Still Here

Today's podcast will feature two stories that include eyewitness accounts that challenge everything we think we know about death. The audio from both 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 One Last Flight, and it's about reports of this well-known pilot's final flight that make absolutely no sense. And the second and final story you'll hear is called The Bus Ride Home, and it's about a man who hears something while riding on an empty bus, and because of this noise he hears, he pulls out his camera and he inadvertently captures something truly disturbing. 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 place because that's all we do, and we upload two, three, even four times every week. So if that's of interest to you, the next time the follow button is trying to tell you something really important, just constantly interrupt them every couple of seconds. Okay, let's get into our first story called One Last Flight. On the night of June 12, 1993, 69-year-old Deke Slayton climbed into bed in his home in League City, Texas. And even this small action, you know, getting in bed, took a lot of effort for Deke because he was very, very sick. So Deke had a brain tumor. He'd actually been diagnosed the year before, but had then quickly gone into remission, so he thought he'd beaten it. But it had unfortunately come back a few months later, and this time it was much worse. Deke knew eventually that he was going to die, and he was going to die. So he was going to die, and he was going to kill him. And unfortunately, probably sooner than later. His wife and daughter had been taking care of him as he got weaker and sicker. And while he certainly appreciated it, the reality was is it really bothered him. I mean, he was a tough guy, and he was used to being the person who took care of other people, not the other way around. But more than that, the worst part of him getting sick was he hadn't been able to fly a plane in months. So Deke was like a legend in the aviation community. As a young man, he'd been in the Air Force, and he'd flown in World War II combat missions, some of the most harrowing aerial combat in recorded history. And Deke had loved being up high and looking down at the world from his cockpit so much that after the war was over, he'd gone one step further, to space. And he had not just become a regular astronaut. He'd been on NASA's first team of astronauts to literally ever go to space. And then after he had gotten too old for space trips, he came back to space. And he had become a regular astronaut. And he continued to work for NASA in various capacities until his retirement 10 years ago. But retiring had not meant he just stopped aerial travel completely. I mean, he was done flying into space, but he still flew planes. In fact, he was a hugely successful amateur air racer, which is a competitive sport where aircraft race one another through basically an aerial obstacle course. And so now, as Deke's life was sort of slipping through his fingers, all he found himself wanting to do was just go fly. He had this plane, called a Stinger, which he used for racing. It was this red, small plane that was super loud, pretty unique, but he loved this plane. And he just constantly fantasized about getting back in the cockpit and going for a ride. However, Deke did know that because of his tumor, realistically, him flying a plane would not be safe. His speech was shaky, and he was tired all the time. Also, like his balance and decision-making were affected. And then on top of the physical limitations from his tumor, also, there was the reality that his Stinger plane was currently in storage. But as Deke laid in bed that night, feeling just physically awful and literally feeling his life sort of slipping away, you know, all he wanted was just one more time to fly. And it just became so overpowering, that desire to fly again, that he decided while he was laying there that tomorrow, first thing in the morning, whether I am sick or not, I'm getting up, I'm taking my Stinger out of storage, and I'm going for a ride. Early the next morning at the John Wayne Airport in Southern California, which was over 1,500 miles away from where Deke lived, an airport manager stepped into his office ready to start his shift. He worked for the airport's noise abatement department, which was responsible for making sure that the planes that flew in and out didn't make too much noise and drive the neighbors crazy. And usually, this early in the morning, things were pretty calm and uneventful. But today, as soon as the manager got into his office, he heard his desk phone ring. And when he answered it, the person on the other end said they wanted to make a complaint. There had just been a plane flying low over her house, making a ton of noise. The manager immediately looked over at the clock and saw it was just before 8 a.m., which meant that the plane that this resident was complaining about was in