MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories - The Devil's Station/The Hunt | Campfire Stories with MrBallen

Episode Date: August 7, 2026

Welcome back to the Campfire! I have two awesome stories to share tonight. The first is about a woman in Japan in the early 2000s who has a totally bizarre occurrence on a train, and she documented the entire thing on social media. And the second story is about this really creepy creature who lives in the mountains of northern Thailand, and a village has a horrible encounter that has become a legend over time.   Be sure to WATCH this episode on my YouTube channel on Friday, August 7th! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey guys, welcome back to my campfire. I have two awesome stories to share with you tonight. One of them is about a woman in Japan in the early 2000s who has this totally bizarre thing happened to her while she's on a train in Japan. And the reason we know about it is because she documented what happened to her in real time on social media. Very bizarre. And the second story I'm going to share with you is about this really creepy creature that a person. He apparently lives up in the mountains of Northern Thailand. And there's this really just horrible encounter that this whole village had with it that, you know, has sort of become a legend over time.

And apparently this is not an isolated instance that out in Northern Thailand, like, this is a thing. It's very creepy. But before we get into tonight's two stories, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious, delivered in story format, and you've come to the right campfire because that's all we do, do and we upload two, three, even four times every week. So if that's of interest to you, go ahead and sneak into the Follow Button's house and go to their prized DVD collection, pull all the cases out, remove all of the discs, close the cases, and just put them back.

Also please subscribe to our channel and turn on all notifications so you don't miss any of our weekly uploads. Okay, let's get into tonight's stories. Around 11 p.m. on January 8th, 2004, a woman in her early 20s named Hesumi was sitting on a train that was speeding through the city of Hamamatsu, Japan. And as she rode along, she found herself staring anxiously out the window. So Hesumi took this train every night to get to her overnight shift at work, and usually it was a quick ride, maybe about seven or eight minutes, and there were a whole bunch of stops along those seven or eight minutes before she arrived at her destination. But tonight, she had just realized that she had actually been on the train now for at least like 20 minutes.

And she also hadn't stopped at any point. Like the train had just started and had been going for 20 minutes. And now she's realizing, like, wait a minute, am I on the wrong train? And so Hussumi began looking around the inside of this train car she was in to see if there was like some signage that would say what train she was on. But as she looked inside the car, there was nothing. Like there was no signage one way or another. It was like blank inside of this car. And she couldn't recall if that was how all the trains looked,

but it seemed odd that there was nothing indicating what train she was on. And so she was thinking like, okay, well, you know, maybe I've just missed my stop. And what I need to do is just like get off at the next stop and maybe take a train back the way I came. And she's like, man, I'm already so late for work here. And, you know, the train at this point is still just chugging along here. Like there's no sign of it stopping. And so she looked around in the train car sort of thinking like, what should I do here? And she saw there were several.

other passengers that were on board the train, but this is late at night. It's past 11 o'clock. And so everybody on the train was asleep, like the few passengers that were there. And so she knows, like, I think my best bet here is probably to go wake one of these people up and just ask them, like, what train is this? But, you know, she was pretty nervous, sort of a shy person, and she really didn't want to do that. And so she wound up actually just calling her parents, even though, like, how would they know what train she was on? But they didn't pick up. And so she kind of just felt stuck, like she really didn't know what to do here. However, as Hesumi is sort of sitting there getting more and more anxious by the minute,

she realized she actually might have a pretty easy solution here. So she had a cell phone. This is 2004. She had a phone, but it was not a smartphone like we have today. But it was a phone. And on her phone, she actually did have limited internet access. Like there was a way to connect to the internet. Again, very limited.

But through this limited internet access, she was able to access this very popular online forum in Japan that was called Tuchan. So Tuchan was sort of like an early version of Reddit where basically, you know, people were able to post, you know, various threads with questions, with statements, with polls, you know, you name it. You could just sort of, you know, post your thoughts on Tuchan. And then other people, other users could jump on there and, you know, leave comments or react. to what you said. It was like early social media, but the idea was you're sort of communicating back and forth with the people that are interacting with your post, whereas a lot of social media today is sort of passive. This was sort of active. Like the people that are commenting on Tuchan are like actively trying to participate in the thing that the original user has posted.

