MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories - The Unexplained Vol. II

Episode Date: January 29, 2026

Today’s podcast will feature 3 stories of missing people that we just can’t explain. 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 -- "The Yellow Smoke" -- A bizarre series of events leaves a family without any answers (Original YouTube link -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eklLi4LdTWk)#2 -- "The Bennington Triangle" -- Hunters goes missing in haunted forest (Original YouTube link -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-Kvc3wbSfw)#1 -- "Incommunicado" -- A man staying an extremely remote cabin stops communicating with his friend (Original YouTube link -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KLTog6DltQ) 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 three stories about people who vanish under mysterious circumstances and the chilling questions that surface. 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 The Yellow Smoke, and it's about a family who's left searching for answers after a very bizarre series of events. The second story you'll hear is called the Bennington Triangle,

and it's about a hunter who goes missing in a truly infamous haunted forest. And the third and final story you'll hear is called incommunicado. And it's about a man who abruptly stops receiving communication with a friend who's staying in this extremely remote cabin. But before we get into today's stories, if you're a fan of the strange, dark, and mysterious delivered in story format, and you 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 offer the like button a nice, fresh ice cream cone, but don't tell them you've secretly hit a glass shard right in the middle of it. Okay, let's get into our first story called The Yellow Smoke. At around 8 p.m. on August 19, 1962, a 12-year-old boy named Remundo Márfa de Silva sat near the fireplace in the main room of a shack in rural Brazil. Reimundo lived in the shack with his father Rivalino, as well as his two younger brothers, who were fast asleep in their beds inside of this main room only a few feet away. Riemundo and his family were very, very poor.

I mean, the shack was very small. It was only composed of two rooms, the main room he was in right now, and also the kitchen, which was connected by a single door, and they were truly like out in the middle of nowhere in Brazil. They had no electricity, basically no money. I mean, they really had almost nothing. And so that night, as Reimundo sat by the fire, just kind of quiet, you know, there wasn't really much else to do here.

his father, Rivalino, came into the room from the kitchen, and he sat down next to him. And the two just sat there quietly, you know, periodically poking at the fire with a stick and just sitting there and enjoying the silence, doing their best not to wake up the two younger brothers. And as these two were sitting there, suddenly Reimundo heard a strange sound coming from the kitchen. And so he turned his attention and he looked into the dark kitchen and he saw this dark figure on all fours quickly kind of maneuvering across the ground out of sight. And immediately, Ramundo's terrified. He has no idea what this is.

And so instinctively, he turns to his dad, and his dad is also staring at the kitchen, wide-eyed, clearly having seen the same thing. And then before Reimundo could do anything, his dad jumped up and slammed the door shut, separating them from the kitchen, and locked it. And at that point, the two younger brothers, they've woken up, and all four of them were looking at each other like, what's going on? And Remundo, he says to his dad, what was that? Now, it was clear that Rivalino was very unsettled by whatever this was.

I mean, they didn't have pets. There was no other people inside of their shack. Like, there shouldn't be anything alive inside of the shack beyond them. So he doesn't know what it is. He's scared, but he tells his boys, it's okay. You know, it's all right. You know, I don't know what that is, but let's just stay here. We're safe.

The door is locked. You know, we're all here. We're safe. And so the boys, they all just kind of trusted their dad. And everybody just kind of hunkered down together and just sat there quietly, kind of waiting to see if they would hear anything. else. And for a little while, they heard nothing. There were no more sounds coming from the kitchen. But eventually, Rivalino and his sons began to hear voices, and they were coming from

outside the shack. And at first, they couldn't really tell what these voices were saying. They were kind of garbled. But eventually, they all began to hear the same thing. Whoever was out there or whatever was out there was talking about Rivalino. Specifically, they could hear that name. And what they were kind of saying is, if Rivalino comes out here, we're going to kill him. And the moment that all the boys sort of picked up the fact that somebody's out there and they're threatening to harm Rivalino, they're all like, Dad, what do we do? What do we do? And Rivalino, I mean, he's hearing this too, but he tells his boys, it's okay. You know, I don't know what's going on out there, but clearly somebody is playing a cruel joke on us. This is, this is a prank? This can't be real.

