MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories - Panic Attacks (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

Episode Date: January 28, 2026

Today, I’m going to tell you two stories about people who communicated with the right intentions, but didn’t fully think through the risks of what could happen when their message was heard. These stories remind us that sometimes, our zeal can lead us down a path we can’t turn back from. 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 two wild stories. The first story is about a little-known invasion of a South American country in 1949 that had absolutely insane unintended consequences. And the second story is about this very strange ritual that typically did not have horrible consequences. But one time, in 1851, it did. So, if you're a fan of the strange, dark, and mysterious, delivered in story format, then you've come to the right show because that's all we do. So if that's of interest to you, please offer to

take the like button on a nice whale watching cruise. Once you're out in the middle of the ocean, just throw them overboard and leave. Okay, let's get into today's stories. On February 12, 1949, a man in his 30s named Leonardo Pius paced around a radio station in a city called Quito, which is the capital city of Ecuador. It was a Saturday night, and Leonardo and all the people around him were working very hard to get ready for an urgent broadcast. So Leonardo was the director of Radio Quito, which was a highly respected news station owned by a popular newspaper called El Commercio. Most people in Ecuador basically got all their news either from this news station or that newspaper or both. And running a radio station with such a great reputation was really a source of pride

for Leonardo who had grown up in Quito. So he took his job very seriously, which was why tonight was such a big deal for him. He was about to deliver a potentially life-changing broadcast to the entire city, and just thinking about the gravity of this moment was making him feel sick and sweaty. In the room with Leonardo was a team of producers and sound technicians, as well as one of the station's top news anchors. Most of the last-minute work they were all doing involved organizing stacks of paper that contained instructions about what to say and what to do during this pivotal broadcast. That's what the anchor was double-checking right now. He was the one who had written the broadcast script, and he would be the one actually reading it on the air. Leonardo looked anxiously over at the clock on the

wall. It was already a few minutes after 9 p.m., and they didn't have a lot of time left. But even though Leonardo desperately wanted to get this broadcast started as soon as possible, he knew he had to give his anchor the space and time to make sure they were 100% ready before they actually went on the air, because they really only had one chance to do this right. So instead of telling the anchor to come on, hurry it up, Leonardo instead bit his lip and just paced around the station, trying to distract himself by listening to the program that was currently being broadcast over the radio station's airwaves. It was a live musical performance from a duo of singers named Benitez and Valencia. These two combined were really famous, sort of like the Taylor Swift of 1940s Ecuador.

And so when people in Quito knew these particular singers were performing on the radio, basically everybody stopped what they were doing and tuned in to listen. So in Quito in the 1940s, nobody had TV. And so radios were like the ultimate form of not just how to get your news, but also of entertainment. It's really where everybody turned. But radios were also very expensive and were sort of a luxury item. So not everybody had one.

The people who did have radios would often bring their... outside to the street so that other people could also hear the programs and the music. And Leonardo knew that all of this meant that at this very moment all across the city, most of Kito's 250,000 residents were gathered around radio. And he needed to get his broadcast on the air while he still had everybody's attention. He turned and saw the anchor finally lean back in his chair, indicating he was ready, and so Leonardo knew it was time to go live. Leonardo turned and nodded to his technicians, who were all sitting at a table covered in broadcasting equipment,

and one of them, after seeing Leonardo's cue, leaned forward to adjust several knobs and then hit a button on the control panel. And the instant he did this, the voices of the singing duo cut off, and a large red sign that said, on air, lit up on the wall right above the table. Basically, they were going to cut off the performance to do this broadcast and catch everybody in Keeto off guard. And then the anchor leaned into their microphone and in a very urgent voice said that they were interrupting this musical program because there was an alarming event happening that everybody in Quito had to hear about. Then he explained the reason for this broadcast. Ecuador was being invaded. About half a mile away from the radio station, 17-year-old Jose Antonio stood outside a restaurant with some of his friends. Jose and his friends and all the diners, plus a bunch of people out on the sidewalk,