And so Hussumi's thinking, why don't I present to Tuchan, to the world of Tuchan, the situation I'm in. Like, I'm in this weird train that has no signage and it's, it's now coming up on, like, 30 minutes since we left. It still hasn't stopped. Like, what's going on here? Maybe somebody knows about this train. Like, she didn't know, but she's thinking, it's a decent place to try. So, Assumi, she pulls out her phone, she logs into Tuchan, and she's, like, wondering, like, how am I going to, you know, frame what's happening here in sort of a simple header to get people's attention? And she comes up with this, this caption, which was, this, this, this may just be my imagination, can I post it anyway? And so she just left that on Tuchan, nothing

else, no context yet. And pretty quickly, one other or a couple other Tuchan users noticed it and reacted to it. They said, yeah, you know, please share, share what's going on with you. And so, you know, sitting there on the train that still is just charging along here, showing no sign of stopping, Asumi, you know, detailed what was happening and basically asked the internet to be like, what do you think's going on? What do I do? And so initially, a lot of the comments were just like trying to sort of better understand like exactly what train she had gotten on to, at least as she understood it. And like other people were also trying to say like, well, did you look out the window yet? Like, you know, basic stuff. But at some point, somebody said, well, hey, why don't you

just, you know, go talk to the conductor of the train? Like, just ask them, is this the right train? And when she read that, when Hasumi saw that, she's like, oh my gosh, why didn't I think to do that? I can literally just walk right up there to the front of the, this train car where the conductor is, knock on the door and be like, hey, what train is this? You know, why haven't we stopped? Where are we? And so, you know, she put her phone away. She stood up. She walked past all the sleeping passengers on board the train. She goes to the conductor's door. It was shut. And she knocked, and there was no answer. Nobody opened. Nobody opened the door. And so eventually she actually tried grabbing the doorknob and tried opening it, but it was locked.

And then she called out a few times, like trying to get the conductor's attention because, you know, it's loud outside, but there's no way the conductor wouldn't have heard her if she was yelling, but she yelled a few times and there was just no answer. And so, you know, not really sure what to do, because really that's the story of the night so far. She doesn't know what to do. She goes back to her phone and she goes to Cheyenne and she just reports what's happening, which is like, okay, I tried the conductor, but apparently there is no conductor or they're not getting back to me. They're not responding to my knocks or my calls. And so after saying as much on this thread, Hesumi just went and sat down and she's, you know, watching more and more comments populate inside of this thread

because this is really gaining traction on Tuchan. People are really interested in what's what's happening with Hesumi. And at some point, somebody just began saying, hey, just look out the window. Like seriously, just look out the window and wait. You're going to see something out there that will give away where you are. Now, Hesumi had obviously been doing that, but, you know, she saw that and she's like, okay, I'll just look out the window again. And so she stood up and she walked across to the nearest window. And right as she was about to look out, it was like this whoosh as suddenly they were inside of a tunnel. And it went all black. Like the window went from, you know, she could kind of see outside.

It was nighttime to just complete blackness. They're inside of a tunnel. She can hear the sound of this train clearly going through a tight and closed space. And it sort of startled her. But then after getting over the sort of initial jump scare of having just entered this tunnel, she realized that, you know, obviously things have. have gone wrong tonight. Like the train now has been going on for post, you know, 30 minutes at this point. But she knows on her commute to work at no point did she ever go through a tunnel. Like for sure,

for sure, for sure at this point, she's like on the wrong train. Like there's no two ways about it. But like, great, I'm on the wrong train. Why isn't it stopping? And so Hussumi, she sits back down in her seat and she updates to Chan about what's going on here about, you know, the tunnel. And then she's like, you know what? You know, she's waiting for more answers on this 2chan thing. She's like, I clearly have to wake somebody up. Like, that's what I have to do. I have to ask, you know, one of these sleeping people, what's going on here?

