Transcript of Stranger Than Fiction Vol. XV

Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction, and today's podcast features 4 stories that demonstrate that. The audio from all 4 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 "A Miracle," and it's about a woman in rural Mexico who feels this sudden and excruciating pain in her abdomen. The second story you'll hear is called "The Simulation," and it's about a man who enters a flight simulator for routine training, but you won't believe what happens next.

The third story you'll hear is called "Déjà Vu." After a doctor's office calls a patient for an upcoming surgery, a series of events unfolds that is truly bizarre. And the fourth and final story you'll hear today is called "The Silk Hat," and it's about a woman who answers her front door in the middle of the night and sees someone wearing a black silk hat. But before we get into today's stories, if you're a fan of the strange, dark, and mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast, because that's all we do, and we upload 4 times a week: Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. So if that's of interest to you, please offer to make the Follow Button a really nice, big, authentic Italian meal. But don't tell them every time the recipes call for olive oil, you used motor oil instead.

Okay, let's get into our first story called A Miracle.

On the afternoon of March 4th, 2000, A 40-year-old woman named Enis Ramirez stood in the kitchen of her tiny one-room home, which was deep in the mountains of Oaxaca, Mexico. Enis had a whole chicken on the counter right in front of her that she had just killed and plucked, and now she was using a 6-inch-long knife to butcher it for their dinner. And as she did this, every once in a while, she would look out the window to check on her 7 kids who were playing together out in the yard. So Enis and her large family lived in a very isolated rural community of about maybe 500 people. They didn't have running water or electricity or a phone, and they lived miles away from their closest neighbors.

They mainly lived off of corn and vegetables that they grew themselves, chickens they raised, and then wild animals that Ennis's husband would catch. Her husband was actually gone that day because he was out in the mountains hunting for deer. And so as Ennis is just kind of going about her fairly typical evening routine here, you know, making dinner, she suddenly felt this really intense, very painful cramping sensation that was kind of ripping through her abdomen. And it hurt so bad that Ennis stopped what she was doing and kind of doubled over and grabbed the counter and just tried to steady her breathing. I mean, this was really shocking.

And for about a minute, Ennis just stood there, you know, holding onto the counter, just waiting for this pain to pass. And eventually it did. Once it eased up, it was like, okay, she was back to normal and she could stand up again. But this was sort of alarming. But at the same time, Ennis was used to dealing with basically all medical crises on her own.

They lived in this isolated part of the world and the nearest medical clinic was 50 miles away and they didn't have a car. So like anything that happened, they basically had to deal with it themselves. And that was routine. And so for Ennis, despite how incredibly painful this was, she just told herself, like, now that it had passed, the pain was gone, she said, "You know what? It's probably fine.

Like, I'm good." And so pretty quickly she just kind of forgot about it and went back to butchering the chicken. But several hours later, this is after midnight now, the pain came right back. And at this point, Ennis, she's in this one common room in her house where all her kids are fast asleep. It's past midnight now, and she's sitting on this bench and she's gripping her abdomen, rocking back and forth as this pain just rockets back and forth across her abdomen constantly. There's no relief, nothing.

And she's trying so hard not to make a sound 'cause she doesn't wanna wake her kids up, nor does she wanna scare her kids. Her husband is still off in the mountains hunting for deer, so she is alone. She just has this little flickering candle nearby. That's the only light she's got. And she just isolated dealing with this excruciating pain.

And so at this point, Ennis really felt like this could be a real problem. This might not be something she could just brush off and let pass on its own. This was real. This was an actual emergency. But what can she even do?

There's nowhere to go. She can't do anything. She is just completely trapped here with this excruciating pain that's making it hard to even have coherent thought, it's so bad. But the one thought that kept going through her mind was she had to do something, or whatever this was, it felt like it was gonna kill her. And so Enis felt like she really only had one option here, and it was a horrible, horrible option, but she knew she had to do it.