had been gathered around the restaurant owner's radio, listening to Benitez and Valencia Sing, when suddenly the music had cut out and the anchor had come on to say that their country was under attack. And so as Jose in this group is sort of caught off guard and listening to this sudden announcement, the announcer got really emphatic and said, listen, the city of Latakunga has been destroyed. and at that, Jose's mouth fell open, and he felt this jolt of fear in his chest. Latakunga was only about 60 miles south of Quito, so Jose, along with everybody else around him, instinctively leaned into the radios that could hear more about what was happening and why.

But when they all did that, the broadcast suddenly stopped just as abruptly as it had come on, and the music program came back on. But the street got really quiet, as Jose and the crowd just kind of stood there, waiting for something to happen. I mean, really nobody knew how to react to this. A few people began looking up at the sky, thinking maybe warplanes might be flying overhead, and actually Jose began doing that too, wondering if, you know, that's the next step.

But there were no planes and there were no signs of, you know, anything that would indicate that war was happening nearby or, you know, whatever destroyed Latakunga was approaching Quito. All Jose could hear was the echo of other radios. around the city, now back to playing this musical program. But as the seconds ticked by and the crowd gradually began talking again and kind of going back to normal, some people began making jokes and suggesting that this broadcast was literally a joke, that that was meant to be a prank. Others just kind of brushed the whole thing off and just went about their evening as if it had never even happened. However, Jose did notice that some of the people at the tables outside the

restaurant where he was were still just kind of staring at the radio and shifting around. like they were restless or uncomfortable. Like clearly that broadcast had struck a nerve. Jose also kept fidgeting around and trading worried looks with his friends and the other people around him because he wasn't so sure this was a joke. And the reason he wasn't sure

was because a sudden invasion of their country had actually happened before. Seven years earlier in 1941, when Jose was just a kid, the much larger country of Peru had invaded Ecuador after an argument over land along a shared border. Instead of settling the argument diplomatically, the Peruvian army stormed into the disputed territory in Ecuador and conquered it pretty easily.

And the fighting had only lasted for maybe about a month before Ecuador accepted that they had lost and retreated, giving up the land. But even though the fighting back then had never actually reached Quito, it had been a terrifying experience for residents of Quito because it made them realize they were not able to defend themselves against a foreign invader. But just then, as Jose and the others are sitting outside the restaurant kind of grappling with what could be going on here, how real is this, you know, is this a prank. Just then, the music that had come back on again on the radio cut out, and once again,

the broadcaster's voice came on, and they said they had an update. The enemy had landed their aircraft right on the outskirts of Quito in a northern area called Kotokoyahu, which was only eight miles from the center of Quito. and suddenly Jose and the others realized that if the enemy had destroyed Latakunga in the south and now landed in Kotokoyahu in the north, then the city of Kito was effectively surrounded. But before Jose could even process this thought, another man's voice came on the radio. And unlike the first voice, which was emphatic but, you know, basically calm, this guy was absolutely panicked.

He said he was the chief of Kito's newspaper, and then he basically screamed, the air base has been taken over by the enemy and destroyed. They're exterminating everything and everyone. He continued to yell that the enemy was using poisonous gas and they were using fire, and they were literally killing people and destroying homes and buildings. And then he issued a simple and terrifying warning. They're coming. Jose felt himself let out this yelp that he couldn't even control.

