Transcript of Sometimes the Vanished Never Return | Campfire for a Cause

All right, welcome to the Campfire. Tonight is a very special episode because I have an amazing guest with me tonight. This is Liana, and, uh, we're here in, in Virginia. And Liana and I, we actually met a couple of years ago, uh, during the live tour we did in 2024. She is an avid Mr. Ballen fan.

Mhm.

And so we had this amazing chance to meet in, in DC at the live show, uh, and at the time when I met you, I knew that your dad had ALS, and that had, I think, fairly recently been diagnosed. And it was just so clear that Mr. Ballen, or The Strange, Dark and Mysterious, was really like sort of an honest-to-goodness centerpiece of your household. It seemed like a lot of people in your family really liked The Strange, Dark and Mysterious, and it was really touching for me. Also, I loved your flannel. That was really cool. We were gonna do a tour this year, and our tour got canceled. And we found out due to the cancellation that you were going to be going to the live tour.

Yeah.

Which was canceled. But through speaking to Corey, your mom, as well as Tony, we found out that, that unfortunately Liana has been diagnosed with leukemia. And I not only immediately remembered my meeting with you, but also I have children. I have 3 children. I have 2 daughters. one of which is 10, 9, and then I have a son who's 6. And I just remember so clearly when I met you in D.C., honestly, this is corny, I just— you reminded me so much immediately of my own daughter that when I found out about your leukemia diagnosis, I mean, honestly, I immediately said, like, what can we do to just put on a show for you? And fast forward to Spottersville, Spotsylvania, Virginia.

Spottersville.

Uh, you know, a few months later we made it happen, and so we're here tonight, uh, to give Liana a private show because she's awesome, her family's awesome. They're, they're struggling through some things, and I think that they should be highlighted. And they actually, they have a GoFundMe that today— actually, here's how it's going to go. The proceeds from this video are going to all be donated to your family. So just watching the video in and of itself will be a way to help with medical expenses and help their family in such a difficult time. But then also there's a link in the bio for their GoFundMe because, you know, medical expenses are not cheap. And I want everybody to, if nothing else, just try to support this family, support Liana, support her family if you can. And again, if nothing else, just watch the— watch the video, and that is in and of itself a supportive thing. So Liana, thank you so much for being here. That was a very long-winded intro. Um, and so tonight, the way it's gonna go is I have 3 stories to tell. The first 2 are new ones.

These are, these are new to the, to the public, new to you for sure. And then there's a 3rd one that we're intentionally waiting until it gets dark here. We're actually, just so you guys, I don't know if you can see from the camera shot, we're right by this, this cabin in the woods. This is like a very iconic Mr. Ballen setting, and the 3rd story is, uh, it's a, it's an OG spooky story that I think you're really gonna like. But before we get into tonight's stories, if you're a fan of the strange, dark, and mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right campfire because that's all we do, and we upload 2, 3, even 4 times every week. So, Liana, if that's of interest to you, the next time you're at a campfire, go ahead and invite the like button to come here with you, but don't tell them you've secretly embedded firecrackers in the fire, and as soon as you light them, we'll Walk away. 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.

So on March 3rd, 1954, there was this woman named Ye who lived in Hong Kong, and she and her friends were big-time mahjong players. Now, I actually don't— I had to look up what mahjong was because I've obviously heard of it, but I don't really know how it's played. It's effectively like a card game with tiles, like domino tiles, right?

Mm-hmm.

And you're sort of trying to arrange the tiles. You pick up a tile, you discard one, and you're trying to build like the best set the way you would play like with cards. This is probably atrocious for those who play mahjong, but either way, big mahjong player. And in the 1950s in Hong Kong, mahjong was like really, really popular, like to the point where you'd go into restaurants in Hong Kong and like the, the tables would have laminated to the, the table itself like a mahjong board. So people are playing mahjong everywhere. It's a big deal. And so Ye, her name Y-E, Ye.

Mm-hmm.

She, uh, she was a really good mahjong player, and she played like really competitively. And she had these 3 friends, these 3 women that she always played with. Um, and on this day, March 3rd, 1954, she's, she's at her apartment. Uh, she's in a 2nd floor apartment. It's a new apartment she just got. Her dad owned it and he rented it out, and apparently the tenant was out, so he'd just given it to his daughter to live in. So she's stoked, she's got this amazing apartment, and she's hosting like a you know, a mahjong tournament with her friends. And that night, it had gone exceptionally well for Ye.

Yeah.

She was just crushing it. And the way, the way they were playing was like, for every, I guess, hand— I'm not really sure how they describe it— but for every round you'd play, the pot just kept getting bigger and bigger. I don't really know, maybe they reinvested the money or something. But by the end of the night, it's late at night. And there's this like massive cash pool in the middle of the table for the person who wins the game. And so Ye's playing, the other, the other 3 are situated around this table. It's loud, they've been drinking, they're, they're having a good time, it's late. And it, it goes to Ye's turn and she draws a tile and she realizes like she's, she's gonna win. Like she, she knows it, like this is it, this is my big moment. And so she, she puts down the tile and then they yell out this word, it's like, hoo! It's some word they yell. It's signal, it's sort of like saying bingo, right? Like they yell it out, they win the game. And so she calls it out and her friends, they're like, so defeated. They're like, oh, you know, they kind of like push their, their tiles all over the place because they're just like, of course, Yeah Yeah won again.

And so Yeah Yeah, she's like celebrating, and her friends are sort of beginning to sort of talk amongst themselves. And Yeah Yeah is looking at this huge, huge pile of cash, and she starts like literally like grabbing the money and like pushing it all together. It's a big stack of, you know, singles or whatever. And as she's doing this, she sees a hand Like push her hand back as if someone was reaching out and grabbing the money. Sort of like, you're trying to get the money, and if I reach out and push your hand away. And her immediate reaction is, oh, my jealous friends are trying to take the money from me, trying to stop me from taking the money, right? And so she stops what she's doing. She's sort of annoyed, like, come on, this is fair and square, I won. And she looks up to see which of her friends is is taking the money, or who is pushing her hand away from getting the money. And she looks at one of her friends, and she sees her hands on her lap. And she looks at the other woman next to her, and she's doing something with her hands, but she's far enough away from the table, it's not her.