And so Rivalino told his sons, their plan is they're just going to stay put? They're in this room. They're safe. The door is locked. We are going to wait until the sun comes up and then we'll figure out who did this. playing this prank on us. And so sure enough, Revalino and his sons would stay in their room, barely sleeping all the way until 6 a.m. when the sun began to come up again. And at that point, Revalino told his sons to stay put and he was going to go out there and investigate. You know, and by this point, they had stopped hearing voices. You know, there were no more sounds coming from the kitchen. It sort of felt like whatever that was, whoever that was, had passed. And so, you know,

the tension is gone and the boys are like, okay, you know, be careful out there, dad. And so Revalino, he walks over to the door that leads into the kitchen. He unlocks it, opens it up. And Remundo, you know, he's craning his neck, looking into the kitchen, but, you know, he can't see anything moving around in there, even with the light coming in. And so Rivolino, he says, okay, boys, stay here. And then Rivolino goes out into the kitchen and shuts the door behind him.

And while he's out there, Reimundo and his brothers, they're all listening anxiously, you know, making sure their dad's not in trouble, but they just hear the sound of their dad, just clearly walking around the kitchen. There's no commotion. There's nothing. And then a couple of minutes later,

Revalino comes back into the house. to the main room where the boys are. And he's got a knife in hand. But he tells him, you know, it's okay. You know, I got this from the kitchen. I'm just, just in case, there's nothing out here. I'm now going to go outside. And just make sure nobody's outside the hut. Okay? So again, stay put. I'll be right back. And so again, the boys, they're looking at their dad, like, okay, we'll see you soon. Revalino walked out again into the kitchen. He shut the door behind him. And then the boys heard the sound of the door that led outside open up. And then, presumably, Rivalino went outside. And that was the last time the boys ever spoke to their father.

Six months later, on March 10, 1963, five men were out hunting in the wilderness not far from Riemundo's family's shack. And at some point, they came across this huge boulder. And this boulder had a big crevice in it, like a big gap in this rock. And one of the hunters happened to walk past it and looked into this crevice, and they found a skeleton. And that skeleton belonged to Rivalino, Remundo's father. But that was not the end of this story. Far from it. So on the day that Rivalino stepped out the front door and then was never heard from again,

Ramundo and his brothers had been instructed by their dad to stay put while Rivalino went out looking around. But Riemundo just felt really nervous after his dad had stepped out the front door and had presumably stepped outside. So he defied his father, he opened up the door that led to the kitchen, and as soon as he did, he looked towards the door that led outside, and he saw it was wide. open. And he saw his dad stepping into this huge cloud of yellow smoke. And amidst the smoke were these like cylindrical objects that were floating in the air spinning around in a circle,

seemingly spitting out the smoke. And Reimundo, he had no idea what he was looking at, but he saw his dad just kind of walking into this cloud. And then the smoke got so bad, it totally obscured his dad. His dad was gone. And so Reimundo yelled out for his dad, like, Dad, where are you going? And he charged towards a source. father to try to stop him. He just felt like you can't go out there. But as soon as Reimundo went out into the yellow smoke, the smoke just dissipated, the cylinders disappeared, and as soon as it was all gone, his dad was gone too. Reimundo sprinted around his house, calling out for his dad looking everywhere, but there was

no sign of him. And so quickly, Reimundo and his brothers alerted authorities, and they launched the search for him, and for days they combed the area near that boulder as well, and they couldn't find Rivalino. And so eventually, they abandoned the same. search, and then six months later, his body was magically found in that crevice. To this day, nobody knows what actually happened to Rivalino and how he wound up inside of that rock crevice. Also, people have no idea what that dark figure was, skittering across their kitchen floor the night before Rivalino went missing. Or who those voices were, threatening to kill Rivalino or the objects that Rimundo apparently saw floating in the sky, spitting out

