MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories - Reality Glitch Vol. II

Episode Date: October 1, 2026

Today’s podcast will feature 2 stories that challenge our understanding of reality. The audio from both stories has been pulled from our main YouTube channel, which is just called "MrBallen," and has been remastered for today's podcast.Story names, previews & links to original YouTube videos:#2 -- "By The Pool" -- A doctor is having a relaxing day at his pool when he sees something that can't escape him (Original YouTube link -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhAi2A2dABU)#1 -- "The Ride Home" -- There is a certain sub-genre of the SDM we have covered a handful of times, but believe me, this is by far the most compelling (Original YouTube link -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3E4Vb_HVi-I) 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's podcast will feature two stories that challenge your understanding of reality. The audio from both of these stories has been pulled from our main YouTube channel and has been remastered for today's episode. The links to the original YouTube videos are in the description. The first story you'll hear is called By the Pool, and it's about a doctor who is having this relaxing day by his pool when he witnesses something that haunts him forever. And the second and final story you'll hear is called The Ride Home. And it's about a man's very bizarre bike ride where something just seems off as he passes by his neighbors. And the reason why we'll give you goosebumps.

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 podcast because that's all we do, and we upload four times a week, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. So if that's of interest to you, on the Follow button's birthday, offer to bring the birthday cake. But don't tell them you've secretly reported. placed their candles with TNT. Okay, let's get into our first story called By the Pool. One evening in the summer of 1974, a 60-year-old doctor named Julian Kerchick sat beside his backyard pool at his home in Old Westbury, New York, which is a suburb of New York City. It was a quiet

sunny day, and Dr. Kerchick was glad to have some time to relax. He was a surgeon at a local hospital, and he also had a wife and four children, so it was not often that he got a moment of peace to himself. And so Dr. Kirchik leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes and tried to relax for a second, when all of a sudden he heard something rustle in the bushes nearby. Now, at first, he just figured it must be a squirrel or a bird or something, so he didn't even bother opening his eyes. Like, this is just nature, it's fine. But this rustling sound persisted, and it just wouldn't stop. And so eventually, Dr. Kirchik did open his eyes, and he got up out of his chair to go see what was going on. Now, these bushes were like 20

feet away from the doctor. And so in order to truly investigate, he had to get up and actually walk over there. And so he gets up and he takes a few steps when he suddenly freezes. Because now, when he's looking at the bushes, he sees there is someone standing, basically in the bushes, a person. But he realized this person was not a normal looking person. The person was wearing what appeared to be this dark, long robe that covered their whole body. And in fact, the robe kind of obscured their face. It was like they were this dark presence just standing there in the middle of these bushes. And so Dr. Kurchik is just frozen having no idea how to react to this. I mean, does he call out for help? Does he, you know, chase this guy out of his yard? Like, what does he do

here? And as he's standing there transfixed, this person in the robe extends one of their arms, this long, skinny arm, and kind of begins to beckon Dr. Kurchik towards them. And Dr. Kurchik went from being sort of startled to being terrified. This figure basically looked like the Grim Reaper. And it felt like now the Grim Reaper is beckoning him to come with him, to come die, basically. That was the feeling he suddenly had. And it was unbelievably overwhelming. And so Dr. Kirchik is staring, horrified.

He blinks for a second, and the man is gone. Over the next few days, Dr. Kirchik obsessed over what he had. just seen. I mean, really, it felt like he had just witnessed the Grim Reaper and worse, that the Grim Reaper was like telling him to come with him. Like he was signaling to Dr. Kurchik that his time on Earth had come to an end, that his death was imminent. That's what Dr. Kurchik is thinking. But Dr. Kurchik, he's a surgeon. He's a man of science and reason, and he can't understand how this could have happened. I mean, even if it was just a hallucination, it was so vivid. It was so visceral. Like, how could this be? What's going to

on with him. But the problem Dr. Kirchik had was, who's he going to talk to about this? Hey, by the way, I saw the Grim Reaper, and now I'm worried I'm going to die soon, or maybe somebody in my family's going to die soon, or a patient is going to die soon. Like, who's going to have that conversation with him? But at the same time that he was feeling increasingly isolated because of this, you know, whatever he saw, he couldn't help but feel like it was real, and it was driving him mad. Like, I'm not doing anything and something bad is imminent. What do I do? And so for months, Dr. Kirchik just carried this incredible weight with him everywhere he went,

like this constant sense of unease until October of 1974. That month, Dr. Kirchik suddenly got sick. He had a fever, and it just wouldn't go away. And so he went to his own doctor for a checkup, and his doctor told him, I got some bad news. That day, Dr. Kirchik was diagnosed with an incurable form of blood cancer. He was heartbroken, but he was not totally surprised. Because for him, this sort of felt like a validation of what he'd already seen. Death, the Grim Reaper, had been calling him.