She looks at the other woman. All 3 of them, they've stepped away from the table. They're not doing it. And she looks down at the table again, and she sees there's this hand that's on the table, and it's actively now grabbing at the money, And it's sort of like this, the skin's fairly gray with long fingernails, and the arm is coming from under the table. Someone is reaching up from under the table and grabbing at the money. And this is a small table, it's a small kitchen. Picture yourself, you're with your 3 friends, you know there's nobody else there. And so immediately she's looking at the table thinking, who else is in the room that's under the table right now?

This—

who's disembodied arm is reaching up from underneath the table. And so for a second, Ye's just staring at it, knowing that she has to look under the table. She has to, right? Who's down there? Who's under the table doing this? And so she begins to look under the table, and when she does, there's no one under the table. And then when she stands back up again, there's an arm on the table, and she screams, ghost! And the other 3 women, they turn and they see the arm as well. They're like, oh my gosh! And they start throwing things at this arm, and they bolt out of the apartment. Before I continue, this story was an enormous deal in the 1950s in Hong Kong. I don't know if you follow 1950s Hong Kong lore, but this was a big deal in 1950s Hong Kong.

Really?

It made national headlines. Like, it was, it was talked about all over the place, okay? But initially, initially, when these women come running out of the apartment because of the ghost arm, grabbing at their mahjong table, and they tell the police. The police are like, really? A ghost arm was grabbing at your tiles? You know what I mean? But they bolt out of the apartment, they tell the police, they stay at the police station, they're terrified. All 4 of them have seen this arm, they're terrified. They left the money in the apartment. A police officer comes to the apartment, goes in the complex, he walks up to the 2nd floor, you know, and he's like, This is so dumb. Like, this is, this is going to be nothing more than, you know, they've clearly been partying and drinking. They're probably just seeing things. There's no way this is real. He gets to their apartment door and he sees it's partially open. It's ajar. And he's like, okay, you know, I guess what must have happened is someone broke in or something. So he goes into the apartment and, you know, there's clearly signs that from what they described, which is in a panic as they're leaving, they're flipping tables over.

He saw the mahjong tiles are on the ground. He saw some tables were upturned and whatnot. But there's, there's still money on the ground, you know, which suggests if this was a robbery, if someone broke in and, you know, tried to steal from you, wouldn't they take the money that's literally scattered around the room? So he's like, that's weird. And so the officer, after scanning the apartment, he leaves and he ends up calling his superior and he's like, hey, I, I think this is just a hoax. I don't know to what end. I don't know why they did this, because there's really nothing about this that feels like it gets them anything. It's just a— it's a weird sort of unbelievable hoax. No one's really thinking a ghost arm grabbed you, right?

Yeah.

So he goes back to the station, and his plan is to get into the station and not interrogate— that's probably too strong of a word— but was to speak to these women and be like, all right, let's, let's go through the details of what you actually saw. So he goes back to the station, And he goes into, into the interrogation room where the women had been waiting, and they're not in there. There's 4 seats inside of this room where they had been, and sitting on all 4 seats is a single mahjong tile on each of these chairs. But the women aren't there. And this is the 1950s, there wasn't robust surveillance in or outside of the station, but they looked for these women. Nobody saw them leave, no one could report where they went, and they were never found. They vanished this night. Their families, nothing. They have no idea what happened to them. And so following this incident, if you will, that apartment became quite famous because mahjong is such a big deal in Hong Kong. And now there's like this crazy mystery attached to it. And so shortly after, this became huge news around Hong Kong to the point where people were like, there was like a pilgrimage to go to this apartment from all over the country.

And people were trying to like sneak into the apartment to like see the ghost who plays mahjong, to the point where they had to put police escorts and they walled off the compound because so many people were going there. But to this day, yeah, we don't know what happened to the women and we don't know if there really was or was not an arm, but pretty creepy story nonetheless.

That was scary.

Pretty creepy. So yeah, so what's your take on that? What do you think? Do you think that a literal Disembodied ghost arm is responsible for their disappearance?

I mean, it wouldn't make sense if they saw an arm but nothing underneath.

It's an odd thing to claim, right? Because if you're gonna claim that, you better be pretty confident that's it. But all of them said it was, it was arms. And actually, one smaller detail is that as the, uh, as Vye stood back up again after looking under the table and seeing nothing there, when she stood back up again, she described the hand had gone from just grabbing the money To like moving the tiles around. So the ghost arm is now playing mahjong. I think it became like the mahjong ghost after that. So anyways, you are a captive audience. I love it.

Yeah.

You know, it's funny when, when I have done live stories, so much of how I feel and how it's going is really built on how I believe the audience is perceiving the story. So I'll give you an anecdote. When we were in actually Washington, D.C., where I met you and your family for the first time, the audience, you included, were really into it. Like, there were gasps, there were like moments where it was obvious the audience was like literally reacting to the story I was telling, which was great because on stage you're like, I'm nailing it, you know, people really get it. Conversely, we— and this is no, no shade on anybody, uh, in fact, in some ways it's a reflection of someone's manners— we went to the show, we did a show in North Carolina, and people were so polite, like freakishly polite. Like everyone we met before and after the show couldn't have been nicer, couldn't have been, couldn't have been more devoted, like from a fan fandom perspective. But this is later in the tour and I'm on stage and it was like silent in the theater. But I think it's because people were trying to be very respectful of like me on stage.

They were not trying to move around too much. And so it felt sometimes like I was talking into a vacuum. Which was really jarring. And as I'm sitting here listening or telling the story to you, uh, you, you are an excellent audience. You really are. And I can see it in like your eyes. You're like really paying close attention. So I really appreciate it so far. So in 1964, there was this family who were Stephen, Henry, and Della. Stephen and his son Henry, who's 14, and Della. Very good job. We were just rehearsing before this. She nailed it.

Thank you.

