Whiteout | Campfire Stories with MrBallen

Tonight's episode is brought to you by Crystal Lake on Peacock. All right, welcome back to the campfire. Tonight, I'm going to share just a crazy story that comes to us from China, and it's about a series of events that were so bizarre and terrifying that, according to legend, the Chinese military actually attempted to cover it up. But before we get into tonight's story, 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 two, three, even four times every week. So, if that's of interest to you, go ahead and invite the follow button to come camping with you. And then once they've fallen fast asleep, go ahead and take them and their air mattress and send them adrift out on the lake, and then pack up your stuff and leave. 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 story. Early one morning in January of 1980, this young soldier, whose name was Zhang, was standing guard at a remote international airport, at an international border crossing in Xianjiang, which is a region in northwestern China. Zhang, he was there with his friend and, you know, fellow soldier, a guy by the name of Wang. And really, both of them had been dealt like the short end of the stick, because it was just horrific outside. I mean, it was like negative 58 degrees out, just snow everywhere, and this border crossing was basically like in the middle of nowhere. It was like these huge arches that just kind of were in the middle of this road, middle of nowhere, and it's just like snow and mountains. And the only structure nearby is just this little guard shack where their commander was, a guy named Chen. And he was there with a couple other soldiers as well. But it's like they're basically out here by themselves. And normally, there'd be, you know, a fair amount of traffic coming through this crossing. But because of how severe the weather was, just how awful and brutal it was, there was nobody out here. In fact, in the area, it had been deemed an emergency. It was so cold. I mean, people could get hypothermia within literally five minutes of being outside. And so Zhang and Wang were like the only two soldiers who were stationed outdoors in this area at the time. So they have like this awful shift in front of them. But, you know, they're making the best of it. You know, they're good friends. And, you know, as they're standing there acting real tough, you know, like being military guys, they're like cracking jokes back and forth at each other, you know, doing their best to sort of get, you know, get the best of it. Through the shift. Now, they had on lots of warm protective gear, but it was still freezing for them. And, you know, periodically, there'd be these horrible gusts of wind and they'd have to like bundle up just to keep from like chattering their teeth. But they're making the best of it. And so over the course of several hours into the shift, you know, it's snowing. The visibility is not great. And the two of them had sort of fallen into a lull where they weren't really talking to each other. They had been. Now they weren't. They're just like sort of weathering the storm here. And, you know, they're like, Zhang, he's on one side of the road and Wang, he's not far away. He's like maybe five, ten feet away from him. Zhang, he's standing there and he hears laughter. And it's coming from where Wang was. And so he turns because he wants to know what his buddy's laughing at. He looks and he can sort of barely see Wang because it's snowing and, you know, the visibility is pretty poor. But he sees Wang is not looking like someone who just let out like a belly laugh. You know, he's like looking straight ahead. Doesn't appear to. To be, you know, finding anything particularly humorous. And so, you know, Zhang's looking at him like that's weird. I mean, there's nobody else out here save for their commander, Chen, who's indoors. He's not outside. And so Zhang just thinks that's weird. I probably just, you know, heard something. Or maybe it's way off in the distance or something. And so Zhang, he goes back to, you know, holding himself to stay warm and just waiting for the ship to end. But sure enough, just a couple of moments later, he hears the laughter again. And it's even louder. And it's coming again from where his buddy Wang was. And so he turns and he looks at Wang. And now he thinks his buddy's like screwing with him. You know, like Wang is pretending not to be the one laughing. And so he's looking over at Wang. And Wang again is just looking straight ahead, acting like he didn't do it. And Zhang's like, "Hey, are you laughing? Like, what are you laughing at? What are you doing?" And Wang, he looks over at Zhang and he's like, "What are you talking about? I wasn't laughing. What do you mean?" And at this point, Zhang, he's staring at his buddy like, "Not really sure if this is just a really good shtick he's doing. Like, are you playing this really elaborate joke on me or if he really wasn't laughing?" It's like this weird inflection point where now Zhang's feeling a little bit weird about this. Like, wait, who was laughing if it wasn't him? And so he's literally looking at his friend. They're staring at each other, and they're both like confused. And then there's more laughter. And it's coming from somewhere out in the distance, like behind Wang. Clearly not from Wang. Zhang is looking at Wang. He's not laughing. And he's hearing the laughter again. And this time, in addition to Zhang hearing the laughter, Wang heard the laughter as well. And they both look at each other like, "All right, what's that about? Like, who's out here? Like, we're alone. It's negative 60 degrees out here. Who in the world is out here right now?" And so they start scanning out like off the road. It's a barren wasteland in all directions and mountains