MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories - The Unexpected

Episode Date: April 9, 2026

Today’s podcast will feature 3 horror stories with completely unexpected endings. The audio from all three 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: #3 -- "After The Riot" -- A man's son goes missing during a prison riot (Original YouTube link -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eklLi4LdTWk) #2 -- "Falling Treasure" -- A politician in Malaysia calls upon a shaman to bestow upon him riches and power (Original YouTube link -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xBPT9pl_qA) #1 -- "A Son’s Nightmare" -- Police visit a small village after a man's recurring nightmare about his mother makes him question reality (Original YouTube link -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQ8wjf8d8ds)   You can WATCH all new & exclusive MrBallen podcast episodes on my YouTube channel, just called "MrBallen" - https://www.youtube.com/c/MrBallen If 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 three horror stories with completely unexpected endings. The audio from all three 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 After the Riot, and it's about a man's son who mysteriously vanishes during a prison riot. The second story you'll hear is called Falling Treasure, and it's about a politician in Malaysia who calls upon a shaman to bestow riches and power upon him.

And the third and final story you'll hear is called a son's nightmare. And it's about police who visit a small village after a man's recurring nightmare about his mother makes him question reality. 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 Fridays. So, if that's of interest to you, please sneak into the Follow Button's house and dump out all their shampoo and refill the bottles with glue.

Okay, let's get into our first story called After the Riot. On the afternoon of October 11, 2016, a middle-aged man named Carlos Herrera Sr. entered the visitation area of a prison in Venezuela. The room itself sort of looked like a high school cafeteria with tables and chairs everywhere for the inmates and their visitors to sit down and have their meetings. And right in front of one was one table where there was this bedraggled-looking prisoner who he was there to meet. As Juan got closer to this guy, he could see he really looked terrible, the inmate. I mean, his cheekbones were sticking out. He was sort of emaciated. He was bloodied

and bruised. He had bandages on his arm. And also, as Juan moved towards this guy, he could clearly see all the guards that lined the walls and the exits of this visitation area sort of squirm with discomfort, you know, as this meeting is about to take place. And Juan had a good idea why these guards might be anxious. And that's because over the past month, this prison had been on lockdown, because a gang inside the prison had risen up and overpowered the guards and completely taken over for this entire month. And just to be clear, I mean, during this month, people died as a result of this takeover. I mean, this was a horrible month for this prison, and it was only over the past couple of days that the guards were finally able to take back control. And Juan knew all this,

not only because this riot was all over the news while it was going on, but also because his own son, Juan Jr., was serving time in this prison for robbery. He had been for the past year. However, Juan Sr. was not coming to visit his son right now. Instead, he was coming to visit a different prisoner because during this riot, Juan Jr. had just disappeared. And one senior, when he had found out about that, had called prison officials, other people, politicians, you name it, to try to figure out where his son went,

but nobody seemed to know. And so finally, he had found this one prisoner, the guy he was meeting today, this beaten down-looking guy, who had agreed to come forward and tell Juan Sr. what he knew about what happened to Juan Jr. And so Juan sat down at this table with this prisoner, and after the two of them introduced themselves, very quickly, Juan Sr. said, please, like, tell me what happened to my son, where is he? But this prisoner he was talking to didn't immediately get into sort of a clear story about Juan Jr. This guy began talking about a totally separate prisoner, a man named Doranhel Vargas. Vargas was notorious across Venezuela for a series of brutal murders he committed that ultimately put him in this prison.

And during this recent riot at this prison, it was Vargas and his gang that rose up and took over, like Vargas was in charge effectively of the riot. And so even though he was terrorizing people and brutalizing people and was very much responsible for the deaths of multiple inmates, He also at the same time did have to make sure that, you know, the people he was in charge of, albeit illegally, had enough food, they had enough supplies, that they had the things they needed to survive. And so again, he's sort of like dictatorial and awful, but also, you know, ensuring people have basic resources. And so one senior is listening to this man sort of lay this out about Vargas and sort of how he was in control during this riot. And one senior is like, I just don't get it. Why are you explaining the nuances of like what he was doing during the riot?