And so she got up, and she's, you know, she's hunched over in pain, and as quietly as she could, she walked over to a cabinet and she opened it up and she grabbed a small bottle of alcohol. And she took a few sips to kind of numb the pain a little bit, and then after she had done that, she turned around and still with this blinding pain, she hobbled into the kitchen and she grabbed that 6-inch knife she had used earlier to butcher the chicken. And then she walked right back over to the bench near that candle that she'd been sitting on earlier. And once she was there, she reached down and she pulled up her shirt, exposing her abdomen, you know, where this pain was coming from. And then she took the knife and she plunged it into her abdomen.

And immediately she let out this blood-curdling scream. She couldn't help it. And she was sort of vaguely aware of all her kids waking up and sort of making their way over to her, but she was so focused on what what she was doing, and she began slowly dragging this blade down her abdomen all the way to her belly button. And then she pulled out the knife, and she can barely think, it's so painful, her kids are crying. And then she plunged the knife back into her abdomen and raked it down the other side, creating this massive gash in her stomach.

And then she kind of dropped the knife, and she's screaming, she can't even help it, and her kids are all crying. And she takes her hand and she reaches into her stomach, and she's fishing around. Every little move is like lightning strikes breaking her body, but she eventually finds what she's looking for and she pulls it out of her stomach. And what she's looking at is her 8th child, a baby boy. And she had enough wherewithal to take that knife and cut the umbilical cord and place the baby down before she passed out.

After Ennis lost consciousness, one of her kids left the house and just started running to go find the nearest person to get some help. And miraculously, after finding some people, you know, when those first responders got to the home where Ennis was, Just hours later, they found her and her newborn son alive, and they were taken to the closest hospital for emergency treatment, and they would both make full recoveries. Today, Ines Ramirez is the only woman ever who has performed a successful C-section on herself.

Our next story is called "The Simulation." On the morning of October 30th, 2014, a 54-year-old Russian pilot named Sergey Golitskiy, along with his translator, walked into the Flight Safety International building in Wichita, Kansas. This building was inside of the Wichita National Airport and it was basically just a big training facility for pilots. Once inside, Sergey walked up to the front desk and explained to the clerk, in Russian, that he was here that day to try to get a certification for a particular type of Cessna plane. His translator then repeated what he said, in English, to the clerk, at which point the clerk nodded and said they would go back and get Sergei's instructor. A few moments later, the clerk returned, now with a 78-year-old man named Jay Ferguson, who was the instructor.

Jay introduced himself to Sergei and the translator, they all shook hands, and then, Jay led the two deeper into the building, and as soon as they were inside, Sergei and the translator saw all this crazy, high-tech training equipment basically everywhere they looked. Eventually, Jay came to a stop in front of this big, white, circular pod that was up on top of this electronic base. Now, to the untrained eye, this might look like a futuristic amusement park ride, but to Sergey, he knew what this was. This was a flight simulator. So Sergey had been a pilot for over 30 years, he had loads of experience flying, he'd flown big commercial aircraft and helicopters, but today he was learning how to fly a sort of mid-tier plane.

This little Cessna plane. And before he'd be allowed, even with all this experience, to actually go out and fly this thing, he had to do a couple of simulated flights inside of the simulator to kind of run through the motions, get some experience before actually going out and doing it. And so Jay reached out and opened up the door to this pod and gestured for Sergei and the translator to go inside. And so they did. Sergei went in and he saw right away that the inside was an exact replica of the inside of a Cessna, like down to every little detail.

It looked exactly the same. Even out the windows, it appeared like they actually were situated on a real airport runway. And so Sergei sat down in the pilot's seat, Jay took a seat next to him, and the translator took a seat behind both of them. Once they were situated, Jay and Sergei went through the mandatory pre-flight safety checks—something you would do on any flight. You just make sure the plane is in good working order, that your communications are good—same thing they would do for a real flight they're doing for this simulator.