Because they're on here too. They chose to be on this train. Maybe they know, you know, maybe they know what train this is. So even though she felt really uncomfortable, she got up and she walked over to one of the sleeping passengers. And she was just about to gently shake them awake and ask their, you know, ask them to help her. when she felt the train slowing down. And she also noticed when she looked up and looked out the window that they were no longer in the tunnel. They were back outside against.

They're slowing down. They're back outside. And she's like, great. We're finally going to stop. So instead of waking up this passenger, she just walked over to the nearest door, you know, waiting for it to open and just, you know, waited for the train to come to a stop. And it did. It slowed all the way down. And sure enough, they pulled into this train station.

It was an outdoor, uncovered, you know, outdoor train station. And, you know, she could, she'd never seen it before. This is like a foreign train station to her. But to her, she's like, I don't care. I'm getting off this train. You know, if I have to, I'll catch another train going back, or I can at least, you know, get my bearings and take a taxi or something. But she knew, like, I need to get off the train.

And so once the train had came to a stop, the doors opened up. She stepped off the train onto this small, deserted platform. You know, it's a real train stop, but there's no. nobody out there. And she's looking up and down the train car and nobody else is getting off of the train. It's just her, which was odd because she's thinking there clearly aren't that many stops that this train makes. This is one of them, and I'm the only one getting off. So like, that was weird. And so Hasumi, she begins looking around to just see a sign that would tell her what the name of the station was. And this one actually did have signage. You know, she looked up and she saw that above the banner or like the main stanchion that was the station itself,

saw there was a sign that said Kisaragi. So this was Kisaragi train station, presumably. And she had never heard of it, but it's like, okay, you know, I have a landmark. And so she's thinking, like, I have no idea where this is. I really don't have a sense of where I am in the country, but okay, I'm in Kisaragi. And what does she do? She goes on Tuchan, and she updates the forum that, hey, you know, the train finally stopped and I'm at Kisaragi Station. I don't know where it is. Can someone tell me where it is because, you know, she doesn't really have the ability in 2004 and even with her limited internet access to do meaningful searches on the internet to figure out where she is. And so she was sort of like outsourcing it.

Like somebody looked this up from your home computer and tell me where I am. And so as she's entering this into Tuchan, she hears the sound of the door shutting behind her and the train begins to take off. And then she looks down at her phone and she sees there's a whole bunch of answers to her most recent comment on Tuchan about being at Kisaragi Station. And all the people are saying is, there is no Kisaragi Station. That station doesn't exist. As soon as she saw that, it was like dread came pouring over her. This whole night has been horrible. And even though the train has slowly begun to pull away, she turned and began running down the platform, yelling for them to

stop, like banging on the side of the train, like don't go anywhere. Let me back on. But the train didn't stop and it just drove off into the night. And so after Hasumi has watched her train disappear, you know, she's left on this, this dark platform, there's nobody there, there's barely any lights anywhere, and she's terrified. And so what does she do? She pulls her phone out. She goes back to the two-chan thread, and she's hoping that somebody's going to tell her that, of course, Hesaragi Station is real. Of course, like, there's reasons behind why she got dropped off here. Like, this is fine. But no, she looks at the comments, and it's like a full. flurry of one after the other of everybody telling her like that isn't a real place people are saying

they've looked at train schedules that their their family works for the train line and they've heard of all the stations they've never heard of that one like it's one after the other of people saying you didn't go to kisaragi station that's not real like we don't know where you are this isn't this isn't real and so hasumi is terrified and all she knows is she just has to get out of here she has to go She doesn't know where, but she has to just go. At the same time this was happening to Asumi, in the bedroom of an apartment, about 20 miles away from the station

where Hasumi had first gotten onto the train, a young man named Yuhei was sitting at his computer, frantically refreshing a 2chan page where Hasumi had posted her story. So Yuhei was one of the very first few people who had seen her thread. This could just be my imagination. Can I post this here?

He had seen that. And he was one of the first few people to start offering up suggestions of what she should do. And he found this to be totally fascinating. I mean, he was on 2chan a lot. And honestly, most of the things people posted on there were not really worth anybody's time. They were sort of boring and sort of redundant. But this felt real.