And this prisoner very quickly pointed to the bandage on his arm and kind of pointed at all of his injuries that were very obvious. And he told Juan Senior that if anybody got in the way of Vargas while he was in charge during this riot, they were basically beaten to within an inch of their lives. And again, in some cases, people were killed. I mean, this was a brutal regime. And so Juan Senior is like, oh, my goodness, is that what happened to my son? Was he beaten like you by Vargas? But at that point, the prisoner just shook his head and said no.

and then he looked down and almost like couldn't make eye contact with Juan Senior, and he just said, what happened to your son was much worse. The prisoner would tell Juan Senior that at some point during the riot, his son, Juan Jr., was tapped by Vargas to help with something. Now, it's not clear if Junior went willingly or he was coerced, but we know that basically everybody had to do what Vargas asked them to do, otherwise they would be beaten or even killed. And so ultimately, Junior agrees to help Vargas.

And the thing he was tapped to help Vargas with was distributing food to the inmates. Because remember, despite how brutal Vargas was, he was in charge of providing basic necessities to all the inmates. And because of this riot, the prison had been locked down, and so food supplies had been restricted. And so inmates are beginning to starve. There's this big food shortage. And so Junior was told like, hey, you need to help us provide food to these inmates. So Jr. basically agreed to do it, at which point he was informed exactly what role he was playing. in finding food. Instead of going out and looking for this food, Junior was the food.

Vargas and his gang cornered Jr., beat him to death, butchered his body, and then literally fed him to the inmates. That's what happened to one's son. After hearing this horrific story, Juan Sr. was destroyed, and one of the first things he did is he went public and had this big press conference to tell the world about what happened to his son. But despite there being many eyewitness accounts, ultimately, the Venezuelan government denied the cannibalism and nobody was ever held accountable. Duron Hel Vargas remains incarcerated and he's never been charged with any crimes connected to Junior's disappearance. Our next story is called Falling Treasure. On the evening of July 2nd, 1993, a 49-year-old politician named Maslin Idris

paced around the living room inside of his home, which was located in a suburb of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Maslin was feeling very anxious because tonight, in his home, he was going to have a very important meeting. So Maslin was already a very successful politician. He was a state assemblyman, which is sort of like a state congressperson. But what he really coveted, the thing he wanted more than anything else in his political career, was to become the state's Mentry Basar, which is sort of like being the state's governor.

But to get this role, Maslin had to be appointed. And realistically, he didn't know if that was going to happen. And that was in part because recently he had felt like his political power was sort of, you know, slipping away from him. And on top of that, you know, he was getting older and he sort of felt like his popularity was waning too. And so he felt like, you know, in order for me to get appointed to become the state's Mentree Bissar, I really need to find a unique way to reclaim that political power and popularity. And that was going to be the central focus of the big meeting at his house that night. So Maslin continued to pace around, anxiously checking his watch, you know,

waiting for these people to show up, and then sure enough, late that night, he heard a knock on the door. And he hustled over to the door and he made sure he looked okay. And then he opened it up. And standing in the hallway is this unbelievably beautiful woman who's flanked by these two men that he didn't know. And immediately, Maslin is just completely drawn to this woman. She had long, dark hair, this huge smile and her eyes. I mean, they sucked him in. It was like she was hypnotizing it or something.

I mean, she really looked like a celebrity, at least as Madison. Maslin imagined celebrities look up close. This woman's name was Mona Fandy, and actually, to some degree, she was a celebrity. Back in the 1980s, she had released a pop music album that had been very popular all over Malaysia, and so she was like kind of famous in Malaysia. Now, in the early 1990s, Mona was done singing, that part of her life was over, but she had launched this brand new second career post-music that, to some people, it seemed like that actually made her more notable and more famous than her singing had.

These days, Mona was a highly sought-after professional shaman. So in Malaysia at this time, shamanism was pretty popular and mainstream. Shaman's were these people who claimed to have supernatural powers, you know, they could heal people and bring them prosperity. And so it wasn't uncommon for the really well-known shamans to be called upon by very powerful people, like, you know, politicians, let's say, to sort of leverage their powers to increase their clout and their influence. And so Maslin saw Mowman,