violation of the airport's curfew. John Wayne Airport had a policy where they didn't let any planes take off before 8 a.m. on Sundays, specifically to avoid this, to avoid bothering the locals too early. And so on the weekend, a perturbed resident gave a description of the aircraft, which was a small, red, racing stinger. And so the manager took some notes, hung up, and was about to start making some phone calls when their phone rang again. And it was another resident with basically the exact same complaint. And then after that, this manager got more and more calls all about this red plane. And all the people who were complaining basically said they had heard it, they had seen it, it was like doing these crazy aerial maneuvers, but now it was gone. So they were called, calling sort of after the fact. It's gone now, but it was really, really disruptive. Some of the callers actually said that at certain points, this plane, when they saw it, had flown so low, they were able to read its identification number, and they had written it down to report it. And so they told the manager that it was N21X, that was the number on this plane. And so at some point, when the manager had a chance, in between all these calls they were getting, they looked up on their computer to see who this plane was registered to, using that number, they saw whose plane this was. The manager was shocked. This was Deke Slayton's plane. The manager knew Deke. I mean, everybody did. And it was very surprising to him that somebody like Deke, who was a consummate professional, would be flying around so recklessly outside of curfew. I mean, that's crazy. So on his computer, the manager pulled up the morning's readings from the airport's noise monitors. And when the manager saw the readings, he could see very clearly that at least three monitors had gone way up at the same time the residents all said they saw Deke's plane. And so at this point, the manager knew that because of these noise recordings, which corroborated the reports, that he would have to send, you know, the legend himself, Deke, a formal note about doing this. I mean, he was basically going to have to reprimand Deke. However, based on all the reports and also on those monitors, which measured the noise in the area, it seemed apparent that Deke, you know, whatever he was doing, he was done doing it now because he was out of the airspace. And so this manager would have to reprimand him, but there wasn't a huge urgency. So the manager printed out the noise recordings, put them on his stack of things to do, and then just went about his day. Fifteen days later, that manager finally got around to actually sending that warning to Deke. And when Deke's wife got that letter and read its contents, she was so confused because what this airport was claiming Deke did was literally impossible. It would turn out there was literally no way Deke Slayton could have been flying his Stinger over the California skies on that day. Because the storage location that was holding Deke's plane was actually a museum in Nevada. He'd given the Stinger to them three years ago, and it hadn't moved since. And just to make it clear here, they had removed the engine from the Stinger and then hung the Stinger from the rafters in this museum. Like, this thing is not flyable, at least not quickly. But more than the logistics of how quickly could he get the plane out of the museum, put the engine back in, and make it back to the airport, he was able to get the plane out of the airport. That's a huge problem. But the other, far bigger reason that it was truly impossible that Deke was the one flying that plane, even though clearly it was his plane, the tail number said as much, the reason it couldn't have been him is because five full hours before that recorded flight, Deke had passed away in his sleep. No one has ever been able to explain how Deke's red Stinger plane ended up over the skies of California that morning. It just doesn't make any sense. And today, that warning letter that the manager from the John Wayne airport sent to Deke, that ultimately his wife got and was so confused by, that letter actually sits on display at the Deke Slayton Memorial Space Museum. The next and final story of today's episode is called "The Bus Ride Home." On the afternoon of September 4th, 2017, a young man named Xu rushed through a bus station in southern Taiwan. Xu's bus home to the capital city Taipei would be leaving any minute now, and because Xu was running late, he knew the bus would be packed and he would get a terrible seat. And so Xu just kept on running as fast as he could, and he finally saw his bus parked up against the curb on the outside of this bus station, and he ran up to it, totally winded, but glad that he hadn't missed his bus. And so the driver noticed Xu standing there, and so he opened up opened up the bus doors and Zhu went on board, handed the driver his ticket, and the driver said, "Okay, you