You nailed it. You're perfect. This family, they loved American history. In fact, really specifically, I would say Stephen and his son Henry were like big into American history. They were into going to like the different like battlefields from the Civil War that played out on American soil. And Della, the wife, also was interested to some degree, but more, more than anything, she enjoyed being outdoors. And so when her husband and son would want to go visit one of these various, like, battlefields or whatever, she often just treated it as a chance to, to just go be outdoors, go for a walk or whatever. So in April of 1964, Stephen and Henry make the decision that they want to go to the the site of the Battle of Little Bighorn. There was a very meaningful battle in the late 1800s called the Battle of Little Bighorn, and they wanted to go check it out. And so they made the decision to go, and Della agrees, and so off they go. And it's in Montana. And this is not only good scene setting, but it's also important to the story. The site of the battle where so many people were killed, so many people were killed, but it's— If you're there, there's a monument called the Little Bighorn Monument that is, I mean, I hate to say it, but it's remarkably unremarkable.

It's just like this monolith, this big rock monolith, and just open fields. And have you ever been to Montana by any chance? No, have you not been to Montana?

I haven't.

Okay, so Montana is like, the setting in Montana is just beautiful, like rugged, beautiful, beautiful. This part of Montana, where Little Bighorn was fought, is basically like this huge open field. It's, it's not, it's not ugly, but it's, it's just plain. It's like you'd be staring out in all directions, and it's just like rolling hills, but it's not really any trees. It's just like grass, not really any mountains. Just imagine a vast plain in all directions with this singular monolith right in the middle. So as a history buff, you know, it's an interesting place to go, but even for Della, when they got there, they're sort of like, huh, there's not a whole lot to do here. You know, there's not like forest or anything nearby. But when they get there, you know, Stephen and, and Henry, they're like, you know, they had done their research about the battle before. They're sort of looking out in the cardinal directions, imagining, you know, where various battles were fought because they knew the history, right? And then for them, this is fascinating. And there were like some other tourists that were sort of walking around But again, there's really not much going on there.

And so they're just kind of standing near the monolith, and at some point Henry, the 14-year-old who's really into this, he just starts wandering off on his own. Now again, this is a big open field. It is. And he's 14, right? Like, you know, he can wander off and look around. It is what it is. But there wasn't much to go see. And he's— he starts walking off, you know, along the rolling hills. And the husband and wife, his parents, they just stay up On the hill where the monument is. And they're watching him, or I should say specifically Stephen, his dad, is watching him. And he's not worried, he's just watching his son walk off. And at some point, there's like— the clouds rolled in. It was a very sunny day. Clouds roll in, and the way the clouds sort of went across the sun for a second created this odd, almost like optical illusion. Well, it was just a beam of light sort of cut through the sky.

Mm-hmm.

And it was spotlighting the top of the hill that was sort of in the direction that Henry was going. It was just like this weird act of nature, right? Like he's walking along, the clouds roll in, it's getting dark, and one sort of like beam of light is, is almost like, like a spotlight. Imagine a play, you got a spotlight on a play, like these spotlights right on the top of this hill right in front of him. And so Stephen, the dad, is watching, you know, he's not thinking, wow, a spotlight Spotlight of light on the hill. It's just— he's aware of it, right? Henry walks in Stephen's purview into this light, like into the light that's been cast on the hill. And for a second, Stephen's watching him and the light's really bright. It's like a really bright ray of light. And then after a moment, Stephen realizes after his son has walked into this light that Stephen's gone. He can't see his son anymore. There's no one there, and it's rolling hills. So like, as you look out across this vast landscape, it is— there's, there's areas where if you went down into like sort of the ravine between 2 rolling hills, I might not be able to see you.

And so Stephen, he turns to Della and he's like, hey, where did, where did Henry go? And they're both looking out, and there are really no other tourists here. This is not like a highly populated place. And they're looking there. That's so weird. And they're waiting for their son to emerge on the backside of this hill because he— where else could he have gone, right? But after like several minutes, he doesn't, and he hasn't appeared anywhere. There's been no, you know, audible sign of distress of any kind. And Steven, the dad, he starts to feel like really worried, like a deep gut feeling that something is wrong, and they don't know what to do. And his wife just starts to sort of panic. starts screaming like, Henry, come back! Like, come back, Henry!

Hmm.

And as Stephen is waiting, hoping for his son to like hear his mother and come running, he doesn't. And so Stephen, he starts to panic. And so from Della's perspective, she watches as her husband now, he starts running in the direction of still this ray of light. The clouds have not moved. It's like this bizarre ray of light that's cast down on the field. And so Della, is like sort of hysterical. She's screaming now for, for her husband to wait, or like, no, go find him. She's screaming for her son, and off goes Steve, you know, a couple hundred yards away. And she watches as Stephen, her husband, runs seemingly into this light, and then he vanishes. Not like, oh, he went into the light, but no, he runs into the light, and then she can't see him anymore. And this time, because she's just watched her son effectively vanish into the She doesn't wait. She just, she starts running down the hill towards, you know, this ray of light that's being cast on the hill. She's screaming for her husband now. She's screaming for Henry. No one's emerging. It's the other tourists that are there, they're sort of looking over like, what's going on?

And so Della, she runs over to this hill. She doesn't go in the light. She sort of circumvents the whole hill because she's thinking they've got to be on the other side. There is nowhere else for them to be. She goes around and there's no one there. There's no one there. There is no one here. There's nowhere for them to go, but they're gone. And so Della is like out of her mind. She's, she's screaming. She doesn't even know what to ask for. Other tourists are coming over, the handful that were there. They're like, do we call the police? They're like running around like looking for the, the father and son. No one's there. Eventually they do call the police. And around the time that the police were about to arrive, Della is crumpled on the ground at the foot of the hill where her husband and son have vanished. And the other tourists are sort of with her trying to console her because they don't really understand what's happened. And as they're like talking it through, waiting for the police to show up, suddenly from behind them, from the top of the hill, who comes strolling down the hill but Steven and Henry.

Oh my gosh.

And Della, she sees her husband and her son, and it's like this unbelievable relief. She didn't even know what could have happened to them, right? Like, she's not thinking something bad has happened. She's just like, I don't get it. Where could you have gone? And so she's so relieved. She runs up, she grabs her husband, she's sobbing, she's so happy. She's trying to ask them like, where did you go? Where were you? And the look on their face, they just, they can't even begin to articulate it. They're like, Almost like they're shell-shocked. Something's happened to them, and it's immediately apparent something bad has happened to them, but they can't put it to words yet. They're like in shock, and they're like staggering down the mountain, or the hill. And so in this reunion, this reunion is happening, the police show up basically simultaneously. And so the police, they come over and they see this sort of like, you know, emotional scene unfolding, and they quickly identify who who must be, you know, the missing 2 guys based on their appearance. And they're like trying to figure out like, what's going on here? Like, we already come out here, we gotta take a statement, we gotta figure out what happened.