And then, once they were done, Jay pressed a button which turned on the engine of this flight simulator, and it actually felt like it really turned on a real engine. Like the pod began to rumble like this was a real plane. Then once Jay gave Sergey the green light, Sergey released the brakes, at which point it very much appeared like the plane began to roll forward. And as it did, Sergey grabbed the yoke, which is like the steering wheel, and he began to turn the plane, this simulated plane, towards the runway. And it was amazing how lifelike this whole thing felt.

The pod actually would move and kind of keep up with all the movements that Sergey was initiating in this simulation. It really felt like they were in an actual plane. And then once Sergey had positioned the plane on the runway, he hit the gas and the pod throttled back as the plane rocketed down the runway. And before long, they took off and they were up into the sky. Once flying in the sky, Sergey kind of circled around the digital airspace for a while, kind of feeling out the controls.

And he quickly found the Cessna was a little bit more sensitive than the other aircraft he had flown before. So it took some time to kind of get his bearings, and then once he was feeling pretty comfortable and he relayed as much to Jay, Jay began relaying directions and feedback to Sergei through the translator, just basically testing Sergei's ability to fly this craft. Because at the end of the day, this was a test. Sergei needed to prove he could do this in order to get his certification. After a little while, Sergei felt like he was doing a really good job and he had good control of the craft, and Jay as well felt like this had gone really well and, you know, Sergey had effectively passed his test.

And so a decision was made to go ahead and land this plane back on the runway. So Sergey circled around and he angled the plane right alongside the runway and he came down and he was taking his time and everything was going exactly right. And then right as the wheels of this plane touched the runway, the instant that happened, there was this loud crashing sound and then everything went black.

At the same time this was happening, folks standing outside of the Flight Safety International Building, they heard this loud crashing sound and they looked in the direction, which is toward the Flight Safety Building, and they saw there was this massive fire and black cloud of smoke coming up from the backside of the building. And so they called 911. And when first responders arrived on scene, they discovered evidence of a plane crash. It would turn out there was another pilot named Marc Goldstein who was flying that day out of Wichita National Airport. Except Mark was flying an actual plane.

He was the only passenger inside of a 6-seat passenger plane. And pretty much as soon as he took off, he lost control and he crashed through the walls of the Flight Safety International building. Specifically, he struck the flight simulator where Jay, Sergey, and his translator were busy trying to land their digital flight. The plane crash, along with subsequent fiery explosion, claimed the lives of Mark, Jay, Sergey, and his translator.

Our next story is called Déjà Vu.

One morning in October of 2015, a receptionist sat at her desk at a sports medicine center in Birmingham, Alabama, and scrolled through her boss's his upcoming surgery schedule on her computer. The receptionist worked for a famous orthopedic surgeon named Dr. James Andrews, and because of his notoriety, his schedule was typically packed. And so her job, for the most part, was just to go through his schedule all the time and make sure nothing conflicted. And so as this receptionist scrolled through the schedule, she saw that over the next couple of days that Dr. Andrews did have several surgeries and there actually didn't appear to be any conflicts. And so she began moving on to the next part of her job, which was to alert upcoming surgery patients about their upcoming surgery and to make sure that all their information and the timing of the procedure were all in line with whatever they were expecting.

And so the next person up to get surgery by Dr. Andrews was this minor league baseball player whose name was Brady Feigl, and he was having an elbow surgery, and he was supposed to come in the following morning. So the receptionist called the number on file for Brady, but it actually wasn't Brady's phone number. It was Brady's baseball team's athletic trainer. And so, you know, this guy picks up the phone and the receptionist says, "Hey, just so you know, Brady has a surgery tomorrow morning. It's his elbow surgery.

Just trying to confirm the details and make sure he understands what he needs to do to prep for it, et cetera, et cetera." And so after she ran through her spiel, the trainer just kind of paused for a second and there was silence on the line. And then the trainer said to the receptionist, "There's gotta be a mistake here because Brady already had that surgery. He said Brady had gotten it done 6 months earlier, and as a result of the surgery, had had to sit out basically the entire baseball season. So there was no mistaking it. He had had this surgery.