know, take your seat. and Zhu turned and he began walking down the aisle. And at first, he almost didn't register the weirdness of the inside of this bus. I mean, he took this route all the time and he was totally expecting this bus to be packed. But as he was walking down the aisle, he realized he was the only one on the bus. There was literally nobody else. It was just Zhu and the driver. And so for a second, Zhu thought maybe he had made a mistake and this was not his bus. But he checked his watch and, you know, again, he had taken this bus many times and he knew this was it. And so he was about to turn and maybe ask the bus driver. But the bus driver shut the doors, turned on the engine and began to pull away. And so Zhu just thought, well, I guess it's just my lucky day. You know, I have the bus to myself. This is crazy. And so Zhu found a seat towards the front of the bus. And after sitting down and kind of getting situated, he just sat there and stared out the window as the driver, you know, merged into traffic and eventually found their way onto the highway. And as they were just coasting along, Zhu really felt content. I mean, it really felt like he had this private ride all to himself. And this was not a short bus ride. It was like a six hour bus ride. And so the idea of just having peace and calm the whole time, I mean, that was so luxurious and unexpected. And so Zhu is just having a wonderful time, just kind of taking it all in when all of a sudden he hears a woman coughing behind him. And remember, he's scanned the bus. It's empty. And so he whipped his head around, totally startled, like maybe there was somebody on the bus. But he looked behind him and there was no one. And so very quickly, Zhu began to rationalize what he had just heard. You know, he's looking around thinking, OK, one of the windows is slightly open. Maybe the wind was coming in weird and causing a sound. Or maybe it wasn't behind me. Maybe that cough came from the driver and somehow I thought it was back here. You know, Zhu's telling himself that that wasn't really a woman coughing because there's nobody here. And so before long, Zhu convinced himself that, you know, that was just an anomaly. It was nothing to worry about. And he was back to just relaxing and enjoying this peaceful ride. And pretty soon after that, he began to drift off to sleep. A few hours later, Zhu woke up. He was very groggy and he looked out the window and saw it was dark and he checked his watch and saw they were maybe about halfway to their destination. And then he looked at his phone and saw he had a text message from the friend he had just been visiting, the friend he had been with before he left and got on this bus. And the friend was basically asking Zhu how the ride home was going. And Zhu, you know, he wrote back and said, you know, you won't believe this. I'm on a bus that's completely empty. Like, I have the bus to myself. And this friend, who was familiar with how packed this particular ride to Taipei was, was like, no way. That bus is never not filled with people. You've got to send me proof. And so Zhu opened the camera on his phone. He turned around and he snapped a photo of the back of the bus. But when he looked at the photo he had taken, it was very grainy and, you know, there wasn't any light in the bus and there wasn't a flash on his phone. And so instead, Zhu, who happened to be a semi-professional photographer, he pulled out his really nice high-quality digital camera out of his bag. And with that camera, he turned around and took a photo. But when Zhu looked at the photo he had just taken, he thought there was something wrong with it. And so he zoomed in on the photo and he couldn't believe what he was looking at. And so he checked all the settings of his camera and checked the lens to make sure everything was working properly. And it was. And so starting to get kind of scared, Zhu put the camera down and walked to the back of the bus and walked up and down a couple of times, looking for some explanation of what was in that photo. But there was no explanation. And so now feeling really scared, Zhu went back to his seat, grabbed his phone to text his friend to be like, look what I found. But his phone was dead. Even though his phone had full battery like a minute ago, now his phone doesn't work and he can't turn it back on. And so Zhu's thinking, what do I do? Do I tell the bus driver about this photo? But he was worried if he showed the driver, it would be so startling that the driver might crash the bus. And so Zhu really felt completely alone and terrified. And he just placed his camera next to him and then just closed his eyes and began silently praying that he would get off this bus. But as he was doing that, he began to hear whispering right behind him, like numerous people whispering right behind him. And he whipped his head around. But again, there's nobody there. And so now, you know, the fear is only getting