Like, we do need to know, Steven and Henry, where you went. Clearly something happened.

Yes.

And so after, you know, sort of a few minutes of assessing the scene, the father was pulled aside by one of the police officers to give his statement. This is the statement he gave, which I'll tell you has been verified by the FBI. The FBI looked into this case following this statement, and due to what I'm going to tell you they found, they don't have a good way to debunk this. Okay? The father, Steven, is up at the monolith, and he's watched his son vanish into the light. He waits. He starts running after him. He's not thinking anything about this light. The light means nothing to him. He just thinks, my son's somewhere over here. He runs, he steps into the light, and the second he does, he doesn't feel any physical change at all. Nothing in his life changed. He just stepped into it. You've stepped into sunlight before.

Mm-hmm.

Not really that remarkable, right? You just stepped into light. But suddenly it's like his son appeared in front of him. He, he's still on the field, the Little Bighorn field here. His son is standing like 10 feet away from him, sort of down the hill, and his back is to his dad. And he's looking at his son, and then he realizes there's all these dead bodies all over the field. Everywhere he can look, there are dead bodies everywhere. And his son is standing there just sort of looking out with his back to his father. And Stephen, he's not at a point of, what's happening here? Let's assess the situation and figure out what in the world's going on.

No.

He's in full panic mode, like fight or flight, gotta survive. And he just runs down the hill and he grabs his son, He turns them around, and his son Henry is just beyond horrified, pale-faced.

Jesus.

And he's like, Dad, Dad! And they start running just instinctively, like just pure survival. They start running back up the hill to get out of what amounts to like the modern-day, you know, version of the Little Bighorn battlefield. It's like they're looking at the actual battlefield, and they're running, they're falling over bodies, they're like landing in people's like dead bodies and stuff. And then they make their way to the top of the hill, And they like fall out of the light, if you will, and they're back. You know, it took several minutes. They sort of struggled their way out and they're back. You know, there's Della down the hill. Here's all these people. And they stand up and they walk down to Della. And that's the reunion I told you about. So Stephen tells that story to the police, which, as you and I are sitting here, pretty hard to believe that story. You stepped into a portal. portal and you saw the field where the bodies were from the Battle of Little Bighorn a couple hundred years ago? That's what you did? Pretty hard to believe, right?

Mm-hmm.

A detail I didn't share with you is that when they returned, they were soaked in blood head to toe. Head to toe in blood. So when they— when Della looks up and sees her son and father, her son and husband, they were covered in blood. They would later test that blood and it was not their blood. Pretty crazy, huh? So there you go. If you got a little bighorn, be careful of portals that'll send you back in time. Something to be aware of, you know? What do you think about that story, dude?

Uh, it's hard to believe, but—

Agree.

I mean, of all the scary stories you told everyone, I mean, it's also unbelievable.

It's somewhat believable.

Yeah.

Yeah, there are some stories that we'll come across that on their face, they're just difficult to believe. But, I think some of the more powerful stories are the ones where you're sort of relying on an individual's perspective. Whether or not it's true sort of is a secondary thing, it's more like, here's what Steven had to say. And, by the way, his son had the same story. It was the same rendition of events. That Henry's like, I stepped into this portal, if you will. My dad showed up, we fell in the bodies, came out covered in blood, right? But it's their perspective. It allows the defining moment of the story to be really powerful, which is why we love telling stories where we are not relying on truth as much as this is what they said happened. I think it's a cool way to tell a story. All right, y'all set over there, Raylan?

Yeah.

You're looking perfect. All you guys look great. So I— we decided we'd bring the whole gang over for this last story. Uh, so here we go. We have obviously Liana, we have Ellie Grace. Raise your hand, Ellie Grace.

There we go.

We got Desmond, that's your brother right there. We got Raylan and we got Gwen in front. We got the— look at the whole gang here. This is Liana's Gang cousins and siblings. And for the final story, which I think is gonna be like the spookiest of the 3— you should probably put on that flannel, it'll protect you.

Yeah.

That's why I got this one on, dude. Uh, I thought it'd be fitting we all tell the story together, right? Or near each other. I got 3 kids at home, I know the vibe, okay? I tell my daughters and my son scary stories, and they— this is a setting that feels natural. Okay, you guys are gonna like this story. All right, this one, uh, it's called Tap Tap Tap.

I know this one.

I doubt it because I just named it on the spot, but you might, you might have heard it though. Honestly, Raelynn, you are on top of some stuff. You listed some Mr. Ballen lore. It was impressive.

You—

was it you or Gwen who referenced the Yellow Room? You're doing that, you're doing the hand talking, which I feel I could have partially inspired.

It was me.

It was you?

Yeah.

Okay, these are also Liana's sisters right here. Legends. In 2010, there was a 17-year-old boy named Matt who his family had this cabin up in, up in the mountains of Oregon. Oregon's like a very mountainous, lots of trees, lots of wildlife up there. You've been to Oregon, anybody? I haven't. Okay, picture forests and mountains and stuff, right? Right? And so his family, they don't live up in the mountains. They just have this cabin up in the mountains in Oregon. It's called the Mountain Bachelor in Oregon. Are you familiar with this one? Okay, good.

It's too scary.

It's too scary. Good. That's a good start. His family's getting ready to sell this cabin. But his whole life growing up, Matt would oftentimes go— a lot of times with his dad, he would go to this cabin and they go fishing and Hunting, and they just enjoy being out in nature, right? Just like we're right near a cabin out in the wild. Yeah, I don't know if this is comforting or not, but it's a lot like the setting of this story.

It's not comforting.