This was frankly exciting. But also, there was a part of Uhi that was just sort of worried about Hussumi. He didn't know Hesumi at all. But, like, he was invested. He wanted to know what was going on. And also, by the time she had told everyone that she was at Kisaragi Station, he was one of the folks who had literally pulled out a map and looked at all the different stations for the train line. And he literally is like, there is no Kisaragi Station. He was one of the people who was really hammering that point home. He was also one of the people that had pointed out that there are several abandoned railway stations that are in Japan, that, you know, perhaps there's an old one that, you know, is called Kisaragi Station.

that has long been forgotten. And, you know, maybe she wound up at that one. But he's thinking, like, why would a commuter train drop off one passenger at an abandoned railway station? Like, that didn't make sense either. And so, Uhi, along with the hundreds and hundreds of other people by now who are commenting on this post, you know, he's in there refreshing over and over again

to not just see what other people are suggesting that, you know, Husumi should try to do to get out of the situation. But he was refreshing to see what Hasumi was doing. because she was providing these updates. And at a certain point, you know, people were telling her like, hey, you should look for a taxi cab and just take a cab, just get out of there. And then Assumee commented that there are no taxi cabs out here. Like there's nobody out here.

I've left the station and there's nobody here. Like, there's nothing. And so shortly after that, people are commenting that, you know, you just got to call the police. Like, the police will know where you are. You can describe where you are and they'll know how to get to you. They'll be able to help you. But quickly, those types of comments got buried. by this weird growing consensus amongst the many people commenting,

which again at this point is quite a few, like hundreds of people are commenting at this point. There was this growing consensus that basically, Hussumi, what she really needs to do is actually get on the train tracks and just walk on the train tracks until you reach the next station. Like that's what people had sort of defaulted to tell her to do. And Uhi thought that was potentially quite a bad idea. But it seemed an awful lot like, you know, based on her response,

that she might just do that. In fact, at some point, Asumi actually said that she was on the tracks and she was walking back the way they came and she was about to enter that tunnel. The tunnel that she had never been in before, the one that had startled her so as they were coming through. Like, she's telling people,

I'm walking into that tunnel. And so for Yuhei and very likely for the other people that were following along, you know, this really was like a real life mystery. It was so exciting. But it was also like, what's going to happen to Hasumi? this is dangerous what's happening to her. Eventually, as Asasumi got nearer and nearer to this tunnel,

her posts on her thread began coming in faster and faster, like one after another, and they got stranger and stranger. At one point, she said that there was some man calling out to her from behind her, but when she turned around and looked, there was nobody there. But then as soon as she went back to looking at the tunnel, there were voices behind her. She also said that at some point she fell and that she was bleeding. And she also commented that she heard bells and she heard drumming that were coming from inside of this tunnel. And so Yuhei and a number of the other two-chan users that were, you know, invested in this thread, you know, when they began hearing these strange things that were coming out of this tunnel, they began messaging her on this post to turn around and just

go back to the station. But Asumi, there was this long pause where she didn't, she didn't post anything, even though there had been that rapid amount of posting she was doing just a moment ago, it kind of died down for a second. And then she just said, I'm almost to the tunnel. And then it went silent. And so Yuhee waited breathlessly at his keyboard for a very long time until finally Asumi posted again. And she said that she had successfully made it through this very strange tunnel. She had made it out to the other side. And actually, she had found someone who was willing to help her. and that she was going to get into his car, and he was going to take her to the next station. However, her situation still didn't sound good.

She wrote, my battery's almost run out. Things are getting strange. And then she said, I'm going to make this my last post for now. And then, nothing. There were no more posts from Hussumi. This was around 4 a.m. when she made her last post, which is almost four hours from when she made that first post. But she was just gone. In the minutes following Hussumi's final message on Tuchan, people all over Japan began calling the police and also representatives at the railway company who ran the train that Hesumi claimed to have been on.

They wanted someone to go out and make sure Hesumi was okay. They told the police and they told the railway folks to go to Kisaragi Station. Like go there. She's there. Go find her. But everybody said the same thing. Where's Kisaragi Station? What are you talking about?

