Today, I'm going to share three progressively more disturbing stories, and at the end of each of them, I will share the photo that is famously associated with that story. But before we get into those 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 once a week. So if that's of interest to you, please offer to give the like button acupuncture. But then after you put in all the needles in their back and you stick the moxa to the end of the needles and you light those, just 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 today's stories. Just after 6:00 PM on December 27th, 2015, a woman named Sara Robinson was getting ready inside of her on the seventh floor of a massive cruise ship. She and her boyfriend were going to dinner that night with Sara's parents in one of the restaurants on board the ship. And in fact, this entire trip, this whole vacation, was actually a big gift from Sara's parents to Sarah and her boyfriend.

And so far, the trip had been totally amazing. I mean, all four of them, Sarah, her boyfriend, and Sarah's parents, had got to go swimming and drink great drinks and have great food. And it was just like a total dream. But now, they only had one night left, tonight, and and they wanted to make the most of it. And their plan was to go to the big buffet that the ship offered and just totally indulge on the amazing food and just have some laughs, share stories. And then the next day, they'd wake up in the Florida port that they left from, and the trip would be over. But for now, they had this one dinner left. After Sarah and her boyfriend were all ready, they left their cabin and they met Sarah's parents out in the hallway. Then Sarah led the way towards the stairwell that would bring them up to the 10th floor where the restaurant was that they were going to. Once they reached the 10th floor, Sarah could see right in front of her the entrance to this restaurant. She, her boyfriend and her parents all behind her, began walking towards the restaurant.

To get there, they would have to walk past this lobby right in front of the restaurant where there was this elevator bank that would go down to the lobby and all the other floors. Sarah and her family, they walked past these elevators. As they did, Sarah began to hear what sounded like rain hitting the outside of the ship. But that didn't make any sense because that whole day, the weather had been beautiful and clear. Sarah, when she heard this sound, she instinctively looked around the corner, out one of the windows, and she looked out into the night, and it was still clear and beautiful out. So this could not be rain. Sarah, she turned around and She looked at her boyfriend and her parents with this quizzical look being like, Do you hear this? What does that sound? They clearly had heard it, too, and were looking back at her like, I don't know. But before they could even start to discuss whatever this was, a woman who they didn't know who was standing near these elevators as well, began to scream. It would turn out just a few minutes before this woman began to scream, the cruise ship's chief electrician, 66-year-old Jose Sandoval O'Pazzo, had begun doing routine maintenance on the elevators that were located a few floors below the 10th floor, but still within that same elevator bank that could bring you up to the 10th floor where that restaurant was.

While Jose was performing this very routine and quick maintenance on the elevator, something strange happened. But to To understand why this happened, you need to understand a little bit about Jose and the other electricians on board this cruise ship. There was oftentimes a lot of very quick and easy maintenance that would need to get done on these elevators, which would involve going into the elevator chef to do it. But again, these are very short bursts, in and out, very easy to do. All the electricians know how to do it. The procedure was to actually fully shut down that elevator completely and then go inside and do the maintenance and then to go through the process of starting the elevator all over again. But that was so disruptive to the flow of traffic on the ship each day, and it was just a hassle. And so Jose and the other electricians had come up with this workaround that didn't require them to shut down the elevator because, again, that was just a huge pain and they didn't want to do it. And so what they would do is they would wait until the elevator car within the shaft they needed to do maintenance on was at some other level, like on floor two, and they would go into the elevator on floor eight and then quickly do the maintenance on the inside of the shaft or whatever it is they had to do.

Or sometimes they would actually have to do repairs on the elevator car itself, in which case they would just go in real quick, do the repairs, get out again. But all of it was predicated on just knowing where the elevator car was in the shaft and being really quick in and out. And so Jose and the other electricians had done this many times, and there was no issues. But on this day, Jose, he got into the elevator shaft to make these simple repairs. And so he actually was standing standing inside of the shaft on top of the elevator car that was a few levels down from 10. And he began making these repairs, and suddenly the car lurched into action because a guest unknowingly had walked into the elevator car and pressed floor 10. And so Jose is on this elevator car that starts moving, and before he can even figure out what's going on, the little opening that he used, the service entrance into the shaft, had been covered up by the elevator car. And so his exit was now and he was now relatively slowly moving up the shaft. Now, Jose would have no idea when this car was going to stop, but if it went to the top, he'd get crushed and he knew it.