Mona, who at the time was arguably the most famous shaman in the entire country, he saw her as his meal ticket. She was going to be the way that he reclaimed the power he needed so he could be appointed as the state's Mentry Bissar. And so Maslin very excitedly welcomed Mona and the two men who were her husband and her assistant into his home. And, you know, even though Maslin had expected to see Mona tonight, I mean, he knew she was the one who'd be performing this ritual tonight, he still couldn't help but feel totally

starstruck by her. And so as a result, he had a lot of nervous energy and he began sort of like rapid firing, asking her questions about, you know, like, how quickly will I see results and like, how's this going to go and, you know, how successful are these things really? And Mona, as she's just looking at him and smiling, she just eventually reaches out as he's talking and just puts her hand on his shoulder and says, it's okay. Why don't you show my husband and my assistant where the room is, where the spaces that we're going to be doing this ritual tonight? And at this, Maslin just totally shut up and he nodded. He sort of got the hint that that he was sort of being too much here,

and he led them into this other room that he had cleared out for tonight. There was nothing on the ground. It was like a vacant room in his house. And right away, the assistant, he began spreading flower petals all over the ground, while Maslin began speaking to Mona's husband to work out payment details.

I mean, this was not a free thing that he was getting. It was going to cost him the equivalent of tens of thousands of US dollars to get what he wanted here, to gain his power back. But Maslin didn't really care about how much this cost in money, because to him, it was absolutely worth it. And so once the payment details were handled,

and Maslin was, you know, ready and the assistant had finished putting all the flower petals out, Mona walked over and told Maslin to come with her. So he followed Mona, and they went into the ritual room that again is covered with flower petals, and she told Maslin to lay down on his back in the middle of the room. So he did that, he laid down, and he's looking up at Mona and her assistant and her husband are off in the background, and Mona's got that big, dazzling smile, and she's staring right at him. she says, close your eyes and clear your mind. And all I want you to do is just focus on your desires for the future.

You know, what riches do you want to come to you and focus solely on those? And so Maslin did this. In his mind's eye, he pictured himself becoming more politically powerful and more popular and landing the job of his dreams. And he's sort of narrating what he's saying out loud. And Mona's telling him, good, good, keep going, keep picturing those things. And then at some point she's like, look, I want you to picture riches raining down from the sky on you, sort of symbolizing you getting these things that you want. And so Maslin did that, and he began

picturing the gold and the silver falling from the sky, you know, landing on him, and he's narrating what he's feeling and seeing. And at some point, he was so fixated on this idea of riches coming from the sky that he swore he could literally feel the gold and silver actually hitting his body. And at that point, when he was actually feeling something, is when the ritual was done. A little over a year later, on September 12, 1994, the famous shaman, Mona Fandy, glided her way through a crowd of photographers on a street just outside of Kuala Lumpur. Mona was dressed to the nines. She had red lipstick on, her hair was all styled up, she had beautiful clothes on,

and, you know, as she maneuvered through the crowd, she sort of feigned like she didn't want the attention, but she totally did. So it would turn out the ritual that she had performed on Maslin a year earlier had made Maslin incredibly famous, and in turn, it had made Mona even more famous than she already was. And so the paparazzi, they were desperate to get a photo of her because of her unbelievable fame. And for Mona, even though she acted like what she really cared about was being a shaman and helping people achieve their dreams and to heal and gain in prosperity, even though that's what she would say, the truth was, ever since she had had that big hit, that pop music album

that had launched her into the stratosphere, ever since then, she had been chasing fame, and now she had really nailed it. I mean, she was like an icon in Malaysia. And so as she maneuvered past the paparazzi and everyone's clamoring to get her attention and to get her photo, she thought to herself, my plan has worked perfectly. Except it's important to understand that, you know, Mona wasn't really famous as much as she was infamous. And it really stemmed from that ritual she performed on Maslin.

because what she did to Maslin is she actually just ritualistically executed him. Except, it would turn out, Maslin wasn't even her first victim. He was her eighth victim, at least as far as we know, and she just got caught after she killed Maslin. When Maslin was laying in that room and the rituals going on and he's being told to picture all these gold coins and silver bars raining down on him, well, while he was doing that, and critically, he had his eyes closed, Mona grabbed an axe, raised it up and brought it down into the middle of his chest. And so this ritual murder was designed to lead to somebody getting more power and more fame,

except that person was not really Maslin. It was Mona. I mean, Maslin did become extremely well known for being a victim of Mona, but it was Mona, who suddenly was the talk of the entire country. I mean, she was all over the news, and she was beautiful. And so it's like this crazy dichotomy of this unbelievably attractive woman who's also a serial killer? I mean, this is the stuff that just makes the news over and over and over again,

and Mona loved it. And so when Mona was walking past that crowd of paparazzi and they're all taking photos of her, that was actually her walking to her murder trial. Every day, she would basically treat that walk up the steps to her murder trial as like her personal red carpet. With all the paparazzi taking her photo, she'd dress up in these lavish outfits and smile for the cameras on her way to be tried for murder.