So Matt decides he's gonna go and he's gonna do one more stay in this cabin before they sell this cabin. And so he tells his folks, okay, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna just go up there with the dog. He has a dog, his name is Midnight, family dog. I'm gonna go up there just for a couple of days. I'm just gonna enjoy myself, and then I'll come back and we can sell this place. It is what it is. So off he goes. He takes his dad's old truck and he heads up with, you know, he's got in the back, he packs some snacks, he got his— bringing his PlayStation along. He's just gonna go hang out in this cabin and just enjoy himself for a few days. So he gets to the cabin, and this is like pretty remote, okay? This is tucked away Deep in the pine forest, like at the foot of this mountain, very isolated. He does have neighbors though, but his neighbors are about a mile in either direction, so they're not particularly close. But he sort of knows them, like he would recognize them, but he's not close with his neighbors.

But he has neighbors, right?

Mm-hmm.

So he gets to the cabin, and, you know, there's supposed to be a snowstorm while he's out here. He knows there's going to be a snowstorm. It's going to be in the next couple of days, but he's He's bracing for being here for a couple of days, right? So he got all his supplies inside, he got all his snacks, all his Oreos. Like, you were crushing Oreos earlier. He brought a lot of Oreos in there, juice boxes, and he just kind of begins to have a nice time, right? He's there, he's— this is exactly what he wanted to do. He's playing video games, he's by himself. Like, he likes being alone, you know? When he went in, when he arrived, he didn't see his neighbors, and he actually passed by one of his neighbors, their driveway, On the way to turning into his, and he did look down and he didn't think they were home. He didn't know if they were home, but his mental image is that he's probably alone. A little off-season, there's probably nobody out here, but that's good. He wants that. You know, the snowstorm's coming. It's a little risky being up in the mountains in the middle of a big storm, so he's thinking, I'm probably alone.

So he and Midnight have this great first day. The weather's great. He stays up super late. He's eating steak. He's eating snacks, he's playing video games, it's awesome. The next day comes around, another awesome day. He's got no plans, he's just gonna hang out at the cabin. He's just gonna hang out, eat snacks, and play video games, and periodically go walking around with Midnight, and that's what he does. In fact, the first 2 full days that he's there are awesome. This is like exactly the retreat that he was hoping for. On the 3rd day, it snows. A lot, like 2 feet of snow. This is like, he wakes up on the 3rd day and it's just a ton of snow on the ground. He knew there was going to be a storm, so he's not really caught off guard by it. He also knew he was likely going to be here for a few more days, and so this wasn't really a huge inconvenience. It was just sort of like, okay, now I'm basically snowed in. It's going to be hard to drive out of here. No snowplows coming up my driveway. No, no one's coming up here.

I gotta wait. I gotta wait and plow it out myself. Probably, right? So he's like, well, luckily I got tons of snacks. I'll just stay indoors for another couple of days and enjoy myself in the cabin. So he and Midnight, they're just doing their thing, and at some point in the middle of this 3rd day, Midnight starts acting really weird. Midnight runs to the door, and the door— like, there's quite a few windows in this cabin, like sort Sort of, he would describe it as like almost more windows than you sort of needed in a cabin.

Mm-hmm.

And when you're out in the middle of the woods in the middle of the night, I gotta be honest, that's a little unsettling. I'd want more wood, less windows for me. But it's broad daylight and Midnight has run to the door and he thinks, oh, she must need to go pee. So he goes over and he says, all right, Midnight, like, all right, chill out. Like, we'll go out, we'll let you pee. And remember, there's a lot of snow on the ground, so he has to like get his stuff on. He's like, all right. But he finally opens the door, and Midnight was a really well-trained dog. Midnight, every time he let Midnight out to that point, and just in general, she'd go out, she'd do her business, and then she'd come back in. Or if they went and walked around, she was just a well-trained dog. So like, he expects the second this door is open, even with snow on the ground, Midnight's just gonna sort of jump into the snow, she's gonna do her business, and that'll be it. Like, I don't expect more than that.

Mm-hmm.

He opens the door, and Midnight Leaps out the front door and starts sort of running through the snow, not showing any sign that she's going to stop to go to the bathroom. She's, she's off for some reason. She's, she's seen something. She senses something. Now, for reference, when you are in his cabin, if you're looking from the front of the cabin on the second floor or the first floor, there are these big windows and it overlooks sort of like a front clearing. Like, it's not a courtyard. It's mostly trees everywhere around his cabin, but there's sort of like a, a cleared area where you can park your cars in the front of the cabin, sort of like the size of the clearing we're in right here. And there was a big tree that had one big branch. They called it the sitting tree that sort of hung over this courtyard. It was like 20 feet up. No one really actually sit on this branch, but it almost looked like a perfect branch for sitting that sort of hung out over this this courtyard. It was sort of set back down the driveway a little bit.

So right when you, you come into the courtyard, you pass underneath the sitting tree branch. Basically, where we are sitting right now relative to the front of the cabin, that's sort of where the branch would be slung, about 20 feet above us right now. And so he opens his door from the cabin and Midnight's running towards the base of that tree. And that's the first thing he notices. She isn't showing signs that she needs to go to the bathroom. She is showing signs that she's seen something out near that tree or in the woods. And he starts yelling to her to stop because he, he put his stuff on, but he doesn't really have like snow pants on. It's like feet of snow out there. And he's yelling at Midnight to stop. She does. She's a well-trained dog. She doesn't make it all the way to the tree. She stops. But then he's looking around and he realizes something. There are footprints in the snow out in front of his cabin. Oh my gosh. Not from Midnight and not from him. He hasn't been out in the snow. There are human footprints that are leading what appear to be from around where that tree is, that sitting tree, up to the cabin, up to his door.

He's now looking and realizing he hasn't stepped out yet. He sees dog prints. He doesn't see— he didn't step out here. There are human prints that went up to his door and then walked around the side of his cabin And up into the mountains where no one lives. There's no people up there, and they disappear. They don't come back. And so now, between seeing his dog run off— and his dog's well trained, remember. The dog's seen something, and it's running toward the tree, and these footprints appear to be coming basically from where that tree is. And so Matt, he's feeling a little on edge, as any of you would, and I would too. I would be very much on edge. 'Cause you're out there by yourself, and you thought when you showed up there wasn't anybody out here. Not a big hiking area either, and there's been a storm. So there's a lot of reasons that nobody should be out there. But he tells himself, as by this point Midnight has trotted back, she has done her business, she's come in the house, she's safe. He shuts the cabin door and he makes sure it's locked, you know?