off in the distance. Everything's covered in snow, and there's really nothing out there. Again, visibility is quite poor. But they don't see anyone out there. And they're thinking, you know, "Maybe it's our commander. Maybe he came out." But they're looking over at the commander's shack, and the lights are on. And they think they see somebody moving around inside. Like, it's got to be him. And they're like, "Man, this is so weird." And the laughter periodically is going on and on off in the distance. Like, they're still hearing it. And they're like, "Do you want to go see what it is? Like, this is so weird. We got to go see who's laughing." And so Wang and Zhang, they know. You know, it's a big deal if they abandon their post. Even, you know, for a few minutes to go look for this laughter. If they're caught abandoning their post, like, that's a big deal. And they knew their commander, Chen, he was sort of a no-nonsense guy. And if he came out here and they were not here, they would genuinely get in a lot of trouble. And so they're like, "What's going on?" And they're like, "What's going on?" And they're like, "What's going on?" if they're caught abandoning their post like that's a big deal and they knew their commander Chen he was sort of a no-nonsense guy and if he came out here and they were not here they would genuinely get in a lot of trouble but like they're still hearing this laughter coming from off in the distance somewhere and they just couldn't resist they they had to go see what it was and so they're like all right look we're gonna we're gonna step away we're gonna go see what it is we'll only be gone a couple of minutes Chen won't even find out like we'll be fine and so the two friends they they leave the road and they start walking off like into the field, into the snowy field. And the laughter is like off in the distance and it's, it's like high pitched. They can't really tell if it's a man or a woman or somebody old or young. And they're just walking off like in the direction of this laughter. When they hear someone call out to them from right behind them and they whip around and their commander Chen is standing where they just had been, like where they had just abandoned their post. And he's looking at them like, what are you doing? Like you can't abandon your post like get back over here and so wong and zhang they're like oh my goodness we already got caught are you kidding me like they knew they were in lots of trouble now they come over and quickly zhang is like oh commander chen like we heard somebody out here there's a laughter we just wanted to see who it was like maybe it was a threat to the border crossing we just wanted to check we were only going to be gone for a second and commander chen he's looking at them and he's like yeah actually the reason i came out here is i heard laughing too and i thought it was you guys i wanted to know what you were doing and wong and zhong they look at each other and they're like no it wasn't us that's what we were going to go look for to see who was laughing and so for a moment all three of the men are looking at each other like is this weird or is this normal are we making a big big deal out of something or is this sort of like innocuous and they're all kind of sizing each other up like how are we going to react to this and at some point the commander chen he's like you know what just forget the laughter you two just just take your posts do your job like just ride out the shift okay it's probably nothing just just forget about it and so zhong and wong i mean they truthfully didn't know what to make of it and so they're like all right they take up their posts and commander chen he turns and he walks back into the command post pretty much right after this zhong and wong they're standing there and they feel bad they were just caught you know they're trying to like do their job but both of them are looking at each other like man like this is so weird like what was that but before they can strike up any sort of additional conversation around that laughter the storm which had been you know going on all around them this whole time it really picked up like all of a sudden it's pretty much like whiteout conditions it is full bore just like blizzard snow is everywhere i mean snow's going sideways up and down they can't even see more than a foot away from each other they can't see each other they can't see the command post like nothing it is just full white void in all directions and it was so sudden and so complete that zhong like for a minute he didn't even know what to do he just like stood there and figured if i try to walk anywhere to try to like you know take shelter i'm gonna get lost along the way and so we just decided to like kind of shelter in place just kind of hunker down and wait for this, this particular wave of snow to pass over them. And so he's, he's waiting for the snow and it's just like whipping and it's just constant. And then through the snow, but screams like loud. like agonizing screams coming from where wong presumably was standing he can't see him but he hears these screams and instinctively zhong's like oh my goodness what's happened to my my partner like maybe he's been knocked over and like hit his head or something by the storm like he doesn't know and so zhong he begins trying to to fumble his way over to make sure wong is okay at the same time commander chen he's back inside the command post he was in there when the the huge whiteout conditions rolled into the area and he's looking out the window and he can see you know the blizzard has gone completely crazy outside and as much as he he had just chastised you know wong and zhong he knew they were out there and he knew the conditions were already bad and now it's like way worse and he's in charge you know and he