He was so suddenly terrified. But he didn't even hear it because all around him, Everybody else seemed to react basically the same way all at once, and the streets erupted and screaming and praying and just absolute chaos. Some people began pointing up to the sky, yelling that they could see the enemy. More and more people suddenly began flooding out onto the streets, crowding around the radios, trying to hear more information. They're all terrified and they don't know what's going on. Jose wanted to begin to tell these new people who were coming outside sort of what he and others had heard so far. but everybody out on the street was sort of talking over each other, it was just complete madness,

and then literally on the radio, there's all these different voices coming over, because clearly the news station is panicked and they can't even get a cohesive message out over this broadcast. However, despite this madness, the one word that kept coming through on the radio that everybody heard was go hide, hide from the enemy, hide. And Jose and some other people around him were thinking of, about doing just that, when finally a new voice took over the broadcast. And this man was louder and more authoritative than the others, and it sort of immediately projected calm, not just clearly calm on the other end on the broadcast side, but it sort of quelled the crowd for a second.

This person sounded like an authority figure. And this person introduced himself as the mayor of Keto. And he said that, yes, there are cities around Kito that are currently under attack. but he said he had clear direction that he wanted everybody in Quito to follow. But despite this instruction really being the first kind of clear next steps for people to follow, it didn't make Jose feel any better about this because the mayor told the people of Quito that the women and children, they had to flee, go hide, go away, go find somewhere safe. But the men had to stay and fight.

Jose felt this rush of adrenaline because he's thinking, am I old enough to be considered, you know, one of the men? Will I be expected to fight? Or are they going to tell me to go flee with the women and kids? Like, he didn't really know. But he had this calming thought. He's like, you know what? We're at war.

And I am going to fight. So he signaled to his friends, sort of saying, all right, let's go. Let's get ready here. And the group came together and they left the restaurant. And at that exact same second, a car came flying past on the street, narrowly missing Jose and his friends.

And Jose saw it screech around the corner. and out of sight, before we heard this loud bang and the crunch of metal against Stone. Immediately, some men ran after this car because clearly it had gotten into an accident and they need to go if they need help. But other people started running in the opposite direction. And so for Jose and his friends, it's like, what do we do? Do we go help with the car crash or do we go, you know, head to the front lines or something? At the same time, women were running by clutching children and Jose saw a pregnant woman

stumble on past, grimacing as she held her stomach. Screams were echoing from all around him, along with the rapid pounding of boots on cobblestones, as people basically ran in every direction. Jose was still trying to figure out which way he should go and what he and his friends should actually do here when he heard a news speaker's voice come on the radio, who announced himself as the Minister of Government, which was basically like the person who controls the security of the entire country of Ecuador. And the Minister of Government said to forget about what the mayor had told them about fighting the enemy.

because Ecuador's weapons were literally not powerful enough. There was nothing that anyone in Ecuador could do. This is what the minister said. He basically said, we're going to lose. Just then, another new voice came on the radio. It was this very fast-talking man who said he was actually reporting live on the ground in Quito. And he screamed out over the broadcast for everyone to run.

And then his feed abruptly cut out. And then the original announcer came back on and his voice shook as he said, that reporter who had just said for everybody to run had just been killed. It was 9.21 p.m. 21 minutes had elapsed since this broadcast first went over the air announcing this invasion of Ecuador. And in that time, it was like the country had spiraled into absolute madness. Now, remember, at this point, Jose is gathered with his friends. He's sort of begun to leave the restaurant, but so many things have happened all around him that he and his friends,

are just kind of standing there, near the restaurant, not really sure what to do. And as they're standing there, Jose noticed that all these people who previously had just remained seated or remained near radios, it was like everybody all at once just got up and began running in different directions, running to the churches, running to their homes. It was like the entire country, truly, was just in full-blown panic mode. Jose also began to notice families come running out of their homes, dragging suitcases and belongings with them, getting ready to, you know, evacuate hopefully, but where could they even go? They're surrounded. And just then, Jose heard the sound of glass shattering. And he saw a few people over at the restaurant's

bar taking liquor from the shelves and pouring themselves drinks before tossing the bottles on the floor. Jose looked and realized his friends had already left him, so he was just standing here all alone. And he knew by this point he can't just keep standing here thinking about what he's going to do. He needs to do something. He needs to act. But just then, the radio crackled back to the to life, and once again there was a voice calling out one final update. But it was so crazy all around him, Jose couldn't understand what this final update actually was. He just didn't hear it. However, Jose could clearly see other people around him had heard this final update, and they were obviously reacting to it because they stopped. Everybody stopped running around.