more and more heightened inside of Zhu. He goes back to praying. And now, in addition to the whispers behind him, he starts to hear the sound of seats basically creaking as if somebody's sitting in them, kind of rocking back and forth. And now Zhu, he's too scared to turn around. And so he just keeps on praying and praying. And the noise behind him, this cacophony of sounds, is getting louder and louder. And finally, Zhu looks up at the driver, hoping the driver can hear the stuff, you know, to confirm that Zhu's not losing his mind here. But the driver looked like he was just paying attention to the road, completely oblivious to what was happening inside of this bus. And so Zhu is horrified, has no idea what to do. These noises are not stopping, despite the fact nobody else is on this bus. And so Zhu finally plugged his phone back into the bus. And so Zhu finally plugged his ears, just so he wouldn't hear it, and just tucked himself down in a ball and just continued to pray for the next three hours, all the way until the bus finally stopped. And when the bus stopped, Zhu unplugged his ears and opened his eyes, expecting to hear all these whispers and sounds. But the bus sounded totally quiet and normal. And the bus driver, you know, was kind of going through the shutdown procedures of the bus. They were in the Taipei bus station. And so Zhu was feeling totally relieved here. And he couldn't wait to get off this bus. And so Zhu, he grabbed his camera and his things, packed them all up. And then as quick as he could, he began walking towards the front of the bus. But before Zhu got off the bus, the driver stopped him because he saw, you know, Zhu looked horrible. He was sweating profusely. His skin was flushed. He looked like, you know, something bad had just happened to him. And he asked Zhu, like, hey, are you okay? And Zhu was about to be like, oh, no, everything's fine and just kind of get off the bus. But then he thought to himself, you know, I have no explanation for what just happened. And that was horrifying. I don't know what that was. And I took this photo that I can't explain too, that seems definitely connected to all the noises I just heard. And now that the bus has stopped, I'm like, I don't know what just happened. And I took this photo that I stopped. There's no risk of showing the driver and risking scaring him so badly that we crash. And so Zhu thought, you know what, even if it makes me look crazy, I'm going to show the driver this photo and see what he thinks. And so Zhu was like, actually, let me show you something. So he pulls out his camera and he shows the driver the photo. And as the driver is kind of looking at the photo, not really sure what to look for, Zhu, he reaches down and he zooms in on the top half of the photo and it expands the ceiling of the back of the bus. And you can very clearly see there is a human arm and hand extending off the ceiling, like it's reaching down into the bus. And so as the bus driver is studying this arm and hand, Zhu is saying, you know, I thought for a second that could have been me, you know, reflected off the ceiling or something, but I was holding the camera in my hand. And so wouldn't the camera be in the reflection? If that's my arm, wouldn't the camera be visible? Because it's not. And then Zhu also was like, I thought for a second, maybe it was your arm, but you're driving the bus. Your hands are on the steering wheel. And so if this arm is your hand, then it's your arm. And so Zhu is like, I thought for a second, maybe it was your wouldn't the steering wheel be in the reflection? Like, I don't understand how there's an arm with nothing in the hand reaching down from the ceiling. And then Zhu also told the driver that in addition to this totally terrifying photo of this ghost arm coming off the ceiling, there were all these weird whispers and sounds and noises behind him for the whole ride. Like it was horrifying. And so after Zhu has detailed to this bus driver that basically your bus is haunted and I have photo proof, you know, Zhu is expecting the driver to have a pretty big reaction to this. I mean, geez, pretty big news here. But the driver just handed the camera back to Zhu and basically turned to Zhu and said, you know what? You can't show this photo to anybody. No one can know about what happens on my bus because if they find out, it'll ruin my business. And Zhu's thinking, wait a minute, does this mean the bus is haunted? Is that what the bus driver is confirming here? He doesn't seem shocked. He seems like this is completely routine. This is what happens on his bus. And Zhu was about to protest and be like, are you kidding me? You know, why aren't you telling people about what's happening on your bus? But Zhu was like, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. But then Zhu was like, you know what? I don't know this guy. I don't care about this bus. I'm done with this. And so he said to the driver, don't worry. I