But he's telling himself, it's just gotta be a lost hiker. or a neighbor who made those prints. There's no other explanation for it. So he's, he's nervous, but he accepts that something weird has happened, but it's got to be okay, right? Because nothing weird could have happened out here.

Yeah.

The rest of the day they hang out in the cabin, and Midnight did go out a couple more times, but she never took off toward the tree like she did before. Eventually it gets dark. And he's going to be here at least for 2, maybe 3 more days. At least that's the way the weather looks. He's not going to be able to leave. So he's trying really hard as he's getting to this first cycle of darkness since seeing the steps. He's trying to tell himself everything's okay, you know, everything's okay. But somewhere deep down he's thinking it's not. This is weird. So when it gets dark, he lets Midnight out for her last business. You know, she does her business one more time, brings her into the cabin, and he shuts and locks the door, and then he goes all around the cabin to make sure all— well, there's really only 2 doors. There's the front door, and then if you go to the upstairs portion of the cabin, there's his bed. There's one bedroom upstairs. It's a small cabin, and there's a balcony that sort of juts out from the upstairs bedroom. So if you were in the upstairs bedroom, you could slide a door, step onto a little porch that overlooks that clearing.

You'd see the sitting tree. So he walks around and he locks that upstairs sliding door. He locks the downstairs door. He checks all the windows because there's a bunch of windows on this cabin, and he's out here alone, and he's just seen these prints. He's feeling weird. He locks— he checks every, every window. Gotta make sure it's locked. Everything's fine, but gotta make sure it's locked. So he locks the whole cabin up, and now he's like, okay, I'm good out here. Like, I'm safe. So he gets upstairs, he gets into his bed. That's where he's sleeping. And midnight sleeps in the bed with him. He gets in his bed and it's very quiet. You know, he doesn't have a fan going, there's no noise machine in his room. It's like quiet, very quiet. And he's listening for like any cue of something weird outside, right? As he's laying there, Midnight starts acting really weird. Midnight can't settle down. She, she's anxious. She normally would fall asleep real quick. She can't settle down. And he's like, Midnight, Calm down, calm down. But she keeps having this like low growl, like she's sensing something's wrong. It's the middle of the night, it's dark, he's drawn all the curtains so it's dark.

And as he's laying in the bed, he hears footsteps on the roof, which is right above his head. Specifically, he hears 6 footsteps. He didn't hear anybody land on the roof, he didn't hear anybody climb up the roof, He just started hearing distinct footsteps on the roof. 6 steps across the roof. Midnight is frozen in bed, like she's scared. And then as soon as the 6th step stopped, Midnight just starts barking. She runs down the stairs. She wants to go outside. That's all she wants to do. And like now, Frankly, Matt doesn't know what to do. He runs down after Midnight and he's like, oh my goodness, stop! But she won't stop. And he's thinking, there is someone out here. Someone's messing with me. I don't know how they got on my roof. I would have heard them. I don't know how this is happening, but I need to establish that I'm not going to get scared out here. I'm going to let my dog out to scare them away. That's what he's thinking. He finally gets his stuff on. He hasn't heard anything besides that 6th step. It's quiet now. He opens up the door and Midnight bolts out into the dark.

And he doesn't see anything out there. Midnight's running off and he immediately thinks, this is a bad idea. I wish I hadn't have done this. It's dark. What if she runs off deep into the woods? I'm gonna have to chase her, right? But he does. He takes off after her. He's yelling for her to come back. She gets all the way to the base of the sitting tree and she's looking up into the sitting tree. He's not even looking up. He's just grabbing his dog and he starts dragging Midnight back into the house. He drags her back inside of the cabin. He finally gets her in there. All she wants to do is go back out again. He shuts the door, he locks it, and he's like, okay, I'm not going to try to be tough anymore. I'm just scared. Okay. He goes up to the bedroom. He's holding the dog down. The dog will not rest. The dog is not calm. And he's like, okay, I'm just going to wait it out. I'm going to leave tomorrow. I don't know what's wrong with this place, but I'm leaving tomorrow. I'm just gonna be tough.

I'm gonna sit here. I'm gonna hold my dog. I'm not going outside. I'm gonna wait it out. Remember, all the doors and windows are locked. All the blinds are drawn. He has no idea what's going on. As he's sitting there on his bed, he starts to hear tapping on his front door downstairs. He's by himself in the middle of the woods. He's hearing tapping on his front door in the middle of the woods, and it's not loud. But it's enough that he knows someone's out there trying to get his attention. He holds on to the dog. The dog wants to go downstairs. The dog wants to protect. He's holding Midnight back. The tapping stops. The tapping starts again, but now it's upstairs. It's on the side of his house. It's the window leading into the one bathroom on the second floor. There actually isn't a place to stand at the second floor to be tapping at that window. The only way would be maybe on the roof, It's impossible to be up there. Now there's tapping coming from the other side of the house. And then the worst part comes when he's, he's laying in his bed.

Remember there's that balcony right in front of where he's sleeping? There's a porch, a sliding glass door that leads out to it. All he has is curtains that are separating him from the glass leading out there. He hears tapping on the glass right on the outside of his balcony. And then he hears the shifting of weight. Wait on the outside porch. Someone, something is out there on that porch. And then it stops. A few minutes goes by and he knows that like someone's out there. Someone's haunting me at this point. And so he takes Midnight and he's like, we have to be brave. We have to, we have to go open up the blinds and look what's out on the porch. Something's out there right now. And so he brings Midnight Over to the curtains that are drawn in front of the sliding glass doors. He swings them open and there's nobody out there. He's got a flashlight. He puts his flashlight through the glass. He's looking at this very small porch expecting to, you know, see something. Nothing. But there's footsteps all over the place. And he's like, what's going on? Are they on the roof?

Like, I have to do something. I'm alone out here. And so with Midnight, who's freaked out, he's holding Midnight here. He's flashlight in the other hand. He slides the glass door open and he steps out onto this porch. And the first thing he does is he turns around and he looks up onto the roof because he had heard steps on the roof, right?

Mm-hmm.