It was done. But the receptionist, as she's hearing this, she's like, "No, that doesn't make any sense." Because the receptionist actually remembered Brady Feigl. He had come in recently for his consultation for this elbow surgery, and he was a really unique-looking guy. I mean, he's 6'4", he had bright red hair, a big beard, and also he is a professional baseball player. Like, this is a unique guy that's coming in for a unique surgery that's related to baseball.

And so the receptionist is like, "No, like, he came in recently for his consultation. He still needs the surgery, I'm sure of it." And so what ended up happening next is the receptionist and the trainer started going back and forth, kind of trying to describe Brady Feigl. To make sure they both were talking about the same person. But of course they were, because how many 6-foot-4, you know, professional baseball player pitchers with this particular elbow problem that were coming to this clinic for an elbow surgery were there? Like, this had to be the same guy.

But how could they both be right? That the trainer's saying, "Well, my Brady Feigl already got it done," and the receptionist is like, "No, he's scheduled to come in tomorrow, because I had a consultation with him a couple of days ago." Like, they couldn't both be right. But they couldn't understand how this could be possible. But the explanation for this that they did eventually figure out, you just have to see to believe. It would turn out the receptionist and the trainer were both right.

Dr. James Andrews was scheduled to perform an elbow surgery on a 6-foot-4, red-haired, big-bearded minor league pitcher named Brady Feigl the following morning. And Dr. James Andrews had also performed the same surgery on another 6-foot-4, red-haired, big-bearded Brady Feigl who also was a minor a baseball player, also a pitcher, who hurt his elbow months earlier. There were literally two Brady Feigels that didn't know each other, that looked the same, did the same sort of really unique job— minor league baseball player— that also went to the same clinic to get the same surgery at roughly the same time, but somehow or another the clinic put the wrong contact information for the wrong Brady. And so the guy who was supposed to get surgery the next day they accidentally put in the contact info for the other Brady Feigl because they confused them, because they look exactly the same and they have the same name and they're getting the same surgery. So you can see how the mistake happened.

And so it was not until this surgery mix-up that the two Brady Feigls learned the other existed. They did not know each other. And when they met each other, I mean, they're spitting images of each other and they do the same job and they have the same issue with their elbow. I mean, it was like this incredible coincidence. But believe it or not, they did do a DNA test because they're thinking, we've got to be related, right?

Nope, they're not related. They are just absolutely perfect doppelgangers.

The next and final story of today's episode is called The Silk Hat.

Around 1 AM on Sunday, January 20th, 1907, a 57-year-old man named Samuel Hughes was riding on a passenger train that was moving through southeastern Wales. Sam had spent basically the last 24 hours working the entire time. He was a salt merchant and he had left the town where he lived, a town called Blackwood, and taken a train south about an hour to another town called Newport, where he did a lot of business. And basically all day Saturday, from early morning all the way until late at night, he had been working. And now finally, you know, 1 AM on Sunday, he's back on a train heading back to his town in Blackwood.

But despite how utterly exhausted he was on this ride back home, you know, barely able to keep his eyes open, Sam was just so relieved. That soon, very soon, he would get off the train, he'd be back in his house, and he could just collapse in bed. And so that's all he's thinking about. And so for a little bit longer, Sam is, you know, fighting to keep his eyes open, and the train's rumbling along, and he can tell he's getting close to home. I mean, he rides this train all the time.

This is a pretty, you know, regular route for him. And then finally, Sam feels the train start to slow down, at which point he gathers up all his things, he gets up and kind of shuffles his way into the hall, And then once the train came to a full stop, he stepped off the train onto the platform, relieved that, you know, he's now maybe 10 minutes from home. But as the train took off from the station, Sam, who's again standing on this platform— it's late at night here— he's looking around and he realizes something. In his stupor, in his exhaustion, he didn't realize this was not his stop. He had gotten off one stop too early.