And now, Dr. Kirchik knew why. Dr. Kirchik would share his story with newspapers, which is how we know about it today. And shortly after sharing his story, Dr. Kirchik would die. The next and final story of today's episode is called The Ride Home. One morning in the spring of 1959, a middle-aged civil engineer named Wu Chiu biked through his rural town in Taiwan. He was on his way home from work and normally he sort of enjoyed this bike ride home. He would take his time and look at the beautiful temple and all the marketplaces.

But today, he was not looking at the scenery. He was in a huge rush because he had gotten word that his wife had become horribly sick. And so Wu is peddling as fast as he possibly can trying to get home to his wife to help her and take care of her. But as he got to his neighborhood, he started to realize that he was really gassed, like literally peddling to his house was just unbelievably exhausting. Now, he was sort of sprinting, but at the same time, Wu was a pretty athletic guy. And so this type of a ride was something that he should have been able to handle. But it just sort of seemed like there was a weight attached to him, like he was pulling an extra 100 pounds or something. But regardless, Wu pushed through the pain,

knowing he had to get to his wife at all costs, and he turned the corner onto his street, and as he was making his final approach to his house, he saw one of his neighbors. And even though Wu was completely in a rush, he was also very polite. And so even though he's like, you know, sweating and hustling, he still took the time to turn and waved to his neighbor. And his neighbor, who clearly looked at Wu, made eye contact with him, saw it was Wu. Instead of waving back, they kind of scowled at Wu. Like they were disgusted by him.

they didn't wave back and they turned and just went the other way. And Wu's like, what was that about? What did I do? But again, Wu has to get home. So he sort of wrote that off and he's like, okay, keep on peddling. He gets even closer to his house. And then it just so happens. Another neighbor comes outside.

And again, Wu's politeness comes through and he's still, he's like sweating profusely. He's like, hey, how are you? And this neighbor as well looks at Wu with this look of total disdain on their face. Like there's something wrong with Wu. And Wu's like, what did I do? What's going on here? And so that neighbor does not wave back. They go back inside their house.

But again, Wu, like, really can't focus on this weirdness with his neighbors. He needs to get home to his wife. And so, again, with his heavy legs, he finally gets to his house, parks his bike, and runs inside to see his wife. Wu would find his wife in their bedroom, in bed, and she was looking very pale and sick. Her name was Lynn Wang Yao. She was 37 years old. And generally speaking, she was a pretty frail person who was sort of prone to minor illnesses all the time. And so, you know, Wu was sort of accustomed to her not doing so well. But as soon as he saw

his wife, he could tell that whatever was going on with her was serious. This was not one of her typical bouts of, you know, minor illnesses. Something was wrong here. And so Wu immediately began to tend to his wife. He made her some soup and some tea, but, you know, Lynn barely could sip either of them. And Lynn also, she had this fever that just kept getting worse and worse. And, you know, Wu was hoping she would break the fever at some point. But, you know, all night as Wu is up tending to her, her fever just kept getting worse. And so Wu, he really didn't know what to do. And this is 1959. They're in a rural village in Taiwan. And so it was difficult to get to a hospital. And so Wu really wanted to find a way to treat his wife at home. And he was just praying that,

you know, over the next 24 hours or so, she would show signs of getting better. But over the next couple of days, Lynn did not get better. Her fever never broke. She basically stopped eating and drinking, and it was like she was drifting in and out of consciousness. And then finally, after three days of this, Wu knew, like if I don't get my wife to a hospital, no matter how hard it is to do that. Like, she might not make it. The primary hurdle for Wu to get Lynn to the hospital was actually just transportation. He didn't have a car. But he did know that one of his neighbors on his street had a donkey cart. And so he could maybe load his wife into that and they could get her to the hospital in the cart. And so Wu, he went outside and he found the neighbor who happened to be

outside, actually with their donkey cart, and he flagged them down, and he asked them if they'd be willing to transport Lin to the hospital in their cart. But just like a few days earlier, when Wu had been biking on his street and his neighbors had been totally weird to him and sort of looked at him with these obvious looks of disgust, this neighbor who knew Wu really well, looked at Wu and basically gave him one of those looks, like you gross person, you know, and he turned around like he wasn't even going to talk to Wu. But then Wu, in desperation, just says, look, my wife, she's dying.

