she was kind of engrossed in taking down the information,

so she could have maybe missed it. But it was just kind of odd that he was already gone. I mean, she hadn't even given him a price quote. And so the saleswoman, she ultimately got in touch with her supervisor and explained to him what had happened. and they agreed that the whole thing was really strange. But ultimately, the man had left them his name, his contact information, an address, and a very detailed drawing of exactly what he wanted. And he'd made it very clear that he was willing to wait for this thing to be built.

So they decided to just go ahead and make this custom bed. Over the next few weeks, the store worked with its vendors to put together this customer's very unusual order. And then finally, the bed was finished, it was loaded onto a delivery truck, and the driver headed out to the address the old man had provided. But later that afternoon, the phone rang back at the furniture store, and that saleswoman picked it up, and it was the delivery driver. And he wanted to know if this was some kind of a joke. Because the address that he had been told to drop this bed off at, well, there was nowhere to put it. The address the customer had given them was to a cemetery.

It would turn out the information that old man had written down led not just to some cemetery, but a very specific section of the cemetery reserved for victims of the World War II bombing of Fagia, Italy. And when they located the specific headstone corresponding to the information that this old man had given them, there was a name written across it, across the headstone. It was Franco Severio Ritchie, which was the name of the old man who ordered it. the bed. Now, obviously, this story sounds completely insane. But according to reports at the time, this bizarre incident actually made the Italian newspapers. And that saleswoman was not the only person at the furniture store who became involved. There was that other employee who

helped her look around the store for this guy after he had vanished. And also, the store's owner later examined the note, the sketch that was left behind by the sky with the drawing of the bed and all the information he had left, including his name and his location, the cemetery. So whether the real Franco-Severio Ritchie, who was killed in a bombing run during World War II, really walked into that furniture store in the 1970s from beyond the grave is impossible to know. But what we do know is that somebody in the 1970s who claimed to be Franco-Severio Ritchie walked into that furniture store and they ordered a very custom bed. A bed that was designed specifically to fit inside of a coffin.

A quick note about our stories. They are all based on true events. But we sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people involved, and some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes. The Mr. Ballin podcast, Strange, Dark, and Mysterious Stories, is hosted and executive produced by me, Mr. Ballin. Our head of writing is Evan Allen, produced by Jeremy Bone and Cole Lacasio. This episode was written by Kate Gallagher, Kate Murdo.

and by Andrew Kelleher. Story editing by Luke Barats, Aaron Lan, and Evan Allen. Research and fact-checking by Shelly Shoe, Samantha Van Hoose, Evan Beamer, Abigail Shumway, Camille Callahan, Alex Paul, Ben Fasiano. Research and fact-checking supervision

by Stephen Ear. Audio editing and post-produced by Whitlocasio and Jordan Stidham. Production support by Antonio Manata and Delana Corley. Artwork by Jessica Clogston Kiner, theme song, Something Wicked, by Ross Bugden. Thank you for listening to

the Mr. Ballin podcast. And just a reminder, every new and exclusive episode we put out on the Mr. Ballin podcast, you can also now watch on the Mr. Ballin YouTube channel that very same day. And trust me, some of these stories you truly have to see to believe. Again, my YouTube channel is just called Mr. Ballin. If you want to listen to episodes one week early and ad free, you can subscribe to SiriusXM Podcast Plus on Apple Podcasts or visit seriousxm.com slash podcast Plus to listen with Spotify or another app of your choice. So that's going to do it. I really appreciate your support.

Until next time, see ya.