The Creature
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Hey, Prime members, you can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Today's podcast will feature three horror stories about people's run-ins with unidentified beings. The audio from all three of these stories has been pulled from our main YouTube channel and has been remastered for today's episode. The links to the original YouTube videos are in the description.

The first story you'll hear is called Saran Wrap, and it's about a well-documented paranormal event in the forest. The second story you'll hear is called Hellhound, and it's about a beast that terrorizes a small African village. And the third and final story you'll hear is called The Swamp Stalker, and it's about two brothers who encounter a creature in Arkansas.

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 twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday. So if that's of interest to you, please take the Amazon Music Follow button out to pet some furry cute animals at the zoo, but instead of taking them to the zoo, take them to pet a pack of wild hungry hyenas and stack their pockets full of hot dogs. Okay, let's get into our first story called Saran Wrap.

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In 2010, Jan Maccabee was living with her husband Bruce in a town called Lima, Ohio, which is approximately 80 miles southwest of Lake Erie. While Jan had built a successful career as a booking agent for musicians, bands and entertainers, her real passion was deer hunting. So on September 29th of that year, right after deer hunting season had opened in Ohio, Jan decided to go out on a hunt.

That morning had been cold and damp and gray, but by that afternoon, when Jan was getting ready to go, the temperatures had risen and the sun had come out. Jan's preferred method of hunting was to sit and watch from a tree stand, which is a ladder that you put in the woods that sits about 15 feet high. She would sit up there with her bow and arrow and wait to take a shot when a deer came by. Around 5 p.m. that day, she told Bruce she was leaving and she made it to her tree stand by about 5.30 p.m.

The forest she was going to be hunting in was one she was very familiar with and it was not very remote. There were a couple houses just outside the woods, there were some agricultural areas, and her nephew actually went to high school just a mile north of these woods. But from the tree stand where she was sitting, all she could see around her was trees. Shortly after Jan sat down, she started texting with one of her friends on her Blackberry. And periodically she'd poke her head up and look for deer. There weren't any, and then she'd go back to texting.

The whole time this is happening, Jan can hear birds and crickets and squirrels and all the sounds of the forest all around her. A little after 6:00 PM, her texting conversation with her friend reached a natural conclusion. And so she went back to just kind of sitting in the tree stand, looking around. By about 6:20 PM, she still hadn't seen any deer and she was starting to get bored. So she decided she would take a selfie. She picked up her Blackberry, she took the selfie, and as soon as she was done, she became aware that the forest had suddenly gone completely quiet.

No more squirrels, no more birds, no more crickets, just complete silence. And she knew as a hunter the only time this happened was when a large predator was in the area and all the other animals went quiet. But Jan would later say there was just something different about this silence. It was so sudden and so complete that it scared her. And she wound up sending another text message to that friend she'd been texting earlier that said the woods just went completely silent. Very odd.

As soon as Jan hit send on that text message and lowered her phone, she immediately became aware of something about 20 feet away in the tree that was right across from her. And she said it was the most unusual and terrifying thing she had ever seen. Moving left to right through the branches was this thing that she described as like a visual distortion.

She said it was like looking across pavement on a really hot day and seeing that mirage, except this one looked like it was alive, like it had mass, like it was a see-through person that had been wrapped in saran wrap. And so Jan thinks it's a floater in her eyes, and so she rubs her eyes, and when she looks up, this thing has now moved down a branch closer to her and has stopped, like it's perched on the branch, staring at her.

And Jan's horrified, but she knows she wants to document it, so she grabs her phone and she raises it up and she takes a picture on her Blackberry right as this thing kind of disappears behind the tree and vanishes. Just seconds after this thing disappeared, all the sounds in the forest came back.

the birds, the squirrels, the crickets, it was all back to normal, but Jan was really shaken up because she just could not make sense of what she just saw. So she just continued to stare in the general direction of where this thing was for several minutes until finally she felt like it was safe again, at which point she brought her phone up to look at the picture she had taken.

when she looked at it, it looked like a blurry mess. And so she thought, "Oh, I blew it. I put my hand over it or my hair got in the way of it or something." But at the same time, she's thinking to herself, "But my hair didn't get in the way of it." And I very clearly held it out in front of me and know that I was looking at my phone when I took it and I had a clear shot of this thing. So I don't really understand how this photo got so messed up.