yellow smoke. Nobody has any idea what any of that stuff is. All we know is Rivalino disappeared and six months later turned up dead in that crevice. Our next story is called the Bennington Triangle. West Townshend is a rural area on the east side of Glastonbury Mountain in the American state of Vermont. This is significant because that places West Townshend in the so-called Bennington Triangle, which is apparently one of the most haunted places in America. The triangle is a loosely defined area that encompasses the ghost town Glastonbury, which used to be a small logging community centered on the eponymous mountain in southwestern Vermont. The town was abandoned at the end of the 19th century after the logging boom died down, so as a result, the greater Glastonbury area

that West Townshend is certainly a part of is now untouched pristine wilderness, that even by Vermont standards is incredibly rugged and remote. The triangle has earned its spooky reputation due in large part to the alarming number of unexplained disappearances that have occurred there over the last 100 years. Furthermore, over those 100 years, there have been dozens of sightings of the so-called Bennington Monster, which is apparently this eight-foot-tall creature that roams the mountains of Glastonbury, and some people think that creature is behind many, if not all, of these strange disappearances. On November 23, 37-year-old Carl Herrick and his cousin Henry decided to go to West Townshun to do some deer hunting. At some point during their hunt, the pair got separated

and Henry spent some time yelling for Carl and looking around for him, but he couldn't find him, and so he assumed he must have gone back to their camp. But when Henry got back to camp, it was empty. And Henry waited around for a little while for Carl, but he had this sinking feeling that something was wrong, and so relatively quickly, he left to get police. Police show up, they launched the search. For three days, they combed the entire area, and there was just not a sign of Carl anywhere. On the third day, Henry discovered Carl's body. He was lying motionless face down in a clearing in the woods. Initially, Henry thought maybe he was still alive, so he ran over to him and rolled him over and very quickly realized that no, Carl was deceased. However, there weren't any

obvious injuries to Carl's body. He had some minor scratching on his arms and on his hands, but that was about it. Henry looked around the area and he found Carl's rifle that was loaded, leaning up against a tree 70 feet away from where Carl was. Next to his rifle on the ground was an expended shell casing. Also, around Carl's body were apparently huge bear tracks. The official cause of death was baffling. Carl, apparently, was squeezed to death to the point where his rib broke and punctured his lung. So the theory became, Carl must have been out here by himself, he encountered a black bear, he fired one shot at the black bear, thinking it was down, he walked over to check, and the bear attacked him, and squeezed him and killed him the end.

But not so fast. If Carl encountered a black bear and fired one shot into the animal based on the one-found shell casing, that one shot is not going to be enough to put that animal down, or very rarely is one shot going to be enough to put down a black bear. And Carl, being a hunter, he would know that, and he would want to keep some distance with his weapon up aimed at the animal in case he needed to fire again. But even if Carl was really confident that one shot had taken the bear down, well, why would risk his life by checking on the animal to make sure it's down without his gun. Why did he place it against

a tree and then walk 70 feet over to this animal that if it's not dead, it poses an enormous threat to you. You're all alone and unarmed with a huge bear that you've shot. No one's going to do that. You're going to carry your gun. But even if all of that happened that Carl, unarmed, approached this bear thinking it was dead, but the bear's not dead. He's lying in wait and he leaps up and attacks Carl. Even if that happened, black bears don't squeeze people to death. They might scratch you and bite you and rip you to pieces, but they don't squeeze you to death. And Carl only had light scratching on his wrists and on his hands. He did not have any signs of a traditional bear attack.