They put down their suitcases and everyone just kind of stood there. And then people began going for their guns and knives and torches. And then, once this huge, now armed crowd came together, they began to move as one, all in the direction of the city center. In the city center, in the Radio Quito station, Leonardo watched as the anchor delivered that final update, the one that Jose had not heard but others had and clearly reacted to. A minute later, Leonardo heard glass shattering somewhere one floor below him, along with a loud crackling sound. Then he smelled smoke, and he noticed the air in front of him inside the studio was getting hazy. And then from outside the building, he heard somebody yelling, fire. Behind Leonardo, the anchor grabbed the microphone and

pleaded on air to anybody who was listening that the radio station was in trouble and to please come help. But there really was no one left to help them. They were on their own. And when Leonardo and his team realized this, they knew they had to get out of this station by themselves. And so they ran together down the stairs to the exit. But before they even got to the bottom of the steps, the smoke from the fire became so thick that couldn't even breathe. Leonardo realized that the whole first floor must be engulfed in flames. And so the only way out was actually to go up, not down. So Leonardo led the group back up the way they came, running back through the second floor office building, the studio space, where they had recorded the broadcast.

and headed up the stairs to the very top floor. And by the time Leonardo got to the top floor, he could hear screams coming from somewhere below him, and they sounded painful and horrible. He hoped his coworkers had been able to follow him up here, but by this point there was so much smoke in the building he really couldn't see, so he didn't know who was here with him and who had been left behind.

And also the roar of the fire was getting louder by the minute, and it was so hot that sweat poured from Leonardo's face and it stung his eyes. And so Leonardo instinctively ran away from the smoke towards the windows, and because they're on the top floor, three floors up, you know, looking out, he had a good view of the ground below. And he saw these huge crowds of people on the street. Most of them were holding torches and seemed to be running around in random patterns

while big military tanks rolled in behind them, along with this hazy mist from some kind of gas kind of flowing across the entire crowd. Just then, Leonardo felt the floor under his feet, begin to shake. And he frantically began to think, like, how am I going to get out of here? I need to escape. And that's when he saw the roof next door. So the radio station sat next door to a school, which was at this point not yet on fire. Now, the school building was not connected to the radio station, but it was close enough that Leonardo realized that he might be able to open up a window that he's standing right near, get a running start, and literally jump out the

window and land on the school roof. Now, obviously, if he undershot this jump, he would fall to the street below and die, but the alternative was stay here and be burned alive. So Leonardo just opened up the window. He backed up, took a deep breath, got a running start, and jumped out the window. He flew into the air, arms flailing as he willed himself to land on the school roof, and after a millisecond in the air, he comes crashing down, slams onto the school building. he had made it. It was painful, but he had escaped. But Leonardo didn't have time to waste here, nor did he really have time to wait to see if others would also make this jump. I mean, he really felt like he's sort of on his own here. And so up he got, and despite the pain from impacting the roof,

you know, he was basically okay. And he walked across the school building until he went to the next roof. Basically, the next building butted up against the school building. So he climbs onto that roof, and he walks across that roof until he reaches the next building. Again, these buildings are connected, there's no more jumping from, you know, one building to the next, but he is going roof to roof, basically high up above the streets of Kido. And down below, he sees, you know, all this madness with the tanks and all these people with torches. He doesn't really know what's going on here. And eventually, he reaches a roof, you know, as he makes his way, that a family was sitting on. And the family, they were looking out at the city, where the sky was still glowing from the light of the fire Leonardo

had just escaped from. And when they saw Leonardo, they told him they had actually been down on the streets in that crowd. But when it became too dangerous, they had come up here to escape. And they asked Leonardo, had he done the same thing? Is that why he was here? Leonardo said no. And then he told him who he was and how he actually arrived here and why. And then he asked them for help. And for a second, the family just stared at him in shock. Then they began to talk to each other. And from what Leonardo could hear, and also based on facial expressions, the family seemed mad. But finally, the father at Leonardo and said, yes, they would help him. However, there was a condition. He told Leonardo that under no circumstances could he, Leonardo, go down on the street with that crowd. The father said