And so ultimately, even though you had like hundreds of people all over the country that were like aware in real time of this girl who was in peril potentially, but nobody can help her. They don't know where she is. They don't know what Kisaragi Station is. And so nobody ever found her. Like she was just gone. That was it. And so over the next several weeks and months after her disappearance, everybody from two chan users to the media to, you know, authorities. they were investigating those posts that she had made on Tuchan,

trying to figure out, like, really, who is this girl? And where did she come from? And where had she gone? And so over time, people began to say that, well, then clearly what's happened here is this was a hoax. There is no Hesumi. This was all made up. It was a great fan fiction.

And most people accepted that. Except there was a problem. Asumi was not the last person to experience something like that in Japan. In the years since, at least seven other people have reported getting on seemingly normal trains and either going past or stopping at a mysterious station where they either find a deserted platform or they encounter bizarre sounds or totally unsettling people. Today, Asumi's story and all the other accounts of mysterious happenings on Japanese railways are still analyzed and picked apart all across social media and in the news.

and people, especially in Japan, remain terrified that this might happen to them every time they board one of those trains. So much so that actually someone developed an actual set of rules for surviving Kisaragi or similar deserted mysterious stations in Japan. And these rules were circulated online. And among these rules include you should never respond to anyone who speaks to you. You should avoid going through tunnels and never exit your train at one. one of those stations that do not appear on any official maps. Late one night in 1934, a 33-year-old hunter named Harold Young hiked into a very remote village in northern Thailand.

Harold had a rifle with him because he was planning to go hunting tonight. However, he knew that before he could actually begin his hunt out in the wilderness here around this village, he first had to get permission from the village chief. So this village and the surrounding area belonged to a small group. of indigenous people called the Lahoo. So Harold was actually an American citizen, but his parents were missionaries who had raised him and his siblings in Southeast Asia. And so as a result, Harold actually spoke the Lahoo language and had a pretty good understanding of their customs. And so he'd actually been to this specific village and gotten permission to hunt from the chief

several times before. So this was relatively routine. However, this night when Harold entered the village, which was made up of, you know, several huts sort of spaced out across this clearing, he noticed right away that the village just seemed different than the last few times that he had been. So, you know, normally there'd be lots of people out and about, you know, moving around, sort of at all hours, even late at night. But as he's walking through the village towards the hut that belonged to the chief, it was like nobody was outside. It was eerily quiet, like just totally still inside of the village. But, you know, Harold, he really wasn't overly concerned about this.

I mean, he just thought, eh, it's weird, you know, just it's an anomaly. It is what it is. And so he makes his way towards the back of the village where the chief's hut is, and it was a much more sort of prominent hut. And the front door of the hut was not like a door. This is like a thatch, you know, bamboo-style hut, and the door was like a flap of leather. And so Harold, he walks up to the door, and he's about to grab it and sort of pull it aside and call out to the chief to seek permission, when suddenly, like, as he's reaching

for the flap, the chief suddenly appears in the doorway, and the chief, who's like this really strong, like, charismatic guy, he suddenly appears, and he looks totally spooked. Like, his eyes are wide, and immediately, like, he recognized Harold, because, you know, they've interacted before, but he started looking, like, beyond Harold, like, into the village that he was in charge of, And he's like scanning all around and he looks at Harold and in Lahu in their language. He says to him, like, you shouldn't be outside right now. And Harold's like looking at this chief thinking how odd it was, considering this guy is like a pillar of strength in this village. He's thinking how odd it is that he's acting this way.

Like what could possibly have spooked you this badly? But at the same time, like Harold, like he understood their customs but didn't purport to really deeply understand what it was like to be amongst this tribe, to live in this tribe. And so he, again, just sort of rode off the strangeness. And he's like, oh, you know, hey, I'm just here to go hunting. And I was hoping to get your approval to go hunting on the outskirts of the village. Am I, am I okay to do that? And he sort of held up his rifle, you know, saying, hey, can I go out there and do it?