So either this is the first time in the history of black bears that a black bear squeezed a person to death, or something else squeezed Carl. But what kind of an animal is, one, so strong it can squeeze a man's chest to the point where it breaks his ribs, and two happens to be roaming around the Bennington triangle. Makes you wonder. The next and final story of today's episode is called incommunicado. On the morning of August 18, 2018, a 41-year-old man named Vladimir Costanko stepped out of a taxi onto a desolate road in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness,

miles and miles from civilization. All he had with him were his cell phone, a solar-powered charger for his phone, and a backpack that contained some clothes and five pounds of oatmeal. Vladimir bent down and leaned into the taxi to pay the taxi driver, and as he was doing that, the driver looked up at him and just said, are you sure you want to do this? And Vladimir just smiled and nodded and said, yep, I'm going to be just fine. Don't worry about me. Now, the taxi driver did not really buy this and just looked at Vladimir like he was completely insane.

But Vladimir wasn't shocked. I mean, this is kind of how everybody reacted to him when he told them about this trip he was doing into the wilderness. You know, when he had brought it up to his family the first time, They and all of their family friends had basically rallied together to try to stop Vladimir from going on this trip. It was way too dangerous. But Vladimir said, guys, I'm going. Like, you can't stop me.

I'm doing this. It's important to me. And at that point, when, you know, the family and friends knew they couldn't change his mind, they shifted and said, well, at least, you know, bring a gun or bear spray or something to protect yourself. But Vladimir also refused that too. He said, nope, I don't need any of that because the only thing I need is God. God is going to protect me. So Vladimir was extremely religious.

He actually had left his home country, Russia, when he was in his early 20s, because he was being persecuted for his Christian beliefs. And so now, in the United States, he lived out in Washington State and basically lived his life like a monk. I mean, he spent the majority of his time, you know, basically praying and meditating and reading religious books, and he would often go on these multi-day-long fasts. He did work part-time as a mechanic, but he rarely. charged his clients when he did work.

And then even when he did charge them, he was working so few hours that the money he was making was totally unsubstantial. But again, you know, the way Vladimir looked at this is he didn't need money because ultimately God would take care of him. But despite all of his fasting and his praying and, you know, his generosity, lately, Vladimir had been feeling really lost. Like he did feel deeply spiritual, but at the same time, he didn't really feel fulfilled. Like he felt like he was missing purpose in his life.

and it was really starting to bother him. And so it was around this time that Vladimir decided to go on this big trip. One of Vladimir's family friends was this guy named Dmitri Kudrine, and he owned this small cabin way out in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness. Now, Dmitri didn't use this cabin very much, but he kept it in great shape. It was fully furnished, there was a wood-burning stove inside, and the pantry was stocked with three years' supply of food.

And so at some point, when Vladimir and Dmitri were talking, and Vladimir talked about feeling sort of lost and wanting to reconnect with the spirituality and find his purpose in life. Well, at some point, Dimitri said, well, hey, if you want, you can go use my cabin and sort of disconnect from society and go retreat out there and sort of focus on yourself and sort of get right with the world. You know, you're welcome to go out there. Anytime you want, you can stay out there as long as you want, and for free, no problem.

And Vladimir had happily accepted. And now here he was standing on this desolate road in the Alaskan wilderness. watching as the taxi driver drove away, except he wasn't even close to the cabin. I mean, he was in the middle of nowhere already, but he still had to go 14 more miles with no trail to make his way to this cabin. But Vladimir was so excited, he really felt like this was the thing he needed to figure out his purpose in life. And so, he put his backpack on, took a deep breath, and began to hike.

Three months later, on November 3rd of 2018, Dmitri, Vladimir's friend who owned this cabin, found himself in his plane flying over the area roughly where his cabin was, and Dimitri was feeling very concerned. So obviously, Dimitri suggested Vladimir go out and use this cabin, and so he was totally open to the idea of it. But Dimitri had also told Vladimir that when he went out there, he really ought to bring a gun with him. Or if nothing else, at least some bear spray or something to protect himself,

because this is truly the wild. You are not the top of the food chain anymore, and you want to be able to protect yourself. But Vladimir had said, no, he would not be going with any sort of weaponry that, you know, God was going to look after him, and he'd be fine. And Dimitri's like, that's a bad plan, but he just could not convince Vladimir to change his mind. And so ultimately, Dimitri sort of regretted even suggesting this idea because he didn't expect Vladimir to go unarmed, but he felt like, you know what, it's already in motion.