Nothing on the roof, but he sees footsteps all over the roof, everywhere. Scanning the roof, he comes back down. He's shining straight down onto the ground looking at the footsteps down here, and then he knows he needs to look out and He needs to look and see what else is out there. Something's out here. So he takes his flashlight with, you know, Midnight by his side, and he looks out to the left. He's looking out of this balcony here, the front of his property. He looks out to the left. It's pitch black besides his light. And he starts scanning. He doesn't see anything, just trees. Trees and darkness. He gets to the courtyard. Nothing's in the courtyard. Lots of footsteps everywhere. He gets to the base of the sitting tree and Midnight starts to growl. And he slowly raises the light and he illuminates the branch of the sitting tree. And there is a man who is unnaturally tall with his hands over his head and his mouth open as wide as he can make it. And he's staring directly at Matt and his dog. And it scares Matt so badly that he fumbles the flashlight.

He grabs it again.

Oh my God.

And the man's gone. He looks all around, he's completely gone. In a panic, Matt grabs Midnight and he jumps back inside the room. He slides the glass door shut, he locks it, he shuts the curtains, he jumps in bed. Now he's just gonna wait this one out. He knows someone's out here. I don't know what that is. Seconds later, what does he start hearing? Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. All night he sat there Until right before the sun came up, the tapping stopped. And then when the sun fully came up, he packed up his stuff, and as he left the cabin, there was a racetrack, if you will, of footsteps that had— there had been so many steps around his cabin that had been worn down to the grass. This is 2 feet of snow. Something, while simultaneously making a tapping sound on the glass 10 feet away from him, was walking inside circles around his cabin the entire night. No one has any idea what it was. They sold the cabin and he's not been back. The end.

That was so— that was so scary. I do know that one. I'm crying right now.

Pretty good?

So scary. I feel like I heard whispering.

Yeah, probably is that tall guy, dude.

Don't talk, you guys, please. I was crying, just be brave, be brave.

No, you guys did great.

I was flustered at the tapping part. I was actually squeezing onto Ellie.

Yeah?

We were like this.

Ellie Grace. Ellie Grace the elephant.

We were so scared. I was, um, honestly it scared me a lot because like, like, like the guy was like doing this.

Pretty nuts.

And the fact that there was actually like footprints.

Crazy, right? You want a bonus story that's actually uplifting real quick?

Yes, please.

It's one that my team's heard about 1,000 times, and you very likely have heard it. But I would say this is the one that I think is— it starts sad. It doesn't end sad.

Wait, do I know this one?

Yeah, probably.

Is it scary?

It's pretty good.

Is it scary?

It ends amazingly. How about that?

Does it end happy?

Yes. So here we go. You ready to hear it? This one's pretty good. I told, I told this one at a show in Texas and people cheered, but not because of my storytelling, but because the ending was so satisfying. It was like, phew! It's really good.

Okay. All right.

So in the '90s, there was this woman named Ellie Lobel. She goes out for a run because she's very athletic, goes out for a run. And she lives in Connecticut, right? And so she goes out for a run on this like nature trail that she— any— anyone familiar with this? You would know it by now.

No. I have never in my life seen it.

Wait, don't say it if you know it.

Maybe keep going.

Okay, I'll keep going.

I'll probably remember it.

You probably will. I feel like, I feel like you are a connoisseur of the strange, dark, and mysterious, but you've done a great job keeping it tight-lipped.

I shall.

Yeah. We'll see. Here we go. We'll tell it and you can tell me at the end if you knew this one. You can tell me when you figured it out.

I think I actually—

So she goes for a run and then when she gets back, she changes up, she gets ready for work, she goes out. She's again this high-powered lawyer. It's a big important job. But over the course of the day, she starts feeling kind of sick. Not really bad, not like she's got a fever, but like just a little sick, like a little under the weather. And she normally feels great all the time, and so this is really noticeable. So she registers that, I'm not feeling too good, but she goes about her day, she does her work, she comes home and she tells her husband. And she's got 2 kids who are teenagers. She's like, yeah, I don't feel that good, I don't feel that good. And the husband's like, well, you know what, tomorrow if you're not feeling good, you should, you should just stay home. Like, take a sick day. You never take sick days, right? She's like, well, we'll see. Next day comes around, she feels even It gets worse, but it's still sort of subtle. It's not— she's not vomiting, she doesn't have a fever. It's like, I feel lethargic and sick, I feel tired.

So she takes a sick day. She's thinking this is just a cold or something minor, it'll go away. But it doesn't. And over the course of the week, she just doesn't get any better. It's like she just keeps feeling just sort of a little bit under the weather, and it never goes away. By the end of the week, when she's missed a week of work now, and she really never missed work, she goes to a doctor. She talks to a doctor and she's like, I don't know what it is. Like, I just feel under the weather. And they're like, oh, Ellie, you know, you just, you work too hard. You need to take more time off, right? That's all it is. The classic explanation that happens in every movie. Everyone writes it off, right? And she's like, okay. So she takes more time off, but she doesn't get better. And so she starts seeing more doctors and more doctors sort of have like this roundabout answer. It's like, well, you know, you're Your levels in your blood are this, or like, oh, you know, you probably just have this sickness that's going on. It's all these sort of roundabout answers, but no one's prepared to really like dig in and say, wait a minute, is there something actually seriously wrong here?

And so months go by, Ellie just doesn't get better. She ends up taking time off from work that's an extended time off from work, and her boss doesn't believe her that she's actually sick. They think it's a term called malaise. Malingering, where somebody basically thinks you're lying about being sick. Like, oh, I can't go to school today because I'm sick. I'd be like, malingering? She gets accused of malingering and she gets fired. She gets fired from her job. And worse than that, as she's dealing with a very real sickness, her own family sort of is like, honey, I don't know, maybe this is in your head. Maybe you're not really sick. She ends up getting divorced. So this again starts sad, don't worry. Bear with me. She gets divorced because her and her husband, they start fighting over basically, is it real or not that you have some mystery illness? They get divorced. She gets fired. Her kids sort of turn their back on her. They sort of were like, I don't know. I sort of don't know if this is real or not. They didn't say, I don't believe you, but it's like, I don't know, Mom.