knows that hypothermia is a big problem out in these conditions and he's like oh my god i'm gonna die i'm gonna die i'm gonna die and he's like oh my god i'm gonna die and he's like oh my god i'm gonna die and now it's like really bad out there so he's like man something tells me i gotta go out there and make sure these guys are okay and so while the storm is raging outside commander chen leaves the command post and basically begins fumbling his way through the the whiteout in the direction of the arches of where the the two men had been posted up wong and zhong and he's making his way over and finally he actually reaches the archway and he kind of holds on to it to kind of anchor himself there for a second and he realizes like he can't begin to go around and look for these guys it's just the conditions were too bad and so from this position he's just yelling out for his men like wong zhong are you guys okay but i mean like his voice is being drowned out by the the blizzard but shortly after he got to the archway and he's like holding on for dear life the storm didn't stop but the true whiteout conditions did sort of thin out and suddenly there was decent visibility i mean it he could now see farther than a foot away from his face and so at this point commander chen he walked around the the big archway to the area where wong and zhong should be standing so he goes around and he's calling out for them but again the wind is still whipping through the area there's no response and he comes around and he looks out in front of of this command post basically it's a road that stretches out beyond the the archway and there's just like nothing as it's been and there's nothing there i mean the men are gone i mean it's entirely possible they could have gotten lost in the storm he's thinking they could have wandered off or something and so he's not fully panicked yet but as he's like looking around for signs of these guys as like the visibility as well as getting a little bit better and a little bit better suddenly he notices something on the ground in the vicinity of where these guys were and he walks over and he sees it's blood and it's a lot of blood like there's a considerable amount of blood but there have been so much snow that there must have been blood that lands in the snow and then more snow piled up on top of it and so it's like there's blood here this couldn't have been here before that's not good it's got to be connected to wong and zhong and then as he's sort of kicking around where the the blood was in the snow he starts to see other things in the snow he sees military equipment he sees weaponry he sees all of the stuff that belonged to wong and zhong including their uniforms everything it's like these men have been stripped completely but the men are gone and so chen like he has no idea what could have possibly happened to these guys and so as he's standing there like not even sure how to react to the enormity of this situation he began to feel like weak in his legs like he suddenly couldn't stand and then like his vision got blurry and before he knew it he was falling to the ground couldn't get up and then he closed his eyes and he passed out i can think of no better setting than by a campfire to tell you about this one you guys all seem to really enjoy the stories we tell about you know what could be lurking in the woods or or in the most unsuspecting places well if that's your jam this show delivers linda cardellini stars as pamela vorhees in this chilling prequel to friday the 13th dark secrets from pamela vorhees past emerge just as bodies begin appearing across the quiet town of crystal lake this eight episode series is a 1970s era psychological thriller where nobody in town knows who to trust or what horror awaits them add in reports of a strange figure lurking out in the woods and trust me you're going to want to find out what pamela is hiding you don't want to miss this from a24 and an executive producer of it welcome to dairy comes a terrifying peacock original series stream every episode of crystal lake now only on peacock the next thing commander chen knew he woke up in a hospital had no idea how he got there didn't know what hospital he was at he just opened his eyes and he's he's in a bed now and he's looking around and standing at the foot of the bed is this military police officer wearing you know a military police uniform and chen didn't know who he was but could just immediately tell this is an authority figure and then before chen could could ask any questions this guy he begins telling commander chen what happened he tells chen that he passed out that he was becoming hypothermic out in the snow and he passed out and had it not been for a fellow soldier who happened to come out of that command post and see him in the snow that almost certainly chen would have died and so this this guy his name is lee the other soldier he saved your life and so chen would have died and so this this guy his name is lee the other soldier chen like he really is just completely flabbergasted by this whole thing he's he's only really thinking about wong and zhong and the blood and the equipment like he knows clearly something happened to him but he's okay now and he's just like where are wong and zhong and the military police officer as soon as those names were mentioned he had this like story that immediately came out he was like oh wong and zhong they're fine they're completely fine in fact they left the military by choice they're not in the military they're not in the military they're not in the military anymore but they're fine and chen's like no that's not possible i i they disappeared there was there was blood that their equipment was everywhere i have no idea what happened to them they did not they can't be fine but this military police