And so he told Vladimir, okay, fine, you know, do your thing. But when you're out there, I need you to communicate. with me regularly so I know you're okay. And Vladimir promised he would. And at first, that is exactly what happened. Vladimir, you know, made the 14-mile hike from where he was dropped by the taxi. He got to the cabin. He got all set up. And then just about every other day or every few days, he would hike up this nearby mountain where there was cell phone service and he would update Dimitri. He would tell him that things were going great. He was spending lots of time meditating and praying and, you know, he was for berries and there was this pesky squirrel that kept

coming in and stealing his foods, who was trying to figure out what to do with a squirrel, but clearly, things were going fine, and Vladimir appeared to be safe. However, after six weeks of Vladimir being at this cabin, those pretty regular updates just abruptly stopped. Now, at first, Dimitri kind of chalked it up as like, well, you know, I've been talking to him for weeks. There didn't appear to be any, you know, burgeoning crises or anything going on in his life that might warrant some concern.

You know, he's a capable guy, you know, maybe because it's the Alaskan winter. and Alaskan winters are notoriously dark. There's not a lot of sunlight. You know, maybe his solar-powered charger isn't working. He can't get enough sunlight so he can't charge his phone. And so maybe that's what it is. He just can't contact me because his phone doesn't turn on. Basically, Dmitri was coming up with these sort of rationales for why he wasn't hearing from his friend. But as the days went on and Dmitri still didn't hear from Vladimir, he couldn't help but start to feel like something's wrong here. And so finally, in early November, when Dmitri still had not heard from Vladimir, it's been about a month since those text messages stopped, Dmitri decided to get into his

plane and fly out over the area where this cabin was and literally look down and see if his friend was down there in the cabin. Also, this gave Dmitri the opportunity to put some supplies on the plane in these big buckets that he could literally throw out down to Vladimir to also restock him. So, Dmitri is now in his plane and he's circling around the area where his cabin is. But this cabin is really small, sort of in this big sea of trees. I mean, there's nothing else for miles. And so it's pretty difficult with the naked eye to actually look out and see his own cabin.

But Dimitri had this camera on the underside of his plane that he could maneuver and look all around, and he had the screen that he could see from the cockpit that was basically an enhanced view of the ground down below. It was a lot easier to see, for example, his cabin. And so as he was circling, he's moving the camera around, and then bam, he sees right in the middle of his screen is his cabin.

And there doesn't appear to be anything wrong with the cabin. You know, it all looks good. There's smoke coming up out of the chimney. And as he's circling, he's thinking, okay, Vladimir clearly is going to hear me. He's going to come outside and I'll see that he's okay. And sure enough, as he's circling around, Dmitri sees on his screen that the front door of the cabin opens and his friend Vladimir walks right outside onto the porch. He puts his hands on his hips and he looks up and he waves at Dmitri.

And there's this moment of clear recognition like obviously Vladimir knows this is Dimitri coming to check on him and like, you know, Vladimir's down there kind of gesticulating that, hey, you know, everything's fine, I'm good, you know, sorry about the phone thing. Or, you know, Dimitri didn't know what he was doing, but it just sort of seemed like, okay, there's recognition here, that it's been a month, but everything is fine. And so, Dmitri got down nice and low and continued to circle and on one of his passes over the cabin, he pulled a lever, dropped the supplies, those buckets of supplies, they landed down below. And then as Dmitri continued to circle, he watched on the camera as Vladimir walked up and, put his hands on the supplies and waved again to Dimitri, sort of signaling, you know, thank you for the supplies. And at that point, Dimitri's thinking, okay, Vladimir's just fine. Everything's good. I can go home. And so that's what he did. Now, he would have landed and gone

and seen Vladimir up close, but, you know, there wasn't anywhere to land anywhere nearby. Like, this was the closest he could get to Vladimir. And so he decided this was enough. So Dimitri, he turned around and he headed home. But about two months later, on December 23rd, Dimitri was once again in his plane flying over the area where his cabin was. Because over these last two months, he continued not to get any text messages or any communication from Vladimir, which, you know, that was bad. He sort of expected that, given that Dimitri flew out there before and they clearly recognized like, hey, you know, are you good?