Like, this is sort of—

this is sort of—

I don't know. I mean, you got fired over this. A lot of people are saying it's not true, right? Ellie's life from that point just went downhill for like 2 decades, like 20 years almost. She never got better. It got like progressively worse, but only a little bit worse, but always worse for like decades. She went to specialist after specialist after specialist, and nobody could give her an answer. By this point, they also know you clearly have something serious, and we don't know what it is. is, but no one could help her. Eventually though, she starts showing signs that whatever's going on with her is getting really serious, and she convinces herself that she's gonna die. Like, you know what, no one can cure me. I feel like I'm just shutting down. This is it for me. And so instead of going to a doctor at this point— this is 20 years into this madness. She's lost her husband, her kids have turned on her, she's been fired. Her life is really gone poorly at this point. She's sort of over it, to be honest. She's like, you know what I'm going to do? I'm not going to seek care anymore.

No one can help me. I'm going to go move to this house in Southern California. She loves Southern California. I'm going to move to this house. I'm not going to tell anyone. And I'm just going to let myself pass away. And I'm going to die in this house. That's it. That's what I'm going to do. And she's convinced herself that she's near the end anyways, so she's just going to enjoy her last few moments. And so she hires this person known as an end-of-life care coordinator who's like with you when you die. And she goes to this house and she literally gets into her bed and tells this person that she's just hired, okay, I'm just gonna like lay here and wait and to die. But 3 days goes by and she doesn't die. She feels horrible, but she's very frail, but she doesn't die. And so she's like, okay, I'm actually going to go for a walk. I'm going to take a little break and I'm going to come back and I'll go back to lying and we'll figure it out. So, she and her end-of-life care coordinator, they leave the house and they go for a walk.

And it's a beautiful day, like sunny beautiful day. And they end up walking past this field of flowers. This beautiful field of flowers behind— it's right along the sidewalk, this wooden fence. Just imagine the most picturesque field of just the most beautiful flowers. And Ellie is so struck by how beautiful it is that for a moment it was like, wow, you know what, life isn't so bad. Like, this is so beautiful. And she really— she just— she told her person she was with, like, you go over there, I'm just gonna sit here and just take in this amazing view, smell the flowers, enjoy this, enjoy this. This is one of my final moments, right? And so she's looking at this field, she's taking it all in, and she starts to hear a buzzing sound over her head. And I mean, you're near a field of flowers, there's bound to be insects. So this was not a particularly big deal. But she hears a buzzing sound. She looks up and she sees a bee. It's a huge bee. It was an African killer bee. It's a huge bee.

Wow.

But again, she's like, I'm near a field of flowers. This is where bees are. Not a big deal. So she's back to looking at the field. But a second later, the buzzing gets a lot louder. Like really loud. She looks up now, and now there is an entire swarm of African killer bees that are right over her head. And these are like vicious stinging insects that will attack you and keep attacking you. These are— they're called killer bees for a reason. And for whatever reason, Ellie Lobel became their target. And as she's looking up, this swarm of bees descended on her face and began Stinging her hundreds of times, over and over and over, and she collapses to the ground. She's very frail to begin with. She's getting stung repeatedly. Her care person runs away, you know, leaves her there. She can't even go anywhere. She's getting stung over and over. It's like, this is the worst thing that can happen to you. But eventually the care person's like, ah, I should probably go help her. He runs back and he picks her up and he's running with her now in his arms to bring her back to the Airbnb or whatever, or the rented house they were in.

And she's telling him, don't bring me to the hospital. Like, the bees are off of her now, but she's all already swelling up from all the stings. And she's like, don't bring me to the hospital. Like, this will help me die. Like, let me just be put in my bed. And so they, they run Ellie back to the, the house and they put her in her bed and she's in so much pain and she just like lays there and she's like, leave me be. Like, let the anaphylactic shock take over. But she doesn't get worse. She doesn't— the pain she's feeling is really bad, but like over the coming 3 days, it was almost like things got better for Ellie. Like all those chronic pains that she had for 20 years began to fade.

Wow.

Like she had joint stiffness that was like so intense, and by day 3 post- stings. She's got a lot of pain from the stings, but she's like, wow, I can like move my arms again. I can move my legs again. I can sit up on my own power again. But she wasn't someone who like automatically thought, oh great, I'm better now. It's like, what's going on here? This doesn't make any sense. I just got stung by a pack of bees. Why do I feel better? It would turn out there was a group of scientists in Australia Australia who were studying a disease called Lyme disease, which is something you get if you're bit by a tick that's carrying this disease.

Yes.

And they were trying to determine if potentially certain bee venom could cure Lyme disease in its end stage. But the problem with, with this particular theory is it was unethical to conduct a study. They couldn't round up Lyme disease patients who were in their end stage and say, hey, do you mind if we sting you 1,000 times with these bees. Probably won't do anything, but we need to see if it might help you. It was denied. So they had all this paperwork that they had done, all these— the thesis they had come up with that we think certain bee venom, including African killer bee venom, could cure Lyme disease. Ellie Lobel, on the day she went out running, got bit by a tick and nobody noticed. She caught Lyme disease. She was dying of Lyme disease. She got stung by the correct bees according to the theory, and it cured her completely. And now, because of that, that instance, bee stings have become literally a way to treat Lyme disease. And Ellie Lobel tours the country literally advocating for Lyme disease patients to go get stung by bees because it'll cure your condition. So she's all better now.

Just took getting stung by bees.

Is she still alive?

Yeah.

Wow.

She just goes and gets stung by bees. Yeah, you ever thought about that as a profession?

No. Yeah, I'm gonna go get stung by some bees. Okay, bye, fam. I'm just gonna go get stung by a few bees to feel better.

That's crazy. All right, so look, obviously Gwen and Liana and Raylan and Desmond and Ellie Grace, they're incredible, and it's been so much fun to be here to get to share this time with you. And of course you, Liana. As I said before, please, obviously just watching this video, all the proceeds are going to go to helping fund your medical bills. But also they have a GoFundMe. I will make a donation. Our studio is making donations to this video. Let's do the little things we can to help this family. You guys deserve it. Great to have you. Thank you guys. That's all. Let's do one of these. Want to do one of these to sign off? You ever see me do those? Even though I do it at the beginning, we'll do it at the end.

All right.

Thank you very much and good night.

Good night.

Good night.

Good night.