I'm trying to get your approval. But the chief, like, he's not really listening to Harold. He's still sort of looking beyond him. And it was pretty clear to Harold that, like, this is going to be a difficult conversation to have. Something's going on here. and Harold, he was about to like double down and be like, hey, chief, like, can I do this or not? And he's about to ask again when suddenly there's this blood-curdling scream, a woman's scream coming from somewhere on the other side of the village. Like, it's coming from one of the other huts on the other side of the village.

And Harold instinctively, you know, he's got his rifle, he's a hunter. He's like, I'm going to go over there and make sure she's okay. And so he turns and he starts running through the village, having no idea. of what he's going to find over there. He's sort of starting to put together like how weird this whole night has been. And he's running through the village like, what's going on? The scream is sort of stopped, but he could tell roughly where it was coming from. He's running in this direction. And he's about to be like inside of the window that looked into the hut where he believes the screaming had come from. And right as he's about to peek his head around, he feels a hand grab him on the shoulder.

And it startles Harold and he whips around. And it's the chief. And the chief, he's still, like totally spooked. It's like he hasn't changed his demeanor. He's still just totally on edge. It was almost like the scream didn't even change anything. Like this was almost expected in some ways. And he grabs Harold and he looks at him and he just says to him almost in a whisper, be careful and be quiet. And then he kind of stepped back and almost like pushed Harold to go look inside of the hut. And so Harold is now like genuinely spooked. Like he has no sense of what he's going to see inside of this hut. But like the screaming has stopped,

but there's some sort of rustling sound coming from inside of the hut, and he's about to see what it is. And so Harold, you know, with his rifle up, he's like totally spooked at this point himself, and he starts walking slowly to look in the window of this hut. And now at this point, the screaming has stopped, but there's clearly like rustling noises

coming from inside of this hut. Something is in there. And so he walks closer and closer. He's got his rifle up, and he peers into the hut. And he sees there's this figure sort of perched on the ground. And its back is to Harold. It's like this human-looking figure, but it's, again, it's covered in fur.

It's this dark figure that's like crouched down on the ground. And it's moving around, like it's got something in front of it. And Harold, like, he doesn't even know what he's looking at. He realizes there is a woman underneath this thing, this creature that this woman is lying on the ground. And she's obviously dead. She's lifeless. She's limp. And as he's staring and his eyes are adjusting to the inside of this, this hut, he sees there's blood all over the hut.

And this creature, it begins to stand up. It was basically crouched over this woman. It stands up. And it's this huge, like, humanoid creature covered in fur. Its back is still to Harold. And Harold, he's got his rifle up, but he doesn't even know what he's looking at. And then suddenly this thing, it whips around and it looks right at Harold and starts running towards him on its two legs. and Harold reflexively fires a shot and hits it square in the chest.

This thing screams out, its howling, shrieking a sound he had never heard before, and it falls to the ground, but then it doesn't die. It just whips around, and on all fours, it gallops its way out the back door of the hut, out into the jungle. And so Harold and the chief, they just take off running after this thing, this animal, this creature. They just take off into the wilderness, like trying to track it down, because clearly, like, it must have been wounded, but it isn't dead. It's run off somewhere. And so they're running into the forest. It's dark out. You know, they're running around.

But they can clearly see it's going to be really hard to track this thing without light and also without backup. And so the two of them, they're like looking at each other like, oh my goodness. They go back into the village. They round up other people and they form like a search party with torches and more weapons. And then back into the wilderness they go. And quickly they find what appears to be like brush that's been sort of smashed down suggesting this is the direction this this large creature had run and they follow it into the wilderness and for hours they're just following what they think is the trail that's going to bring them to this this thing and the whole time like Harold's thinking you know I'm a good shot I know I hit this thing square in the chest like I hit it in the heart like there's no way it

lived I mean I know I hit it but like where is it where did it go like what even happened And so for hours, they're searching and they can't find it. And ultimately, Harold, he's sort of telling himself and telling the chief and others, like, it's got to be dead. Like, whatever it is, it's got to be dead. We can't find it, but I'm sure there's no threat now. And so they go back to the village. And just as a precaution, most of the men that have been a part of the search party, Harold and the chief included, they just stayed out, like by this fire in the middle of the village and just waited,

just in case this thing came back to just sort of protect the village until the morning. And then eventually, you know, the sun came up, you know, there was light again. And suddenly, like, the atmosphere in the village, although, you know, this is quite tragic what's happened. That woman was mauled to death by whatever this was. But it was clear the creature was gone. But now that it's light out, like Harold, he was really curious what happened to this thing. Like, he wanted to see what it was. He wanted to confirm that it was dead.