officer he just looked at chen and he said no they're fine they left the military by choice and then the military police officer with without waiting for any more questions from chen just turned around and he said no they're fine they and left and so chen's looking around thinking like what's going on here like am i imagining things did i not just see and experience what happened out there by the the border crossing like did i not see the blood and like what's happening here and so chen over the course of that day would get treated and he would ultimately get discharged from the hospital he passed out from hypothermia that was true but he didn't have any long-term injuries or anything like that and so despite you know peppering anyone he could you know with questions about wong and zhong nobody gave him any information either they they didn't know what happened to them or they would repeat that same kind of similar story about how oh they're fine they they left the military by choice and so by the end of the day he's got no new information and he's been discharged and he was actually sent right back to the command post at the the border crossing and so it's like he's back in the same place where this has all happened and of course the first thing he did is he went out to the the area where wong and zhong had been to see if there's a sign of like what happened to them but no all their equipment the blood all that stuff it was all gone new you know border patrol guards had been stationed there and chen he asked the guards and he asked those that were inside the shack he asked them all like hey certainly you've heard about what happened to the two guys that were here like yesterday wong and zhong certainly you know something you're here now someone must have said something and everybody there just said oh yeah they're fine they're fine they left the military by choice nothing nothing happened to them and chen again he's thinking like am I losing my mind like is this from from being hypothermic did I did I hallucinate this because I I passed out from hypothermia you know maybe I hallucinated before I passed out maybe that's what this is and so he's like not really sure if his memory is accurate or not maybe he's the crazy one but he he just has this feeling that it was it was so real what he saw and still where are wong and zhong no one can tell him even if they've left by choice where are they no one seemed to know and so over the course of the next several days Chen was like in this just bizarro state where he's like what's going on he just couldn't make sense of it but then after a couple of days of being back at his command post Lee the guy who actually saved Chen who found him passed out from hypothermia up on the road who then brought him to the hospital he arrived at the command post and you know obviously Chen one thanked him for saving his life but two he's like Lee come with me I gotta talk to you and Lee was his subordinate so Lee came with him and they go off to this other room and Chen's like Lee you gotta tell me like you went up there you found me you had to have seen the blood the equipment like you had to have seen something there's no way you didn't and for the first time after asking this question Chen seemed to get a reaction from someone that was different Lee did not appear like a guy who was about to do the old, oh, they're fine. They left the military by choice routine. Instead, as Chen is asking him this question and sort of pleading with, with Li to, to just give him any information he's got, Li, he started acting really nervous. Like his eyes got wide and he's, he's like looking around trying to make sure nobody's listening to them. And finally, when Chen's like waiting for an answer, Li, he's, he's looking at Chen and he's like, Wang and Zhang, they, they left the military by choice. They're fine. And then Li promptly turned and he left. And Chen's like, you've got to be kidding me. Like he was going to tell me something, something's going on here. Somebody's lying. But despite Chen chasing down Li and doing his best to try to get something out of him and continuing to ask as many questions as he could, nobody would give up a different story. There was just this thread amongst everyone he asked that just basically said, they're fine. They left the military by choice. Stop asking questions. And eventually Chen did. In fact, within a couple of weeks, he actually, he did leave the military by choice. He, he did get out of the military. And for the most part, Chen just sort of vanishes from the story. But Li, Li did lie to Chen. When Chen approached him and asked him to give him information about what he saw, the reason he was acting that way before he ultimately gave the same old line is he was about to reveal the truth. He had seen blood. He had, seen their equipment. He did know something horrible had happened here. But after bringing Chen into the hospital, he was approached by very senior people in the military. And they basically told him, you can't tell anyone about what you saw. And it's unclear what exactly they threatened him with, but they made some sort of threat to him that apparently worked because Li was terrified. Like he knew what he saw. It was the same stuff that Chen had claimed, but he, he didn't want to give it up. However, when, when Chen had approached him, he could just tell that Chen was tortured by what he had seen. And Li just felt so bad about lying about it. I mean, it was weighing on Li. He, he, he didn't even know what happened to Wang and Zhang. He had just seen the blood and the chaos and the, the equipment and, and really just the fact that people are clearly trying to cover it up was terrifying in and of itself. And so it's really on Li's mind as he continues to do his job at this outpost. He