won't tell anyone about, you know, your haunted bus. I won't show anyone this photo. Thank you. And then Zhu got off the bus. When Zhu finally got to his house, it was around midnight and Zhu was exhausted. So he goes inside, he lays on his couch and he plugs his phone in because his phone was dead. And as soon as his phone turned on, he saw all these messages from his friend who had asked him to send proof that the bus was haunted. And Zhu was like, I don't know. I don't know. I don't the bus he was on was really empty. And so Zhu wanted to tell his friend about all the crazy stuff that had happened on the bus. He wanted to send him that photo of, you know, the ghost arm, but also Zhu had promised the bus driver not to share this information with anyone because it could destroy this guy's business. And so as he was sitting there kind of wondering how to respond, something caught Zhu's attention outside. And so he turned and looked out the window and he saw all these people walking down the road, carrying red lanterns. And suddenly everything sort of clicked for Zhu. It was September 5th. I don't know. I don't know. I don't which is important because it marked the beginning of a big event in Taiwan known as the Hungry Ghost Festival. And the people Zhu saw outside walking around with red lanterns were clearly participating in this event. This festival is celebrated every year in Taiwan, and it's all about honoring the dead and feeding them with offerings. For example, people will burn fake money they call ghost money. And once it gets burned, you know, the spirits of the dead can use that money during the ghost month. People in Taiwan believe that during this ghost month, the gates of heaven and hell open up and spirits come out and walk the earth alongside all the living, which could be a great thing. You know, if you have a dead loved one or friend or somebody, you can reconnect with them during this event. But it also can be a bad thing because sometimes angry spirits emerge from the gates of hell and they wreak havoc on the living. And so as soon as Zhu realized that, you know, today was the start of this Hungry Ghost Festival, the day before when he was on that bus, he realized why it was empty. Because there's this superstition in Taiwan that September 4th, the day before this festival, is the day when all the spirits are traveling around the globe. And it's believed that that day is a very dangerous day for the living to be out and about because you don't want to come in contact by accident with, you know, one of the evil spirits. And so nobody travels on September 4th. But Zhu had just forgotten forgotten and just believed he had struck luck by having this empty bus. But then, as Zhu was kind of working this through in his mind, he was thinking, wait a minute, all that weird stuff on the bus, the whispers, the sounds, you know, the ghost arm reaching out of the ceiling that he got on camera, was that some sign that he had just come in contact with an evil spirit? Was he now in danger? Was this spirit going to like follow him around and haunt him? He didn't know. But now he's thinking, oh my goodness, I did the thing I wasn't supposed to do and now I could be paying the consequences for it. And so Zhu suddenly was like, you know what, I don't care that I made some promise to the bus driver about not disclosing this photo or what I experienced on the bus because now this is like a me problem. Like I could have big issues here. And so he decided he would send this photo to his friend and tell his friend about what he experienced on the bus to see what his friend thought. And so after messaging his friend, his friend wrote back that he was horrified by that photo, you know, seeing that arm reaching down out of the ceiling. That was horrifying. And his friend didn't know what to make of it and did agree. Given the fact that the Hungry Ghost Festival has just started and you were out there on the day before, like this isn't good. You could have come in contact with an evil spirit here. But his friend also gave Zhu some advice of how to handle this. He told Zhu to take that photo and post it on Facebook. Now that sounds kind of goofy, but in Taiwan, there's this belief that if you have bad luck, the best way to deal with bad luck is to basically dilute that bad luck by sharing it with other people. It's kind of like those old email forwards that people used to pass around, like, hey, forward this email along to five other people or else you'll have bad luck. It was kind of like that. Like, just share it with the world and, you know, pass on your bad luck to other people, basically. And so Zhu's friend told Zhu, like, look, I know this isn't really bad luck we're dealing with here, but maybe if you just share this with the world, you know, dilute what happened to you, maybe that will reduce the power this ghost has over you. You know, it's worth a shot. And so Zhu posted the photo to Facebook