She needs to get to the hospital. Please do it for her. And at that, this neighbor, you know, clearly despite their misgivings, sort of turns back around and says, fine. You know, we can use the cart and get her to the hospital. And so Wu and this neighbor, they go into Wu's house, they scoop up Lynn, they put her on the cart, and it takes several hours, but they do eventually get her to the hospital.

And by the time they're there, like Lynn is basically unconscious. They rush her inside, and the doctors and nurses, they try to do everything they can to stabilize Lynn. But as soon as she was admitted, it was like her condition only got worse and worse. And that night, she slipped into a coma and then she died. Wu was devastated. He and the neighbor took Lynn's body, put it back on the donkey cart, and brought it back to their town. And then Wu began setting up for a funeral service. So in Taiwan, it's customary during funerals to have the body of the loved one be brought into the house

where it stays for seven days before they're cremated. And so Wu, after getting Lynn's body back home, he put her into a coffin, set her up in the living room, and then over the next several days, Wu was at home next to his dead wife as friends and family and even the neighbors who clearly had some issue with Wu, they all came in to pay their respects. And while this was happening,

I mean, Wu, who was already devastated at the loss of his wife, you know, as he would listen to people come in and pray over the body and sort of talk to the, the body as if she was still alive and talk about how wonderful she was. You know, it really hit Wu hard because it was like he was suddenly realizing how different his life was going to be without his wife. I mean, Lynn was a very simple woman. You know, she was illiterate. She really didn't travel and she was very introverted and quiet, but she was a wonderful wife. She took care of Wu. She cared about him deeply. She was a wonderful cook. And just generally, she made people

around her feel safe and happy. And so, you know, Wu, it's like he just found himself over and over having these fits of just crying. He can't believe that Lynn is now gone. But on the third day after Lynn had passed away, so now we're about halfway through this funeral service, which takes about a week, Wu was in his living room, dealing with this overwhelming sadness about losing his wife, and there's this procession of people coming in and out of the house. And as Wu was sitting there, you know, there was sort of a cadence and a rhythm to how the days were going. But, But at some point, it was like everybody in the room just suddenly went completely silent, and then people began to gasp.

And Wu, he was sort of head down, dealing with his sadness, and he sort of noticed the change in the room, and he heard people gasping, and he looked up, and he noticed a few of the mourners. They weren't just gasping. They were open-mouthed and horrified, and they were looking at the casket. And so Wu went from the mourners, and he looks over at the casket, and there, in this open Casket is Lynn, except now she's sitting upright, looking around the room, clearly alive. Now, at first, Wu's reaction was, oh my goodness, my wife must have just slipped into a really deep coma so deep that the doctors could not distinguish it from death. And so this is a mistake. Like she was

never dead. She's just, you know, waken up from her coma. But at the same time as Wu's having this immediate reaction to seeing his wife sitting up in her coffin, he's thinking, but, Over these three days that I've not left her side, I've been with her body the whole time, she's not moved, she's not made a sound, she's certainly not had anything to eat or drink. Like, this just doesn't seem possible. And so Wu and the other mourners, you know, after the shock of seeing this sort of wore off, everybody kind of jumped into action and they rushed over to the casket and they very gently lifted Lynn out of the casket and they carried her over to her bed and they laid her down

and Lynn immediately kind of gestured for water. You know, she was too weak to speak. You know, she had lost a bunch of weight, but she's gesturing for water and say, give her some water, and she sips the water. And everyone's looking at Wu, like, we have to get her to the hospital. Like, what else can we possibly do? But Wu, he's looking at his wife and she's so frail. She really seems like now she is on the precipice of dying here.

And he's thinking, you know, she can't survive another donkey cart ride to the hospital. And so we have to keep her here and hope that she, you know, recovers enough that maybe in a day or two we could bring her to the hospital, but certainly not now. And so, over the next couple of hours, Wu, along with some friends and family, just stayed by Lynn's bedside, constantly checking on her, making sure she really was alive,

and, you know, she was, albeit, you know, very subdued. But she continued to drink water and had a little food. And amazingly, over the span of only a few hours, Lynn went from basically literally being dead to actually seeming to get a whole lot better. In fact, to the point where, you know, Lynn was actually sitting up in bed and, you know, stretching and moving around, as if she was

completely fine. In fact, in Wu's opinion, it almost seemed like within a few hours, she was actually physically, almost better off than she was normally when she was alive. Like it was a miracle, how quickly she was recovering. And so by that night, when Lynn really did seem like she was effectively back to her normal self, you know, the mourners all left and said, okay, well, I guess Lynn's okay. And they left, and then it was just Wu and Lynn. And Wu had to be. And Wu had had no idea how to handle any of this, he was just so grateful that his wife was alive, even though, again, none of this made any sense. Like, this is so shocking, but he's just grateful that she's alive.