It was like he was on autopilot. He was so tired, he just He got off thinking he was home, but he wasn't. And now the train is gone, and remember, this is the early 1900s. He didn't have a quick way to get from where he was to his home. Like, there wasn't gonna be another train anytime soon, nor did he know the train schedule.

He also didn't have a way to call a cab or anything. You know, it's 1, 2 in the morning here. And so Sam realizes he basically can either find a place to stay in whatever town this is, or he can basically walk to Blackwood, which is, you know, a pretty good walk away, but he figured, you know, maybe, you know, this town was close enough he could do it. And so he figured, you know, his first step here is just leave the platform and just go find somebody, anybody in town that maybe is out and about, and just kind of figure out where we are, how do I get to Blackwood, is there a hotel nearby or an inn or something, but he needs to go find somebody. And so even though Sam at this point is furious with himself and really just wants to spend time dwelling on the fact that he's made this mistake, He's sort of over that, and he's just— he's just focused on finding a solution.

And so Sam leaves the platform, and he starts walking, you know, in the general direction of lights that he sees off in the distance. But this is a small train platform. He's clearly not near any major city. It's pretty much dark and just rural roads going in different directions. And so he really does not have high hopes that he's gonna run into anybody anytime soon.

But surprisingly, after leaving the platform and walking Not very far, he got to an intersection where he saw another person walking up the other street, and he quickly realized it was a police officer. And so Sam is like, so relieved, you know, an authority figure, they can help me. And he flags down the police officer, and the officer comes over, and, you know, they're kind of sizing up Sam, like, what are you doing out here? It's the middle of the night, you got luggage with you, like, what's going on here? And Sam explained the mistake he had made and asked the officer, like, hey, you know, is there a place to stay here?

Or maybe, you know, is walkable to get to my town, you know, Blackwood. And the officer would tell him, like, you know, there is places to stay in this town, but if you're up for it, it would only take you, you know, maybe an hour if you did want to make the walk to Blackwood. And, you know, if I was in your shoes, I might do that. And Sam, you know, he thought about it and he was like, you know what, I do. I just want to get home.

I want to get in my own bed. So yes, just, just point me in the right direction. And so the officer, he explained to Sam that luckily it's really simple. You just basically go straight down that road and you walk for about an hour until you reach a bridge. Once you get over the bridge, follow some signs and it'll be really obvious that you're right near Blackwood and you'll make it the rest of the way.

And so Sam thanked the officer and then gathered up his things and he began walking in the direction of his town.

Several hours later, a little after 3 AM, Sam's wife, Bess, was awake inside of their home in Blackwood. She was awake because she was waiting for Sam to get home. She knew he would have a long day in Newport, but by now she knew he should be home. I mean, he went on this trip fairly regularly. She knew how long it took, even on the long end.

And it being 3 AM and him not being home was starting to be pretty concerning. And so she's up, she's kind of anxious, and all of a sudden she hears Sam calling out to her. He's clearly out in front of the property. You know, he must have known that was awake. He could see the lights on inside the house, and he was calling out to her that, you know, he was returning.

And so Bess, you know, she's overcome with relief. She knows her husband is safe. She grabs a candle and she goes to the front door to greet her husband. She opens the door and she looks out, and it's not her husband. Her husband is nowhere to be found.

Instead, there is this dark figure standing on her porch, just inches away, looking right at Bess. And Bess, you know, she freezes when she She sees it, but she isn't scared. There's a weird calm about what she's looking at. She doesn't know what it is, she has no idea what to do, but she's just standing there, calm, as this figure is right in front of her, not moving. And as she's just staring at it, she realizes it's dressed in this long black cloak, and it had on a black silk hat.

And her husband always wore a black silk hat. Specifically he had worn it that morning when he went to Newport. And so for a minute, she's just staring sort of unbelievably at this apparition apparently wearing clothes, at least a hat, that belonged to her husband. And she knows she just heard her husband call to her. She didn't imagine that.