There was sort of a moment of recognition that Dimitri's checking in on Vladimir because of the silence. That's what Dimitri's thinking. Maybe that would inspire Vladimir to find a way to send out. communications now, like let Dimitri know he's okay, but he hadn't for two months. And so Dmitri's thinking, okay, that's bad. Also, it's now December. And the winter in Alaska is full bore. I mean, tons of snow on the ground. It's frigid temperatures. It is truly brutal winter conditions. And then lastly, there had also just been this major earthquake in the area where Dmitri's cabin was. And so all those things combined made Dmitri think, okay, I better get out there and just

check on Vladimir again. And so once again, Dmitri is circling low over the area where his cabin is. He's got his camera trained towards the ground, and he's moving it around as he's circling, and eventually he finds his cabin. And his cabin is clearly in one piece. So the earthquake did not destroy his cabin, but there's no sign of Vladimir anywhere. But then again, like, you know, this is just the first second he's seen the cabin. He's only been in the area for a couple of minutes now. Maybe Vladimir has not heard the plane yet. And so, you know, Dmitri's not lost hope. And he continues to circle. And as he's circling, he drops these supply buckets. that land right out in front of the cabin.

And at this point, Dimitri's thinking, okay, that's pretty noisy, having these supply buckets smash into the ground outside. Certainly now Vladimir is going to come outside to see what's going on. I mean, there's not much else happening. This clearly is something that would draw his attention, but no, nobody comes out of the cabin. And so at this point, Dimitri gets as low as he possibly can,

and he's got his camera trained right at the cabin, and as he's doing another pass, he realizes something. There's no smoke coming out of the chimney. In fact, the top of the chimney is covered with snow, which means clearly no fire has been lit, at least not recently. And so Dimitri starts to panic. Like, if anybody was in that cabin right now without a fire lit, it would be so cold,

they would likely freeze to death really quickly. Like, this is a crisis. What's going on with Vladimir? But Dimitri couldn't land anywhere nearby. Like, there was no way for him to really get down to this cabin. so he had to fly all the way to the nearest airport, and then once he touched down, he immediately contacted Alaska State Troopers to report his friend missing, because that was the only thing he could think to do.

However, after Dmitri made this report, the state troopers didn't launch some huge search for Vladimir, and that's in part because they weren't actually sure he was missing. They understood that Dmitri, after flying out over the area, had seen snow on the chimney cap, and, you know, it's really cold out, like nobody could survive without a fire, And also, you know, he flew over the area, dropped supplies, and Vladimir didn't come out of the cabin. How could he not hear that stuff? They understood that. But they're also thinking, like, you know, it's possible Vladimir just might not have been in the area.

Maybe he was out hunting or, you know, foraging for food or whatever he was doing. And maybe he just wasn't in the area. And that's why it gave you the impression that he was missing. And so that was one part of it. And the other part is the weather was atrocious in this part of the world. And so just sending out a search party into the terrible weather out in the weather, out in to the wilderness was really risky. And so the troopers thought it just wasn't worth doing this big search.