But after looking at the picture for a little while, she started to kind of laugh at herself. You know, the idea that she'd just seen a saran wrap person running through the treetops. You know, she just felt like that didn't happen. It must have been in my head. And as for this picture, I probably just blocked the lens and that's it.

That night when Jan got back to her house, she did not tell her husband Bruce about what happened to her in the tree stand because, again, she's telling herself it was all in her head. They have dinner, they clean up, they sit down in the living room, and they're both on their phones and they're just kind of scrolling through the internet and their emails. And at some point, Bruce reacts to something he's reading. He makes a sound.

And Jan hears him and says, oh, what are you looking at? And he said, you know, I just got a really interesting email from our nephew, you know, the one that goes to school down the road. He said that today they were outside for band practice. And at some point, all of them turned to look at the forest. And there was a bright circular light that was kind of hovering in the forest. And I guess they all stared at it for about five or 10 seconds. And then at some point, the light kind of went back into the forest and they didn't know what to make of it.

And I guess one of his classmates said that a year before the exact same thing happened and it apparently scared their instructor so badly that they canceled rehearsal and went inside because of it. As Jan is listening to her husband read this email, she's sitting up and her heart is racing and as soon as he finishes, she says, "What time did he say that happened?" Bruce picked up how intensely she was asking him and so he looked at the email, looked back at his wife and was like, "It was between 7:50 and 8:00. Why?"

At this point, Jan revealed everything that had happened to her while she was hunting, you know, seeing that visual distortion in the trees that looked like a figure of some kind. And she would tell him that the forest she was in was the same one their nephew was claiming to have seen this circular light floating inside of. She told him she tried to take a picture of the thing she saw, but the picture didn't come out. But her husband, who is an optical physicist and therefore an expert at analyzing a picture, said, here, let me take a look at it.

As soon as he looked at the image, the first thing he asked her was, "Well, did your hair get in front of the lens?" And she said, "No, I was holding it about a foot away from my head and my hair was in a ponytail and a ball cap, so that can't be my hair."

And so he looked at it again and he asked her, "Well, did you put your finger over the lens maybe?" And she said, "Yeah, I might have. I don't think I did, but it's certainly possible." And so not really thinking much of this picture, he decides before giving the phone back to just check the resolution of the image because whenever he would examine a picture, that was something he would do. And he discovered an anomaly.

It turns out Jan's Blackberry was only capable of taking pictures in three distinct resolutions. Basically, the size of the image could only come in small, medium, or large. And this picture she had taken of this thing she saw in the trees was a resolution size that was not small, medium, or large. It was some random size that the phone was actually not capable of producing.

And so he asked his wife, like, "Did you manipulate your resolution settings?" And she said, "No, I don't even know how to do that." So Bruce looked at the other couple of pictures she had taken that day and all of those fell into the small, medium, or large resolution size. It was just this one picture that was a total anomaly.

And so Bruce was suddenly really intrigued by this image and by his wife's story. And so he continued to study the image and he kept asking his wife questions about, you know, how she was positioned in the tree stand and where the sun was and how far away this thing was and everything about the whole layout. And eventually Bruce started conducting experiments to see if he could duplicate this image his wife had created. And he got pretty scientific about it and he could not duplicate it.

Ultimately, because Bruce trusts his wife did not alter the photo in any way, and he trusts his wife as being truthful about what she experienced in the tree stand, you know, what she saw, and based on his years of being an optical physicist, Bruce believes whatever was in the trees distorted this image.

that even if she had put her finger over the lens, which he doesn't think she did, and she doesn't think she did, the picture resolution was altered in such a way that something had to have an effect on it. There was a third-party effect on this picture. Everything is incredibly expensive nowadays, and it doesn't seem like it's going to be getting any better anytime soon. So at a time like this, the last thing I want is credit card debt. Enter the Chime Credit Builder card. This

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We know when it comes to finding balance, the more choices, the better. Our next story is called Hellhound. On the evening of August 1st, 2015, a 20-year-old man named Fraser Beloyi walked alone down a main road toward his village in the South African province of Limpopo. Fraser was on his way home from work, and he was pretty desperate to get there.