Leonardo would have to hide out in this family's house because the father explained that everybody in the city, including all those people down there, wanted Leonardo's head. It would turn out Leonardo's broadcast had actually been wildly successful. It had done exactly what he hoped it would do. It grabbed the attention of basically everybody in Quito. The whole city stopped in its tracks to listen to what the broadcast had to say. However, there was one very important fact that Leonardo had decided, not to mention in this broadcast, until the very end,

when in many ways it was already too late. This fact was the final update, the one Jose had not been able to hear, but that had caused everybody on the street who had heard it to stop running around, stop screaming, and just get their guns, knives, and torches, and head towards the center of town. The fact that was held off until the very end

was this whole broadcast was a farce. The invasion was not real. It was an act, a prank, a joke. The broadcast was like this play. It was an adaptation of a fiction novel called War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells, which is about an alien invasion. And so what Leonardo did is he orchestrated this broadcast to sound and feel like a real

breaking news broadcast about an alien invasion. The exact same thing had actually been done in the United States a few years earlier in 1938. But in the American version, the listeners had been warned at the beginning of the broadcast that it was not real. And it still caused mass panic, even though they had been worried. warned. And so during Leonardo's broadcast, when he finally revealed the truth at the very end, the listeners were not, you know, soothed. They were not like, oh boy, what a great prank. They were furious. So furious, in fact, that they went to the radio station in the city center

where Leonardo and his broadcast crew were, and they lit it on fire. And so between the radio station fire and also between all the people who took their own lives, preempt, and they believing aliens were going to be here any minute to kill them, torture them, abduct them. The death toll from this night, from this farce, was between six and 20 people. And a whole lot more people were also injured in the chaos. As for 17-year-old Jose Antonio, he would survive, and later in life he would actually give a tell-all interview about his experience during the so-called alien invasion. As for Leonardo, he didn't face any criminal charges, no jail,

time, nothing. But this whole incident really destroyed his credibility, and it made people not trust him in Ecuador. So it was basically impossible to get work. And so eventually he had to move to Venezuela. And then as for Radio Kito, the at one point very influential, very important news broadcast, they wouldn't make another broadcast for two whole years after this incident. The next story is called Reaching the Other Side. On the evening of Sunday, January 26th, 1851, A 23-year-old man named Bailey's Staples hurried up the walkway of a home in Fall River, Massachusetts. It was so cold that Bayleys could see his breath,

but despite the weather, he could not stop smiling. And that was because he was about to do something that he loved to do that made him a lot of money, and it was actually the third time that day that he was even doing it. I mean, this was awesome. Bailey's was a psychic medium, and he was about to perform a seance. So at this point in America in 1851, there was this phenomenon going on called the spiritualist

movement. Basically, huge numbers of people began to believe that the living and the dead could actually communicate with each other through mediums like Bayleys. And at this time, there was a very specific way that mediums like Bayleys conducted their seances. They would sit at a roundtable along with all their guests that were going to participate, and they would summon spirits. and what would happen is the participants in the seances could literally tell when it was that the spirit actually made contact with the medium. Because the round table they were all sitting at

would shake or move, sometimes the table would thump so violently that one of the legs of the table would break off. And a broken table at a seance was considered a huge success. So seances were craze all over the country, and many people did genuinely believe that, you know, people like Bailey's, mediums could talk to ghosts in these seances. But there were lots of people also who didn't believe any of it, thought it was completely made up,

but they would still hire people like Bayleys to have these seances at parties and other functions as sort of a form of entertainment, kind of like how you might hire a band or a magician. And in Fall River, Massachusetts, there really was a big appetite for these seances, both because people believe they were true and lots of people who thought they were fake. And it's in part because there were lots of homes in Fall River, Massachusetts at the time, that sort of had some history about being haunted. And so there was sort of groundwork laid for both believers and non-believers to contract people like Bayleys. Now, to be clear, Bailey's whole seance act was a blatant fake.