He just called to her. But then Bess blinked and the figure just vanished. The hat, the cloak, it's all just gone. And there's nobody standing on her porch. And now Bess is scared.

Because as much as there was a calm about this figure, now she's thinking like, did I just imagine that? Like, what's going on here? Is my husband outside somewhere? Did he call to me because he's hurt or something? And so she leaves her house with this candle and she's, she's running around her house calling out for Sam.

But Sam's not out there. And so eventually Bess goes back inside the house and just continues to sit up waiting for Sam. But Sam doesn't come home. And eventually, you know, by 5 or 6 in the morning, Bess just goes to bed. When Bess woke up later that afternoon, Sam still had not come home yet.

But now, you know, the sun is out and she's telling herself that that weird thing that happened last night, she must have imagined that, you know, like, that didn't happen. And, you know, Sam's fine, he'll be home, you know, he's stayed late before and not told me, like, everything's okay. But as Bess is reassuring herself that everything's okay, she hears a knock on the front door. And for a second she thinks, maybe it's Sam, maybe he's home. But she goes to the door, she opens it up, and it's a police officer.

And he just says to her, "I have some terrible news." It would turn out the night before, when Sam met that police officer who told him to walk this way to get back to Blackwood, well, Sam had followed the directions, and apparently he was on the right path because he got all the way to that bridge that the officer said would, you know, demarcate that he was close to Blackwood. But perhaps because he was so exhausted, or maybe just because it was still so dark outside, he fell off the bridge to his death. And so the police officer is telling Bess this, and she's totally overcome with grief, but then for whatever reason, her mind immediately went to that dark figure she saw on the porch a little after 3 AM. And without really thinking this through, she just said to the officer, "What time do you think he died?" And the officer was like, "Well, you know, based on and the officer that directed Samuel in that direction, you know, towards the bridge and how long it would've taken him to get there, we estimate he likely fell off the bridge around 3:00 in the morning.

And so for Bess, she's thinking, "That's around the same time I saw that figure on my porch." And then she also began to think about that hat, the black silk hat that Sam always wore that she knew he had worn that morning when he went to Newport.

And so Bess's next question was, 'Well, when you found him, was he wearing his black silk hat?' And the officer was kind of confused and said, 'No, he wasn't wearing a hat at all.' And so when Bess heard that, those details confirmed that who or what she saw on her porch earlier that morning, the dark figure with the black silk hat, that must have been Sam's soul. He was coming to say goodbye to his wife because he had just fallen off the bridge and died. And, you know, this figure having that black silk hat on was a way of showing her that yes, that really was her husband. Bess would later tell this story to a reporter who would have this story printed all over Wales, and that's how we know it today.

A quick note about our stories: they are all based on true events, but we sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people involved, and some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes.

The Mr. Ballen Podcast: Strange, Dark, and Mysterious Stories is hosted and executive produced by me, Mr. Ballen. Our head of writing is Evan Allen, produced by Jeremy Bone and Cole Acasio. Research and fact-checking by Shelley Xu, Samantha Van Hoos, Evan Beamer, Abigail Shumway, Camille Callahan, Alex Paul, Ben Fasciano. Research and fact-checking supervision by Stephen Ear. Audio editing and post-produce Produced by Whit Lacascio and Jordan Stidham.

Production support by Antonio Manata and Delaina Corley. Artwork by Jessica Clogston Kiner. Theme song "Something Wicked" by Ross Bugden. Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballen Podcast. And just a reminder, every new and exclusive episode we put out on the Mr. Ballen Podcast, you can also now watch on the Mr. Ballen YouTube channel that very same day.

And trust me, some of these stories you truly have to see to believe. Again, my YouTube channel is just called Mr. Ballin. If you want to listen to episodes one week early and ad-free, you can subscribe to SiriusXM Podcast Plus on Apple Podcasts or visit SiriusXM.com/podcastplus to listen with Spotify or another app of your choice. So that's gonna do it. I really appreciate your support.

Until next time, see ya.