And then ultimately, she was convicted of it and sentenced to death. But she was totally unfazed. Because for her, again, it was all about gaining this incredible notoriety and she had succeeded. It was like the ultimate shaman move, and she had done it. On the day of Mona's actual execution, she was going to be hanged, along with her assistant and husband, they too were found guilty. On her walk to the gallows, we have all these reporters and all these photographers and she's still flashing smiles and treating it again like it's.

her own personal movie premiere. I mean, she didn't care at all that she's literally about to be killed. And then literally, her final words, as the news is being put around her neck, were, I'll never die. The next and final story of today's episode is called A Son's Nightmare. One evening, in February of 2011, a man in his 30s named Yang was eating dinner inside of his home in a rural village in China. Around him at the table were his five elderly aunts, who he lived with and took care of. Now, nobody's spoke over dinner. It was totally silent. But this was common, and it was not awkward at all, because Yang actually preferred silence. He had been born with a disability that made it nearly

impossible for him to speak. It also had left him blind in one eye. And over the course of Yang's life, he had been sort of bullied for his disability. And as a result, he really didn't like being around other people, and he certainly didn't like trying to talk to other people. I mean, that was really, again, something he had a really hard time doing. But in his life, the few people that totally accepted him and loved him were his family, in particular his five aunts. They didn't care at all that basically he never spoke. And so, for example, at this dinner table, there was no expectation that anybody would speak, and Yang loved it. But more than just feeling happy that he could be himself around his aunts, Yang also took a lot of pride in looking after his aunts.

He wanted to make sure they were comfortable and well-looked after in their old age. So after this silent dinner, Yang stood up and he cleaned the table off, and then he helped one of his aunts go up to her bedroom. And after getting her tucked in, and as Yang was about to go down and help the next aunt go to her bedroom, he heard sirens outside. Now, Yang lives in this very remote rural village in China that's actually so remote they didn't have their own police force. But even more specifically, Yang, literally in his whole life, had never even heard a siren or seen a police car. And so this is like really unique. And so instead of going and helping his next, next aunt, Yang went outside to see what was going on. And as soon as he got out there, he looked

down the hill, he was up on top of this hill, that's where his house was, he saw at the base of the hill about 600 feet away were two police cars with their lights flashing. I mean, clearly something major was happening in his town. And so again, feeling very curious because he's never seen anything like this, Yang decides to continue to investigate. And so he leaves his home and begins walking down the road towards the cars. But he stops at a safe distance away because, one, he doesn't want to interfere, and two, he really doesn't want to talk to the police because he can't really talk. And he's actually worried that he's going to get bullied if he talks to the police. And so from a safe distance, he just stood there and watched whatever was going on.

And what was going on is the two police officers who had responded and shown up in Yang's Village were standing there at the foot of this hill trying to make sense of this insane story a local farmer had just told them. The man was sitting there, you know, his face was in his hands, he was crying hysterically, and he was trying to give them more information, but it was like he was too upset. And finally, one of the officers tells the guy like, hey, stop what you're doing, start all over again. Calm down and just tell us the story from the beginning. And at this, the farmer did calm down. And after taking a deep breath, he told the officer the story. He said about a week earlier, he had this horrible nightmare. He said he dreamed of his mother

and she was shrouded in darkness and she was terrified and she was screaming for his help. And the farmer said, you know, in the dream, he ran to his mother to try to save her. But as soon as he would get close to her, it was like the shadow went over his mother and then she disappeared. And then the farmer would wake up and he'd be so terrified and so upset. Now, at first, the farmer told the officer that, you know, he didn't think much of this nightmare. You know, he was not a superstitious person. He just thought, you know what, it's a nightmare.

But over the next several days, he kept having the same nightmare about his mother that, you know, she was scared and then she would disappear as soon as he went to help her. And so after a week of these horrible dreams, the farmer said he finally decided, you know what, I'm just going to go check on my mother in person and make sure she's okay. But when he went to his mother's place, his mother was missing. And he couldn't find her anywhere. And he had this horrible thought that she'd been abducted. And so he had called the police.