and it pretty much immediately went viral. Millions of people saw it. And this is what Zhu wanted. He wanted, you know, max dilution here, show it to everybody to reduce the chances that this, you know, entity can hurt him. But after all these people saw it, lots of people were spooked and they began messaging Zhu, not like, don't worry, it's diluted now. But instead they were like, hey, man, you're in trouble. You know, this thing's going to come after you. You need to seek real help here. You're in danger. And so this ended up freaking out Zhu more than the photo did in some way. It just made the whole situation feel far more real. And so Zhu ended up deleting the photo on Facebook, setting his Facebook to private and basically staying off social media. And so Zhu ended up deleting the and then he just kind of hoped and prayed that if he did nothing and just stayed home and kind of minded his own business, that he'd be okay. And after a few days when nothing did happen, ultimately he just told himself, I'm okay. There's no ghosts here. I'm fine. But exactly one week after Zhu had got off the bus, so September 11th, 2017, Zhu is in his house. He's laying on the couch, you know, not really thinking about what had happened on the bus. And as he's scrolling social media, he comes across this headline about this horrible accident out on the highway, not far from where he lived. And it was this one vehicle that got into this huge wreck and six people were killed and 11 others were injured. I mean, it's this horrible, horrible accident. And as Zhu is like reading the article and scrolling down, he comes across a photo of the driver of this vehicle who's covered head to toe in blood. He looks totally haggard. He's standing out on this dark highway and Zhu realizes the driver of the vehicle was the bus driver from when he had that horrible experience on the bus. It's the same guy. And so Zhu's like, oh my gosh, what's going on? And he's like, oh my gosh, what's going on? Here he scrolls down and he realizes the vehicle that crashed was the exact same bus he had been riding in when all this stuff happened. It was the same bus driver, same bus on the exact same route that this accident happened. And so obviously this is like a horrifying coincidence. Zhu very likely was thinking, I'm so lucky this didn't happen when I was on the bus. But when you take into context what Zhu experienced on that bus just a week earlier, the photo, you know, the sounds, all of it, this story gets even weirder. Because the official story is the driver was negligent and that's what caused the crash. That's it. And he actually went to jail for negligence. But there's video footage taken from inside of the bus right before it crashed. And in the final 30 seconds, something strange happens. The driver does not seem distracted at all. He's just driving along. But then something catches his attention, something off to his side. And you can tell right away he notices whatever this thing is. And he's looking at this thing. He's not really paying attention to the road. And he starts reaching down. I mean, he's interacting. With something in the bus and you can't see it on camera. And as he gets more and more into dealing with whatever's happening over here, the bus crashes. Now, the driver never gave any public testimony about what was going on right before he crashed. All we have is the fact that it crashed and this video footage and Zhu's experience and that photo he took. And when you put it all together, it really makes you wonder if there was any truth to there really being some evil spirit on that bus that maybe did cause this crash. Or is it just a coincidence? Just a series of unexplainable coincidences. You be the judge. 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 and editing. Writing is Evan Allen. Produced by Jeremy Bone and Cole Locasio. This episode was written by Kate Murdoch. Research and fact-checking by Shelley Hsu, Samantha Van Hoose, Evan Beamer, Abigail Shumway, Camille Callahan, Alex Paul, Ben Faciano. Research and fact-checking supervision by Stephen Ear. Audio editing and post-produced by Whit Locasio and Jordan Stidham. Production support by Antonio Minata and Delaina Corley. Artwork by Jessica Clogston-Kiner. Theme song, Something Wicked by Ross Bugden. Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin Podcast. And just a reminder, every new and exclusive episode we put out on the Mr. Ballin Podcast, you can also now watch on the Mr. Ballin YouTube channel that very same day. And trust me, some of these stories you truly have to see to believe. Again, my YouTube channel is just called Mr. Ballin. If you want to listen to episodes one week early and ad-free, you can subscribe to SiriusXM Podcast Plus on Apple Podcasts or visit SiriusXM.com slash podcast plus to listen with Spotify or another app of your choice. So that's going to do it. I really appreciate your support. Until next time, see ya.