continues to, you know, be a soldier at this command post, but it's on his mind that something was covered up. I know it was bad. And I just feel bad that I'm sort of playing a role in the coverup. And so fast forward to February of 1980, a little more than a month after, you know, Zhang and Wang left the military by choice or whatever happened to them. It's about a month after that. And Li, he's, he's at the same outpost and the weather had just continued to be awful in this, this part of China, like just constant blizzards and storms. Not really, but it was just, it was just, it was just, it was just really whiteout conditions, but there was a lot of snow on the ground. And by this point in February, the roads that led to this outpost had really been completely covered over with snow. Like there just wasn't a good way to get vehicles in and out of here. So in some ways, like the border crossing was just utterly defunct because nobody could get here. But more than that, for the people who were stationed at this outpost, it also meant that supplies really couldn't come to the outpost. And so it was like whatever they had in their storage room was sort of what they had until the weather got better. But here they were in February and the weather was not improving and their, their supply stores were getting very low. And so the commander of the post, he ultimately tapped Li and a few other soldiers who were there to make the journey several miles, basically across the snow fields that were just outside of the, the command post to this neighboring village and basically go there, buy supplies, like walk there in your snowshoes, buy supplies, and then walk them back, basically lug all the supplies back. Like this was going to be a pretty awful expedition. It was going to be very physically taxing, but you know, somebody had to do it. And for Li, he didn't really mind being tapped or voluntold, as they say in the military, to, to go do something like this. But for him, I mean, he, he not only is, is thinking constantly about what happened to Wong and Zhang and this, this coverup, he's also scared, like that there's something out there that, that attacked Wong and Zhang. Like that's also on his mind. And to this point, since the events that transpired around Wong and Zhang had happened, Li had not left the, the outpost. He hadn't had to venture out into the wild. Like this is the first time he's going to have to go out there. And so he was really scared, but he's been ordered to do it. And so before long, that same day, he's strapping on his snowshoes and he's heading out on this expedition to, to go get supplies with these other soldiers. And so off they go hiking into the wilderness, which again, just picture like just a flat, open terrain, just everything covered in snow, like at least a foot or so of snow is on the ground. They're trudging their way with snowshoes off in the distance or mountains. And it's pretty much constantly snowing a little bit, pretty much all the time. And they're walking along. And for, for miles, they're just walking sort of generally towards this area that they know there's, there's, there's a village. And they haven't really seen or heard anything. Like it's just been pretty smooth sailing, you know, difficult, but they're making their way. And at some point, all of them, not just Li, begin to hear like this wailing sound. And Li would later say that it, it reminded him of when he was near a farm where the farmers were butchering animals one after the other, like the wailing sounds that came from the animals when they were being killed. That was the sound he was hearing sort of off in the distance, like one way or the other. And so he's like, one by one, he'd hear these like squeals coming from somewhere near the foot of the mountains, which actually happened to be sort of where this village was. And it was very unsettling, but you know, Li, he actually told himself, well, they have to be butchering animals. That's, that's what it's gotta be. And then at some point, in addition to these, these, these wailing sounds coming from, again, presumably this village, laughter began to fill the air. Like somebody was laughing off in the distance. And at the same time, the storm really began to pick up. And so Li and the others, they're like, I don't know what's going on out here. Like this is, this is creepy. Li is genuinely terrified because he thinks, you know, everything is a sign that like the boogeyman is going to come get them now. And he sort of has good reason to believe that considering what he witnessed back at the border crossing with Wong and Zhang. But the, the men, they start really hightailing it, going as fast as they can to just get to the village, one, to get the supplies. But two, given how quickly the storm is building around them, they want to take shelter. In this village. And so off they go, they're like running in their snowshoes and they finally get to the outskirts of this village, which, you know, it's a pretty well populated village, but it's, it's very isolated. It's, you know, tucked away at the foot of this mountain. You know, these people don't really leave the village much. This is like a sort of isolated area and they get there and you know, there's a storm outside. They're not really expecting to see lots of people outdoors, but when they get there, you know, in addition to the snow really picking up the things that they notice is, is the town's like a ghost town. Like nobody's there. And it's like, you know, sort of the middle of the day, they should at least be able to look in windows and see people moving around and see shop owners and that type of thing. But there's nobody there. And so they start snowshoeing their way down like the main street that ran through the town that had shops on