The next day, when they woke up, Lynn was so much better that she was out of bed, walking around the house, you know, really excited to face the day. And Wu's like, dude, you were dead yesterday. Like, what's going on here? But Lynn said to him, hey, I want to go out on a walk. You want to go on a walk with me? Go to the temple. And Wu, he's looking at Lynn still like,

unable to comprehend what's happened here. But he's thinking, you know, she does seem like she's in great health right now. And if she wants to go for a walk, great, I'll go with her. And so the two of them went outside and they began to walk. And as they're walking, I mean, Wu, he's a pretty athletic guy, remember? He found himself barely able to keep pace with Lynn, who was like speedwalking towards the temple. And on top of that, as they're walking and Wu's like, you know, gassed as he's trying to keep up with his wife, Periodically, neighbors would, you know, wave to Lynn and Wu, and for just a brief second,

they would chat. And as Wu listened to Lynn speak, he began to notice something really strange, that Lynn, you know, maybe he didn't notice it before, but he was definitely noticing it when she was speaking to other people. She just sounded different, like her accent was different. It did not sound like his wife. And the weirdness around Lynn's miraculous recovery only got more weird over time. Before Lynn died and came back to life, She had been illiterate. But now, she was not only able to read, but she could also read and speak fluent Mandarin,

a language she didn't know before she died. Also, Lynn used to be a really skilled cook who loved cooking meat dishes in particular. But now that Lynn has recovered, she no longer wanted to eat meat. She said she was a vegetarian and basically stopped cooking. Also, Lynn began speaking with real authority about the professions of accounting and bookkeeping.

And then also, she advised her husband to quit his job as an engineer and open up a building materials shop in town because there was a real need for it, and he'd make real money that way. And believe it or not, like, woo, he doesn't understand what's going on with his wife, but she really seemed like a force to be reckoned with now. And however she had gained all this extra knowledge, it really seemed like she was sharp these days. And so he was like, all right.

And he quits his job as an engineer, opens up this building materials shop, and really quickly, he and his wife began making real money, more money than they had ever made before. And while all this was happening, Wu and Lin became the biggest curiosity in town. I mean, the story of how Lynn had miraculously come back to life with all these bizarre personality changes, you know, not only was that spreading all around town, but it eventually spread all across the country. It was like everybody was talking about Lynn. In fact, this story spread so far that it eventually reached the Taiwanese government. And when they heard about it, they were so intrigued, they decided they would investigate.

So on March 17, 1962, the Taiwanese government sent for Lin. And Lynn was very happy to go. She was ready to tell her story and answer any questions they had. This was all just kind of exciting, the idea that the government wanted to know how she had made this unbelievable recovery. And so the government, they scoop her up and they bring her to this army hospital. and they tell her she's going to be meeting with the chief physician there. And so the chief physician, he's inside of the room, he's waiting for Lynn, he's never met her before. He's only been told roughly what the story is.

You know, there's this woman who's acting really funny after coming back from the dead and, okay, fine, I'm going to talk to her and see what's going on. And so Lynn, she walks in the room and the chief physician, he looks at her, she's an ordinary looking woman, and she walks over to him. And before he can even begin a line of questioning, Lynn looks at him like with a double take, like there's a moment of recognition and she says to the chief physician, uncle? And the chief physician is like, why are you calling me uncle? And then Lynn would go on to explain why she had just called him uncle. And the chief physician was so shocked by her story that he left the room and he called for his wife. And then when his wife came to the hospital, he didn't tell her what was going on. He just said, come with me. She walks into the room with the chief physician, he and his wife. And Lynn, who's never

met this woman and the woman has never met Lynn, they see each other for the the first time and Lynn looks at her and just goes, Auntie. And it was at this point that Lynn revealed to the chief physician and his wife that Lynn really was not her name. That's what people called her, but that wasn't who she was. Her real name was Zhu Shu Shuwa. And the chief physician and his wife literally couldn't believe it. Because they had not given any information about their personal lives to Lynn.