In fact, many of the people who hired Bayleys knew in advance that it was all an act, that Bailey's really was more of a performer than a psychic medium. But Bayleys was really good at faking it. And so he had become kind of like the go-to medium, certainly in Fall River, which meant for him to maintain this flow of business. He really had to put full energy into every performance to keep getting people to call on him. So on this day, as Bayleys is sitting there getting ready to start his third seance of the day, he was tired.

I mean, it's pretty exhausting to do these performances. but he knew he just had to get that second wind and just pushed through and do as good of a job as he possibly could. And so as the homeowner of this third seance opened up the door and led him inside, Baylees was sure this was going to be at least as good, if not better, than the other performances of the day. Moments later, the homeowner, John Gardner, led Bailey's into the living room where several other guests were already gathered. Bailey's immediately snapped into character. He swooshed his cape as he walked in and he, waved his hand around the room to command their attention, and when everyone turned to look at him,

he said, I have broken two tables today, and now I've come to break yours. The guests all cheered and clapped, and Bailies could tell they were going to be a very enthusiastic audience, which always made these seances much more fun. So into the parlor they all went, and they all took a seat around this big circular table in the middle of the room. And then Bailies dimmed the lights and walked around the table giving his instructions. He then told them to all hover their hands over the table with their palms down and their fingers spread and that each of them would have to touch the hands of the person sitting next to them. He told them that once they were all touching, it would create a circuit that was more inviting to the spirits.

And so once all of his guests got into position with their hands, Bayleys took his seat and did the same thing with his own hands, creating a full circuit all the way around the table. And at that point, everybody was ready. And so he nodded, and in a commanding voice, he said that now he was going to speak to the spirits. And if the spirits in the room felt like answering, they would move this table. The room got deadly quiet as everyone waited to see what Bayleys would do. But Bailey's just let the tension grow, because he knew that the longer he waited, the more anticipation would build. This was actually Bailey's favorite part of the performance, and he could feel his own heart begin to race.

I mean, this really was exciting. But then finally he broke the silence and called out to the spirits in the room and demanded that if there were a ghost here to make itself known. And at this, everyone immediately began to look around excitedly, which created the quick distraction that Bailey's actually needed to perform his first trick. So mediums used a few different tools to help them fake communication from these ghosts. And one of those tools were these special hooks that they actually attached to their wrists. And they hid them under their sleeves. and then when they put their hands palm down hovering over the table like they told everybody else to do, those hooks would actually go below the table and grip on,

so the medium could without looking like they're actually touching the table, literally lift the table up and rattle it around, you know, again, without appearing to actually touch it. Now, it actually took a lot of strength to do this. I mean, imagine moving a huge table around, just like with your arms kind of hovering over the table. But Bayleys was getting really good at it. And so as his guests were all looking around, you know, looking out for ghosts, Bailey's masterfully hooked his hooks right under the table and began moving his wrists around, which caused the table to thump.

And as soon as this happened, a woman on the other side of the table screamed, and the other guests began laughing and getting really excited. But Bayleys was only just getting started. He called out to the spirit again, much more forcefully this time. And as he did, he literally made the table rise off the floor as all the guests gasped. One man asked how Bayleys was even doing this. I mean, he knew this was fake, but like, how are you lifting the table up? Because his hands are over the table, remember?