either side. And they're looking from side to side and there's no one, like there's no sign of life, nothing. And somewhere like off in the distance, up in the mountains and like sort of everywhere around them, they're hearing that laughter. Now, the laughter is just kind of echoing off the mountains. It's like really creepy and Lee, like he's really scared and they're walking along and they start to notice that in addition to this place just being deserted, there's like this weird snow that seems to be all over everything. Like obviously there's snow on everything, but the snow that they were seeing on a lot of the storefronts and sort of all over the place, it almost looked like string. It was definitely snow, it was snow, but it had the makeup of string, like as if a spider web of snow had been sort of cast over this entire, this entire village. And as they're walking deeper into the center of this village, the laughter is getting louder and the spider webs, the strings of snow are getting thicker all over everything. It's like this totally surreal scene. And Lee found himself really fixated on this bizarro string snow to the point where he's like staring at all the snow and barely looking at where he's going. And then at some point when they're just about at the center of this village, Lee's looking over here at the storefronts and one of the men he was with, they just stop, they're looking straight ahead and they just start screaming. Lee turns and he can't believe what he sees. What Lee saw is like a bloodbath in the center of this village. There was just like blood all over the ground, all over the snow, like all these plots of blood where someone or something had bled out, like right there in the snow. But then, you know, whatever had bled was now gone. It was like puddles of blood in the snow. And you can imagine the contrast of the red on the white. And then also there were, there were animal skeletons, like cow skeletons, like picked down to the bone, like no meat on them, but they clearly had recently had meat on them. Like these are not old skeletons. There's like fresh meat dangling off of their, you know, human bodies, but there's just like blood, there's clothes, there's these skeletons and it's everywhere in the center of this village. It was like the whole village was rounded up to the middle and systematically wiped off the face of the earth, similar to what Chen and Li believe happened to Wong and Zhang. And so Li and the others, they see this horrific scene in the center of this weird, you know, spider snow covered town in the middle of nowhere. And they're totally terrified. They turn and they run out and they run all the way back through the blizzard, all the way back to their command post. And when they get there, they tell higher ups what they saw. Like, the reason we don't have supplies is because of all this horrible stuff we just saw. And quickly, authority figures descended on this command post and Li and the others were sworn to secrecy. At least that is their testimony, that they were told, you can't talk about this. Just like how Li had been told before, you can't talk about Wong and Zhang, but you can't talk about what you just saw up in that village. Now, for some amount of time, Li may have, you know, continued to be quiet about whatever happened, but eventually he began to talk. And the story, this incredible story of what he saw with Wong and Zhang when he, when he collected Chen after he had passed out from the hypothermia and what he saw in the village, those details, it spread like wildfire across the ranks of the military. And then it extended beyond that to the civilian populace in China. Like this was a big deal. And people began to call it the white hair wind. That was sort of the catch-all name that was given to whatever this was, whatever happened. Some people thought it was like, you know, a monster that lived up in the mountains. Other people thought it was just like, you know, people hallucinating. There was a whole bunch of theories. But what we do know is that people really did go missing. Soldiers, Wong and Zhang, and those villagers, like they went missing. Potentially hundreds of villagers just, just gone. And even though there were like talking points about what happened to them, like, you know, Wong and Zhang, they left the military by choice. Apparently that was the line. And then, you know, there was a host of stories around, you know, what happened to the villagers. But the truth is, is no one really knew what happened to those people. And the Chinese government apparently went to great lengths to cover it all up. They kept demanding that the white hair wind was nothing more than a strange weather phenomenon. A quick note about our stories. They are all based on true events, but we sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people involved, and some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes. The Mr. Ballin Podcast: Strange, Dark, and Mysterious Stories is hosted and executive produced by me, Mr. Ballin. Our head of writing is Evan Allen, produced by Jeremy Bone and Cole Lacascio. This episode was written by Kate Murdock. Research and fact checking by Shelly Hsu, Samantha Van Hoose, Evan Beemer, Abigail Shumway, Camille Callahan, and Alvin Hanes. The episodes are 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 is produced by Alex Paul, Ben Faciano. Research and fact checking supervision by Steve Anear. Audio editing and post produced by Whit Lacascio and Jordan Stidham. Production support by Antonio Minata and Delaina Corley. Artwork by Jessica Clogsden-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, see you next time. Bye. 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. Trust me, some of these episodes we put out on the Mr. Ballin Podcast. Bye.