It was only about 7.30pm, and usually around this time, Fraser was used to seeing other people out and about on this road, just kind of walking around in the dusk, or chatting, or doing various errands, but tonight there was nobody out there. And in fact, in recent days, this area of Limpopo had basically become a ghost town. Nobody went out unless they absolutely had to, because over the last 10 days, over 20 people in this area had been brutally mauled.

The victims had all insisted that the creature that had mauled them was some kind of four-legged demon, and they had begun calling it the Beast. Now, Fraser considered himself a pretty level-headed person who did not necessarily buy into the hype around this beast. He figured it was very likely just a dog. But still, he didn't want to get attacked. And so as he walked down this vacant road, he periodically looked over his shoulder just to make sure no dog was following him.

As Fraser continued to walk along, he looked up and saw the huge forest fire that was raging on a mountain miles and miles off in the distance. A few days ago, the fire had started, and from Fraser's perspective, it still seemed to be going strong. In fact, in the darkness, it almost looked like the mountain was glowing red.

Just then, Frazer noticed the turnoff for the shortcut that would take him through some forest back to his home. And when he got there, he stopped and looked over his shoulder one more time to make sure he was still all alone, and he was. And then he stepped off the main road, into the woods, and into the darkness. Under the tree canopy, the night suddenly seemed a lot darker. Frazer did his best to think about the chores he needed to do for his mother once he got home instead of thinking about the beast.

But he'd only been on this path for about 300 feet when he suddenly heard a rustling from behind him. And so right away, Fraser stopped and turned around and looked where the noise was coming from. But all he saw was darkness. There was nothing there. And so Fraser, for a whole minute, just stood there staring out into the tree line, waiting for something to move. But nothing did. And so Fraser told himself he was just being paranoid. Everything was fine.

Then he turned back around and kept on walking. But pretty quickly, his walk turned into a jog. And he was almost to the end of this path, almost out of the forest. He could see his village. It was right there. When he heard noises behind him again. Except now, in addition to the rustling sounds, he heard a new sound. It was like a wheezing sound, like a sick animal that was breathing heavily. Now, Frazer knew he was not just being paranoid. Something was out there, and it seemed like it might be following him.

Without slowing down, Frazer looked over his shoulder again to see what was out there, but again, he just saw nothing. It was just shadows. However, when he turned back around and kept on going towards his village, he heard this loud crashing sound behind him, like a massive animal had leapt out of the brush and landed on the path behind him.

And so, Frazer was immediately so scared he couldn't even turn around. He just started sprinting toward the village, and all he could hear behind him were these loud, pounding footsteps as whatever this was was gaining on him. And so, Frazer was so instantly terrified that instinctively, he just started sprinting off without even looking behind him. And so, as he's running, this thing's gaining on him, and again, he can hear this awful wheezing sound coming from whatever this is, as if there was something wrong with its lungs.

And in Frazer's panic, as he's sprinting through the forest, Frazer's telling himself, it's just got to be a rabid dog. That's why it's making those sounds. But he knew that didn't track. This thing is huge. This can't just be a rabid dog. And so Frazer just kept on running and running. And finally, he got out of the trees, back into his village. And at the exact same moment, the pounding footsteps behind him came to a stop.

But again, Frazer, he didn't turn around. He's too scared. He just ran for his door. His house was right there in front of him. And he gets to his door. He's about to open it up. And right as he does, he feels this searing pain in his neck. This creature, whatever it was, had leapt.

and grabbed onto him and bit down on the back of his neck. And so Frazer crumpled to the ground and threw his arms up over his head to protect himself. And with one eye he could see it's this massive black creature on top of him chewing on the lower half of his face. And so Frazer, he couldn't even feel any pain. He just began screaming for help and he tried to push it off of him, but he couldn't. And then a second later, a flash of metal came across his eye as he

as his mother and other villagers who had seen this happening and heard him screaming came out and began smashing whatever this was with shovels. And so a second later, Frazer's pulled away and dragged towards his house, and this huge black creature, it marched over to the edge of the tree line and just stopped, turned, and looked back at Frazer and his mother and the neighbors. And Frazer, as he's sitting there in total shock, he can tell that whatever this thing is, this enormous dog-like creature,

This had to be the beast. That's what just attacked him. And in this moment, Fraser realized, you know, this creature may have the shape of a dog, but it was not a dog.