And so instead of launching a big search, the troopers told Dimitri that what they were going to do instead is just comb through airline records, local airline records, to see if maybe a Vladimir Costenko had, you know, taken off and flown out of the area. You know, maybe he didn't tell Dimitri and he just left. Maybe that's why he's not there. And this really frustrated Dimitri and the rest of Vladimir's family, because they're all looking at this as a true emergency, and they're thinking, there's no way he just hopped on a plane and flew out of here without telling anyone. And so finally, three days after filing this missing

person report, Dmitri said, enough is enough. I'm going to just take it into my own hands and go out there myself and see what's going on with Vladimir. So he chartered a private helicopter and he flew out to the cabin. And when he got there, he gets off the helicopter and he just scans the property. And he sees, you know, this little cabin and there's, you know, firewood outside stacked up with snow all over it, there's loads of snow on the cabin, and there's snow kind of drifted up on the front door, making it seem like nobody's come in or out of this cabin for some time. And, you know, Dmitri, he's looking around for Vladimir, but there's no sign of life anywhere. Dmitri calls out for Vladimir, but there's no response. And so, with some level of trepidation,

Dmitri begins walking out towards his cabin. And when he gets close enough to the front door, he notices something weird. He sees that the front door of this cabin has clearly been boarded up from the outside. There's this big piece of metal that's been placed basically blocking the door so nobody could go inside of it. And so Dimitri's thinking, like, why would you do this unless you were leaving the cabin, but why would Vladimir leave the cabin? Like, where is he? I don't understand what's going on here. And so Dimitri goes up to this piece of metal and pries it off the front door, and then he swings open the front door and he looks inside, and everything is pristine. Vladimir is not inside, but the cabin looks immaculate. There's still firewood,

there's still food, there's no sign of chaos, no sign of any struggle whatsoever, like everything looks exactly like it should. And so Dimitri, he began walking around inside of this cabin looking for any clue as to what happened to Vladimir. But there was nothing until he got to the firewood. He noticed that clearly Vladimir had been labeling his firewood. There was one piece of firewood in particular where the writing was very clear and what it said was, frankincense aroma, do not burn. And so Dimitri's looking at this piece of wood, you know, that's been labeled as something that he shouldn't be burning, and he's looking at other pieces of wood that also have some level of labeling on them. And he's thinking, like, what does that mean?

I don't understand that at all. But that was it. There was no other clues about where Vladimir had gone. And even the labeling of the wood, like that didn't give him anything. And so the impression that Dimitri got after seeing this firsthand was that at some point, Vladimir, for reasons completely unknown, just decided to board up the cabin and disappear into the Alaskan wilderness with basically no protection, no clear sign he even brought food with him, he just got up and left. Friends and family, and even some authorities, believe there is a chance he could still be out there somewhere.

In fact, at one point, authorities thought they had found Vladimir in Hawaii. It turned out not to be him. And then again, they thought they found him in Oregon. It turned out not to be him as well. but the case is still open, and authorities think, at least some do, that he might be alive somewhere, but nobody knows where. And so at this point, all the family has to go off of is the final image of Vladimir, which was taken from inside of Dimitri's plane when he did that first flyover, and he saw Vladimir come out on the porch.

That is the final image of Vladimir that we know of. We don't know what happened after this image. All we know is, you know, at some point he began labeling his firewood, you know, writing down which aroma the wood makes. and then he boarded his place up and he left. But where he went next is still a mystery. A quick note about our stories. They are all based on true events. But we sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people involved

and some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes. The Mr. Ballin podcast, Strange, Dark and Mysterious Stories, is hosted and executive produced by me, Mr. Ballin. Our head of writing is Evan Allen. Our head of production is Zach Levitt, produced by Jeremy Bone, 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 Whit Cassio, Jordan Stidham, and Cole Lacasio. Mixed and mastered by Brendan Cawley. Production Coordination by Samantha Collins. Production support by Antonio Manada and Delana Corley. Artwork by Jessica Klogsden Kiner. Theme song called Something Wicked by Ross Bugden. Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin podcast.

If you enjoyed today's story and you want to hear more like it, go ahead and check out our YouTube channel, just called Mr. Ballen, where we have hundreds more stories a lot like this one, but most of them are not available on this podcast. They are only available on that YouTube channel, which again is just called Mr. Ballin. So that's going to do it. I really appreciate your support.

Until next time, see ya.