They've only listened to her story and she's just often. offered up what she claims her name is, she's called them uncle and auntie, and wouldn't you know it, the chief physician and his wife, they did have a niece whose name was Zhu Shu Shu Hua, and a year earlier, she, their niece, had gone missing. She'd gone missing during the Chinese Civil War, and she had been presumed dead, but nobody had ever found her body. According to Lynn, Zhu did die during that war. She was robbed and murdered by a group of fishermen, and then after she was killed, her spirit was sort of stuck in this purgatory for some time. But then, a year after Zhu's death, when Lynn died, Lynn said that Zhu's spirit entered Lynn's body and thus, you know,

she came back to life, Zhu did, but in a different body. And so Lynn basically was telling the chief physician and his wife that she was Zhu. She had been reincarnated in Lynn's body. And as crazy as this story sounded, the chief physician and his wife couldn't help but know. notice that as Lynn was speaking, her accent was exactly like Zhu's. In fact, just generally speaking, Lynn was acting exactly like their niece. She really did seem like the reincarnated version of Zhu. And then when they dug deeper and spoke more to Lynn and also her husband Wu, the physician and his wife learned that, you know, Lynn, when she woke up and was reincarnated, suddenly she was a vegetarian, just like Zhu. Suddenly, you know, Lynn was interested in a count of

and bookkeeping. Well, that was something that Zhu was interested in. And also, the biggest one was that Lynn had been illiterate, but then she wakes up and suddenly she reads and speaks Mandarin fluently, the language that Zhu read and spoke. And so the chief physician, he couldn't help but start to believe that maybe Lynn was telling the truth here. You know, maybe this really was his niece's reincarnated spirit. And so as sort of strange as it was, he told the Taiwanese government that, you know what, there's something weird happening here, and, you know, I can't help but believe that maybe there's some truth to this story. But if we really want to pressure test it, Lynn claims that she knows who killed my niece, like she knows who killed her, because now she's Zhu. She said it was

this particular group of fishermen. And actually, Lynn had given the names of these fishermen that apparently robbed and killed Jew. And so the chief physician told the government, why don't we investigate my niece's disappearance as a murder, and go talk to those fishermen. And go talk to those fishermen and see if that holds up. And so that's what the government did. They tracked these fishermen down, but unfortunately, only one of them was still alive. But they interviewed this guy, and Lynn would actually say that particular fisherman, he was not one of the aggressors. He was actually the only fisherman in the group who tried to save Zhu, even though obviously she did get killed, but that fisherman had tried to stop what was happening to her. And when the government talked to him,

he would say that, yes, unfortunately, she was killed, and I did try to stop it, but I just couldn't. Keep in mind, this fisherman had not been given any information. This is entirely like a brand-new investigation. He has no idea what they know. But he basically exactly mirrored what Lynn said happened. And so based on this, they actually closed Zhu Shu Shu's case. It was labeled a disappearance. They changed it to a murder.

And they labeled her killers as the fishermen who were deceased at the time. But they were labeled as her killers, and they closed the case based entirely on, you know, a reincarnated spirit's testimony. And there's one more thing. Back in the beginning of the story, when Wu is hustling home, biking as fast as he can, to get to his sick wife, and he has those weird encounters with his neighbors, well, it would turn out when those neighbors were interviewed, they would say that the reason they gave those looks to Wu, those looks of disgust and disdain, is because, one, they knew Wu was married to Lynn, and they were also aware that she was sick in bed, but here comes Wu pedaling up the road, and he's got this woman sitting on the back of his bike

that is clearly not his wife. And so everyone's reaction to that is, Wu is having an affair on his poor wife who's sick in bed. What a horrible person. Now, Wu swore there was no woman on his bike, but he would recall that the bike did feel really heavy, like he was pulling extra weight at the end there. Later, Lynn would say that actually Zhu's spirit had come down and hopped on the back of Wu's bike, and it was her basically riding along, you know, hitching a ride up to their house. She was the woman that the neighbors were seeing. But Wu, you know, he was so focused on getting home, even though he felt that heavy weight, he never turned around and so he didn't see her. And then once Lynn passed away,

Zhu's spirit, who was now at the home, sort of waiting for this to happen, she switched places with her. For the rest of her life, Lynn would live as Zhu, and she would become a community and spiritual leader. And she would pass away in 2018 at the age of 97, and at her funeral, there would be banners hung that actually said both names, Lynn and Zhu. And so if reincarnation is real, this story might just be one of the most credible cases ever recorded. 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 Lacassio. Research and fact-checking by Shelley 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 Whit Lacosio 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 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 you.