Now, the police did understand that it was totally bizarre that they were here ultimately because of some guy's nightmare. But when they went to his mother's place, she really was missing. And so they ultimately told the farmer to just, just go home and that they would put together a search party and they would look for his mother. And so after the farmer said, okay, and then headed back towards his place, the two officers got back in their cruisers and they drove out of the village past Yang, who was still standing there watching everything happening, back to the police station. And there, the officers immediately

coordinated two investigative teams that would go out and look for the farmer's mother. Now, one of these teams was sent to a local city to basically canvass the area to see if she was there, but that search proved to be fruitless. And then the other investigative team, they were sent back to the village. And when they were there, they went door to door asking all the residents if they had any idea what happened to this farmer's mother. And it was during this search in the village that they got a tip. And that tip would lead them to a very specific location, Yang's home.

And when police went to Yang's home, they found the front door was wide open. But when they walked right up and yelled inside of the home calling out for Yang, nobody yelled back. In fact, the home was totally dark and silent. And so after a few more minutes of police calling out for anyone inside the home to come out and talk to them and not getting an answer, the police decided to walk inside. And so into this dark, cramped home they went. And as they walked, they noticed there were all these dirty towels and dirty dishes and sort of trash everywhere. I mean, the place was kind of a pigsty.

And again, it's eerily silent. Every step they took, they were walking on these boards that creaked with every step. And as they're moving, they're calling out. you know, Yang, if you're in here, come out. But again, it's totally silent. And they eventually make their way to the very back of the home. Now, the police really did not know what to expect when they showed up at Yang's place, but they did hope that by going there, they would somehow, some way, find a reasonable explanation for all of this. You know, the dream that kicked off this investigation and this totally

bizarre tip they got. I mean, they really just wanted to put this thing to bed. And they were hoping that by going to Yang's place, they would get that. However, when the police walked into the very last room they had not searched yet, the very back of his home, they knew there was no reasonable explanation here. That back room is where Yang's aunts all slept. And when the police walked into that room, sure enough, the aunts were in their beds where Yang had left them. However, the police realized like, wait a minute, we have been yelling and screaming and trying

to get people to come out of the home, yet all these women are still asleep. How could they possibly sleep through all that commotion? But as the police walked up to each of these five women, they realized the outlandish tip that had sent them here in the first place had to be correct. It would turn out, Yang did not harm that farmer's mother. In fact, he did the opposite. She was one of his five elderly aunts, and he went to great lengths to care for each of these women.

I mean, he basically would have done anything for them. However, there was a problem. His five aunts were dead and had been for a long time. While Yang considered these women to be his family, literally, I mean, he called them his aunts, in reality, he was not related to them at all. Instead, these were just women from the local village where he lived who had been nice to him. They had all died of natural causes. But Yang didn't understand it when they passed away.

Instead, all Yang knew is that he was sort of an outcast and that nobody respected him and he was treated really badly by most people except for these women. They'd been the only people that really cared about him. And so after they died, he felt really sad and lonely. And so, one by one, he dug these women up and brought them home with him and began caring for them as if they were still alive. When that farmer had gone to go check on his mother, after having the recurring nightmare about, you know, her going missing, he had gone to her grave site and found her coffin was literally empty, hence believing somebody had abducted her body. And then the strange tip police got that led them literally to Yang's house was a local had seen Yang, carrying a body up the hill to his home. And his home actually was not a typical home. Instead,

Yang's home was actually just a cave that he had outfitted with some boards on the ground for a floor and a couple of makeshift beds. Yang was arrested for what he did, but ultimately he was sent to a psychiatric hospital for treatment. All of the bodies that Yang stole were reburied, and the farmer's recurring nightmares about his mother stopped as soon as her body was returned to her grave. 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, research and fact-checking by Shelley Shoe, Samantha Van Hoose, Evan Beamer, Abigail Shumway, and Camille Callahan.

Research and fact-checking supervision by Stephen Ear. Audio editing and post-produced by Witt Lacassio, Jordan Stidham, and Cole Lacassio, production coordination by Samantha Collins, production support by Antonio Manada, and Delana Corley, artwork by Jessica Klogstenkiner, 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.