South Africa has its share of wild dogs, jackals, and hyenas, and typically they're multicolored and fairly small. And this thing was jet black, pitch black, and gigantic. And when this thing first started chasing Fraser, he'd had that panicked thought that maybe it was a rabid dog.

But rabbit animals are typically lethargic and confused, and this thing that was 15 feet away from them was absolutely alert and calm. The only thing sick about it was that horrible wheezing sound it would make as it breathed.

And as Fraser and his mother and the neighbors just stood there staring at this thing, this creature just continued to stare back at them with piercing eyes. And its eyes were not normal. These were not like animal eyes or dog eyes. They were too small and set at the wrong angle. And there was real sentience behind them. They were human eyes.

Just then, Frazer's mother grabbed Frazer and yanked him, kind of jerking him back to reality, and he scrambled to his feet, and he and his mother and the two neighbors, they took off running back into their respective homes. All the while, this creature just sat there on the edge of the forest, staring still in the direction of Frazer and his home.

Once inside of Frazer's house, his mother immediately dialed the emergency number to tell the police about what had just happened. But the police told her they were not going to send people out there to deal with some dog. And so Frazer's mother decided she would just treat her son's wounds on her own until this dog-like creature had left. And then once it had, she would get him a ride to the hospital.

However, as Fraser and his mother stared out the window at this creature, it didn't leave. It just sat there staring back at Fraser and his mother with these hideous human eyes for hours and hours. Finally, in the morning, it was gone.

The attack on Frazer was the last straw for the people of his village. They believed the creature that had bit his face was the demon beast that had hurt so many other people. And so the elders of Frazer's village came up with a plan of how to deal with this beast. And so a few days after the attack on Frazer, this group of elders went off on a journey up into that mountain that Frazer had seen off in the distance that had that huge forest fire on it.

And they were there for two whole days before returning to the village and telling everyone that they had successfully performed a ritual that had appeased their ancestors. And so hopefully now the attacks would stop. And sure enough, they did. They did not see the beast again.

At least 40 people in Limpopo had encountered the beast at some point, either because they were attacked or they helped fend it off, like the neighbors did with Frazer. But because this beast was never caught and it did stop attacking the village and just kind of disappeared, nobody ever actually figured out what it was. To this day, people in Frazer's village maintain that this creature was a demon and that it came down from the Burning Mountain.

Because every person, including Fraser, who had encountered this beast, noted its wheezing heavy breathing, as if its lungs had been damaged by smoke. In all, at least 40 people in Limpopo encountered this beast, either because they were attacked or they helped fend it off. But because it was never caught, there is no definitive proof of what it actually was. Looking

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The next and final story of today's episode is called "The Swamp Stalker." Just after midnight on May 1st, 1971, a 20-year-old woman named Elizabeth Ford was sleeping on a couch in the front room of a small house near a city in Arkansas called Texarkana. Elizabeth and her husband Bobby were staying at the house with Bobby's brother and his wife, who owned the house. Bobby and his brother were still both awake, and Elizabeth could hear them talking in the kitchen quietly.

The house was surrounded by woods and swampland, and Elizabeth had opened up a window above the couch so a breeze was blowing in. Now, usually she slept really well with the sound of the woods in the background, but tonight she was tossing and turning. And this was because as she lay there trying to sleep, she became very aware of a unique sound coming from outside that was not the sound of, you know, the trees blowing in the wind or the insects buzzing. This was something else. It was a slow creaking sound.

And at first, it kind of sounded like it could be out in the woods somewhere. But eventually, Elizabeth realized this creaking sound was sort of moving back and forth, back and forth, right outside on the porch, below the open window. Suddenly, Elizabeth's eyes flew open and she looked at the window because this creaking sound had just intensified and then came to a stop on the immediate other side of this window. Like there was something heavy right outside.