It's just these secret hooks underneath. But Bailey's just kind of ignored the man and smiled. And then he said to the spirit that if you're willing to communicate with us, wrap on this table one time. And then Bailey's used the hook, you know, underneath the table, to make a knocking sound. And as he did this, the woman who had first screamed on the other side of the table, she jumped. She was so scared.

and it actually caused Bailies to have this surge of adrenaline. Like he was really doing a good job. And so Bailies actually kind of leaned into this and rattled the table a bit more for dramatic effect. And in doing this, I mean, Bailies was really exerting himself. He's trying not to give off the vibe that he's moving this table around, but he really is. And so he's like sweating bullets.

And he's also yelling out to the spirit, demanding them to come forward and talk to us. But then as Bailies is doing this, this big act here that he in no way suspects is going to actually. call spirits into the room, he suddenly felt the room turn icy cold, and he had this weird tingling sensation flowing through him. He blinked and then his vision got hazy. This had never happened to him during any of his seances. And clearly it was having an effect on him because he no longer was trying to communicate with the dead. He was just kind of standing there, very uneasy,

like the seance was actually doing something, that there really might be spirits in the room. Now, Bayleys can tell he's getting stared at, and he doesn't want to destroy his business. here, like he needs to maintain the act. He can't just spook himself out and stop the seance. But at the same time, he like couldn't break out of this weird feeling he had. The room felt so cold. I mean, something was off here. And then he tried to move, and it was like he couldn't. He was frozen. Now, at the same time, Bayleys is experiencing this across the table, the homeowner and host, John Gardner, is just sitting there staring at Bailey's, trying to figure out what's actually happening here. And from his perspective,

He watched as Bailies went from sort of standing there awkwardly, unable to move it looked like, to then sitting down in his chair and sort of lurching back in this awkward position. And then Bailey's eyes began darting all over the room. And also his breathing got really ragged and heavy. And John couldn't help but feel like it looks like Bailies is possessed, for real. And then Bailies began to speak and his voice sort of cracked as he did. And he began mumbling something that John and the others couldn't understand. I mean, John, he really couldn't help it. He felt sort of spooked by this. I mean, this was really

convincing. John actually wanted to applaud. I mean, Bailey's acting was so good here. But he also didn't want to destroy the act and sort of break his character. You know, like Bailey's, John and most of his guests did not believe seances were real at all. But, I mean, Bailey's performance was really turning out to be way better than any of them had expected. But just then, Baileys shot up out of his chair, and the whole table thumped again and shook, and then Baileys let out this almost ghostly sounding moan, and then one of John's guest asked if the ghost was speaking through Baileys. But instead of answering, Bailey's eyes rolled all the way back in his head, so only the whites were visible. John and the others were transfixed.

I mean, this was just incredible, like really kind of scary stuff here. But then Bailey's let out another moan and then fell back. hard onto the ground. And for a second, there was just confused silence. Because if this is an act, I mean, that was a violent fall. This looks really legitimate. How is Bailey's able to do this over and over again? This seems real. And it was in that moment of realizing that something is off here, that some of the guests began to scream and they began to run out of the room. A few minutes later, a local physician named Dr. Hopper ran into the parlor of John Gardner's home. He'd been summoned by one of the guests who had panicked and actually ran out and gotten him.

But that guest had been rambling about a ghost and a possession, so Dr. Hopper really wasn't sure what kind of problem he was actually responding to. But now he could see there was a group of people dressed for a party, gathered around what appeared to be a seance table, pointing to the floor, where there was this young man lying in a crumpled heap. Dr. Harper went to the young man and reached out and felt the man's neck, but there was no pulse. And so the doctor turned and looked at the group and said, he's dead. And before the group could really even react, the doctor said, now hold on,

someone needs to slowly and clearly explain what happened here. John Gardner stepped forward and now in a very shaking voice, explained that this young man was a medium whose name was Bailey Staples. And he had been doing a seance. and he had demanded a ghost, talked to the group. And then a moment later, he was thrashing around, apparently possessed by this ghost, and then he fell to the ground, dead. John said they had all thought this seance was a fake.