And so he, you know, now with the sun up, he walked out in the direction of where that thing had bolted, night before, and as he began following the same trail he had followed the night before, he noticed something. There was a small blood trail that he hadn't seen the night before. Like, there was just no way they could have seen it with their torches. There wasn't enough blood. But now he can see it. And so Harold's like, shoot, I'm going to see where this goes. I'm going to find this thing and confirm that it's really dead and figure out what it was. And so he starts following this blood trail, which at first appears to be right in step with the same trail they had been following the night before, but at some point, the blood trail kind of deviated

and cut off to the right where the brush trail, or what they thought was the brush trail, the beaten down brush, sort of continued off into the distance, and it also could have been their own prints from the night before. Like that continued on, but the blood trail turned and sort of went off in a direction that he knew, Harold knew they had not searched the night before. And so Harold's like, shoot, like, okay, and he's following this blood trail, which instead of going deeper into the wilderness has sort of turned a corner and begins making its way back towards the village itself. And eventually the blood trail brings him all the way back around, back into the village to the opposite side of the village from where the woman's shack

had been. So basically it brought him closer to where the chief's hut was on that side of the village. And the blood trail sort of turned a corner and literally appeared to go right in one of those flaps that led into one of the huts in the village, a hut that, as far as he knew, nobody had searched for this creature. Why would you? And so Harold's thinking, it's got to still be in here. It probably died inside of this hut. I mean, that's what animals do. They seek shelter when they die. That's got to be what happened. And so Harold, you know, with his rifle, he walks around and he goes to the flap, and he opens it up, and he looks inside of this hut, and he cannot believe what he sees. There was something inside of the hut. There was a man lying on a bed in the back of this

hut, and he's covered in blood. His chest is soaked in blood, but it's a man, and he's clearly dead. And the blood trail led, these flames are very intense. The blood trail led from the door right to the bed. And so Harold's, he's having this existential crisis. Suddenly he realizes, That wasn't an animal. It was a man last night. I shot and apparently killed a man. And so Harold, he goes and gets the chief, and he explains how he had found this blood trail.

It led him back around. It went to this hut. And inside is this man. Clearly, there was no animal. It was just this man. He's the one who did this. But Harold's like having this crisis here that he's killed someone. He's killed a person.

But the chief, as soon as he walked in and he saw what Harold was showing him, he just put his hand on Harold. was like, don't worry about it. That's not really a man. So the chief explained to Harold that in their culture, they have this thing called the ta'a. And the taa is this creature. It's almost like a mythical creature that is reminiscent of a werewolf, where most of the time it takes the form of a normal human. It just acts like a normal human. It would be indistinguishable from a normal human. But, periodically and sort of without warning, evil forces can overtake the taa, and it will transform into this hideous, violent, you know, furry, big creature that's, again, sort of like a werewolf, if you will, that then feeds on human flesh. And so on the night that Harold rolled into the village to request permission to go hunting, well, the chief and his villagers, they had seen signs that there could be a ta'er.

in the area. It was sort of unclear what tipped it off, but they were fearful that there was a taa out there, and that's why they were all basically hiding indoors. That's why they were so scared when Harold arrived, and the chief couldn't believe that he was out and about at such a dangerous time. And then, you know, obviously the attack happened, and that was the taa. Now, whether or not you actually believe that what he encountered was a taa or not, what is the case is that taas or legends about the taa can be traced back centuries. And according to many people, the creatures still prowl around the mountains of northern Thailand today. 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 Lacosio. This episode was written by Karras Pash Cooper. Research and fact-checking by Shelley Shoe, Samantha Van Hoose, Evan Beamer, Abigail Schumway, 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.