Elizabeth sat up to face the window, but she didn't see anything outside through the screen. And so right away she felt totally relieved. You know, she didn't know what that sound was, but clearly there was nothing there. However, just to be certain, she decided she would go a little bit closer to the screen and actually look right up close to make sure there was nothing down below on the porch.

And so Elizabeth leaned forward and pressed her face to the screen and began to look. And as she did, this dark figure down below suddenly rose up and completely blocked out the window. And Elizabeth's looking at it, having no idea what it is. And before she could do anything, this huge thing slashed at the screen. And this big, reddish, furry, brown paw with razor-sharp claws cut through the screen and nearly cut Elizabeth's face.

Elizabeth screamed and practically fell over and this dark creature outside turned and bolted and disappeared. And then a moment later, Elizabeth's husband, Bobby, and his brother came running into the room asking what was going on. Elizabeth was so shocked at what she had just experienced that all she could say to her husband was, it's a bear, it's a bear.

Bobby helped Elizabeth off the couch and then told her and his brother's wife to stay in the house and away from the windows. And then Bobby and his brother got shotguns and flashlights and went outside.

Once outside, Bobby and his brother began scanning all around the porch area where Elizabeth had apparently seen this bear to see where it was. They held their flashlights out and they scanned the tree lines. They looked all over the place, all around the front of the property, but there was no sign of this animal. And so the brothers looked at each other and nodded, and then they both left the porch and went different directions, kind of looping around the back of the house. They were going to scan the entire property and meet up at the back.

And when they met up at the back, they still hadn't found this bear, and so they walked away from the house towards the tree line and did another big sweep together of the entire perimeter, again looking for any sign of this animal. But there was nothing.

And so after a while of circling the property, the brothers decided that, you know, this bear must have just run off. And so Bobby and his brother returned to the porch to figure out their next move. Both Bobby and his brother were hunters, and they knew that usually the best thing to do with the bears that roamed this area was to leave them alone. I mean, these bears could grow to be 500 pounds, and if they were provoked, they could run at 35 miles an hour. And so generally, you just stayed away from these things, and they'd leave you alone too.

However, as the brothers were sitting there talking through what had happened that night, they both said, you know, it definitely seemed like this bear was different. I mean, apparently it was aggressive enough to come right up to the house, unprovoked, and reach in and swipe at Elizabeth, which obviously was not normal bear behavior. And so, to Bobby and his brother, this meant that they really couldn't just leave this bear alone. They had to go out there and find it and kill it to protect themselves.

And so Bobby lit a cigarette to calm his nerves, and then the two brothers came up with a plan for how they were going to go find this bear. Bobby's brother would man the front of the house, and Bobby would man the back of the house. And they would stay in their respective positions monitoring the property until either they saw the bear and dealt with it, or until the sun came up, at which point they could go get help.

And so after agreeing to this plan, Bobby took one final drag on his cigarette, chucked it to the ground, and then with his shotgun in one hand and his flashlight in the other, he stepped off the porch and walked around to the back of the house and stared off into the darkness. Bobby had only been in the back of the house for a couple of minutes manning his post when he began to smell this horrible smell.

Now, at first he thought it was just some sort of wet, musky smell that came over from the swampland nearby. But as he continued to smell it, it got heavier and more pungent. It smelled like a wet, decaying animal. Bobby tensed up and aimed his flashlight up at the tree line and began looking back and forth trying to figure out where this horrible smell was coming from.

And as he was doing this, he suddenly heard the sound of tree branches snapping off to his left. And so he whipped his flashlight over and shined it. And he saw this big dark figure charging across the property away from him into the forest. Bobby instinctively raised his shotgun and fired. And then after shooting, a loud yelp echoed in the air. And then Bobby just took off running in the direction he had just fired and asked,

And as he's running across the yard, he's screaming for his brother who had already heard the shotgun blast. So he was coming around the house and the two men linked up. And as they're running in the direction of this bear, Bobby's telling his brother, I think I got it. I shot the bear. But they get over to where Bobby had last seen it and where he heard this yelp come from. And there was nothing. There was no bear.