I mean, when they hired Bayleys, they literally thought this was just going to be a performance, nothing real. But now, I mean, they didn't know what to think. This looked very real. Dr. Hopper shook his head, not really sure what to make of this explanation. He certainly did not believe in ghosts. but after a quick examination of Bailey's, he really couldn't see any obvious cause for the medium's death.

So Dr. Hopper got to his feet and told the dinner guests that, you know, whatever killed Bailey Staples was not a ghost, but he didn't know what it was yet. However, he would get to the bottom of it. However, by the next morning, news of Bailey's death had spread all over Fall River and beyond, and it made the immediate autopsy that Dr. Hopper wanted to do to figure out what happened to him, basically impossible. Now, the reason it was impossible is because some people were claiming that this was a ghost that possessed Bayleys, but it didn't actually kill him. The ghost must have put

Bayleys into a trance where he appears dead, but is not actually dead. But if Dr. Hopper performs the autopsy on him, the autopsy will kill Bayle's, so you can't do that. And so pretty quickly, you have all these people that are showing up at Dr. Hopper's clinic and the local police station demanding authorities give them Bailey's body to prevent the doctor from killing him by doing an autopsy on him. And so it's this whole scene. And at the same time, keep in mind, you know, the country as a whole has been taken with seances. That was already something that was sort of happening everywhere. But this story, which sort of legitimized the idea that ghosts could be real and ghosts can also be dangerous given what happened to Bayleys,

this story is spreading like wildfire all over the country. And so at a time where people in America were already big on seances, this pretty much dumped gasoline on that, and seances became even more popular, but now because they felt real, not because they were entertainment. On January 28th, so two days after Bayleys was pronounced dead, Dr. Hopper stood in the basement of the local morgue holding a scalpel,

He had finally gotten the approval to go ahead and conduct his autopsy, but he knew that a lot of people were not happy about it. And now he was looking down at Bailey's body, realizing that to his own surprise, he was sort of nervous about this, like the idea that, what if this guy's actually still alive and I'm about to kill him with this autopsy? Now, logically, the doctor did not think Bayleys was in a trance,

but it was unsettling how physically healthy Bailey's body looked. He was young and strong with no hip, history of illness and there wasn't a mark on his body anywhere to explain why he was dead. The only blemishes on his skin were these slight bruises around his wrists, which Dr. Hopper understood were from these special hooks he had been wearing when he died to lift up the table. But Dr. Hopper shook off the nerves and moved his scalpel towards the skin of Bailey's chest and made his first incision opening up the chest cavity. And that was when Dr. Hopper saw it. It would turn out, on the day Bayley's

Bailey Staples died. He was at his absolute performative peak as he lifted John Gardner's table up off the ground and made the seance guests scream and laugh. But what Bayleys didn't know, and what Dr. Hopper found when he performed the autopsy, was that Bayleys had a pre-existing heart condition and his passionate performance, coupled with the physical exertion it took to lift up that heavy parlor table with just his wrists, and the fact that Bayleys had also already given two other similar performances that day, caused his weak heart to swell and develop an aneurysm, which ruptured and caused fatal internal bleeding. Bailey Staples had basically put on the absolute best seance performance of his life. It was so good, in fact, that it killed him, and also accidentally

convinced an entire house full of dinner guests and many people all across the country that ghosts were real. 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. Our head of production is Zach Levitt, produced by Jeremy Bone, story editing by Evan Allen, research and fact-checking by Shelley Shoe, Samantha Van Huss, Evan Beamer, Abigail Shumway, and Camille Callahan. Research and fact-checking supervision by Stephen Ear. Audio editing and post-produced by Whit Lacasio and Cole Lacasio, Perry Crowell and Jordan Stidham.

Mixed and mastered by Brendan Cain. Production Coordination by Samantha Collins. Production support by Antonio Manata and Delana Corley. Artwork by Jessica Clogston Kiner. Theme song called 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 SiriusXM.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.