Still, the brothers did feel a little relieved. They figured even if they couldn't find this thing, you know, clearly Bobby had hit it, he had heard the sound of it yelping out, and so maybe by at least wounding it, it would stay away and leave them alone.

Just then, the men heard the sound of their wives screaming from inside the house. The men immediately ran back to the house, and as they got closer, Bobby again began to smell that horrible smell. And right as Bobby's foot hit that first porch step, his brother from behind him screamed out, stop! But it was too late. The bear was on the porch. That's why the women were screaming. They had seen it. And Bobby's brother had seen it, but Bobby hadn't.

And now he was too close to it to get away. And before Bobby could raise his gun to protect himself, this thing attacked. And Bobby felt this horrible burning, tearing sensation in his arm. He fell to the ground, twisting wildly back and forth, trying to protect himself. He was pinned underneath this enormous bear, level with its chest, with its arms and legs on either side of him. And that horrible smell he was smelling was clearly coming from this animal. That's all he could smell from underneath.

But just then, it was like a miracle because to his side, Bobby could see there was an opening and so he rolled and somehow got out from underneath this enormous creature.

Bobby scrambled up to his feet and he darted past the bear and rammed into the closed front door of the house. It popped open, he fell inside, and his wife ran forward and shut the door behind him, leaving Bobby's brother outside on the porch alone with the bear. But before any of them could do anything about that, they heard the sound of his brother's shotgun going off. Then there was a long moment of silence. Inside the house, everybody was frozen.

A few seconds later, the door slowly opened and Bobby's brother walked inside. Everyone was too shocked to say anything, so for a second they all just stared at each other. And then finally, Bobby asked him, "Is the bear dead?" And Bobby's brother, with a trembling voice, said no. And that wasn't a bear. As soon as dawn broke and it was not dark outside anymore, Bobby's wife drove him to the hospital where they would treat him for shock and for the wound to his shoulder.

They had hoped to find it somewhere on the property, either dead or wounded, based on Bobby's brother's account of having fired at it basically point-blank. But the creature was gone. They did find its tracks, though. And this discovery made it clear that Bobby's brother was right. This wasn't a bear. Because in the dirt surrounding the house were all these bizarre footprints and handprints of a creature that seemed to walk on its hind legs with three toes on each,

and had three long sharp claws on its hands. And as unbelievable as this all seemed to the police, this actually tracked with what Bobby's brother said he saw when he was out on the porch. He said he saw a creature with reddish-brown hair all over it that stood over seven feet tall, and after being shot, it took off running on two legs, and it ran fast. But the most terrifying thing about it, at least according to Bobby's brother, was actually its eyes.

They were blazing red. And when the news of this attack spread to the nearest town, which was called Falk, the people there knew exactly what this creature was. For 200 years, people in that part of Arkansas had been talking about this huge creature that was sort of like a Sasquatch that roamed the forest and the swamps. They said it was fast and elusive, and it ate livestock and pets. They called it the Falk Monster, or sometimes the Boggy Creek Monster.

But Bobby Ford and his family's encounter with this creature was unlike any other story that had been told about the Falk Monster. While some people claimed in the past that this creature had attacked people, nobody had ever heard of it actually coming up to somebody's house trying to break in and terrorize a family. Bobby's ordeal would inspire the 1972 horror movie "The Legend of Boggy Creek."

Over the years, police officers and some scientists have suggested that maybe what Bobby and his brother encountered that night was actually a feral pig. However, authorities have never actually been able to pinpoint what this thing was. Nobody knows. And to this day, hikers and hunters near the swamps of southwest Arkansas and also across the border into east Texas still report run-ins with the legendary Falk Monster.

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.

Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin Podcast. If you enjoyed today's stories and you're looking for more bone-chilling content, be sure to check out all of our studios' podcasts. This podcast, the Mr. Ballin Podcast, and also Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, Bedtime Stories, Wartime Stories, Run Full, and Redacted. Just search for Ballin Studios wherever you get your podcasts to find all of these shows.

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