And so in a moment of panic, Jose attempted to step to the side to somehow go between the wall and the elevator. It was like he had nowhere to go and he knew it and he just took that path. But there was an inch of space between the wall and the car. The second he did that, the car kept going, and it sucked him down into that space and just destroyed him. And so by the time this elevator car reached its destination, the 10th floor, and that guest got off the elevator car, by this point, Jose's body had been totally destroyed, and all of his blood was dripping down the elevator shaft, splattering into the walls and hitting the ground, and it sounded like rain hitting the outside of the ship. And so that's what Sarah and her family were hearing. And then the reason that woman started screaming is she was the first one who turned and saw all this blood coming down the front of the elevator doors. Medics would arrive quickly on the scene, but there was nothing they could do. Jose was deceased. Thank you to Better Help for sponsoring today's video.

Back in 2017, I was really struggling with my mental health. I had just left the military after almost a decade of service, and I was just really struggling to reintegrate into society, and it was making me totally depressed. Now, I had a great support system around me. I had my wife, my kids, my parents, my siblings, friends, but I had such dark thoughts and feelings. I just didn't feel comfortable sharing them with people I loved. I was worried it would upset them, and they'd also view me differently in a negative way, which, by the way, this is a very common train of thought amongst people who are feeling depressed. So I didn't realize how common it was, but there you go. Lots of people feel this way, and I did, too. However, even though I didn't tell my family or friends anything, they eventually picked up that something was wrong with me. And they actually approached me and said, Look, I really think you need to see someone. I think you need to see a therapist. And honestly, I was ready for that help. And so I did seek out a therapist. And my goodness, unburdening myself of all that horrible darkness inside of me to a trained, neutral third party was so cathartic.

And of course, therapy is not a one-size-fits-all solution. But if you're really struggling right now and you're holding it all in, you really ought to give therapy a try. And a really easy entry into therapy is Betterhelp. Betterhelp is a highly reviewed online therapy platform, which means you can get the help you need right from the comfort of your own home. All you have to do is fill out a short survey online, and then within about 48 hours, you get paired up with a licensed therapist, and then it's up to you how you communicate and how often. Also, you can change your therapist at any time for no additional cost. Let Betterhelp connect you with a therapist who can support you all from the comfort of your own home. Visit betterhelp. Com Mr. Balin, or select Mr. Balin during sign up and enjoy a special discount on your first month. At around 2:00 PM on September 24th, 2017, a 17-year-old college student named Sanjay, climbed up onto this boulder that was right off to the side of this hiking trail that he was on. Sanjay was on a day trip with about 20 of his friends from college, and they were in this part of Southern India that was really famous for its long winding trails and all these boulders that sat off to the side of the trails.

Then at the end of these trails that are in this part of India is this beautiful ancient Hindu temple that a lot of people will go and take pictures in front of and go inside of. That was where Sanjay and his friends were ultimately headed was this temple. From the boulder that Sanjay had just climbed up on, he looked up the trail, and from his view now, which was now slightly higher, he could actually see just barely the top of this temple. He was really excited about going to see it, and he couldn't believe how close they were. But as he was standing on this boulder staring at the top of the temple, he also realized that off to the side of the temple, basically right next to it, was this beautiful pool of water with a big wall around it and cement steps leading into it. I mean, it looked like a swimming pool. And so because Sanjay and his friends have been hiking all day to this point, and it was really hot out, Sanjay really liked the idea of going swimming. And so he actually jumped off the folder and just started running towards the temple and this pool, and he was yelling to his friends as he did like, Hey, I'm going to go swimming.

And so he ran not to the temple, but to this random pool of water that was next to it. And he got to the steps, and he immediately took off his shirt, and he pulled his phone out of his pocket, and he put it on the steps. And then he walked his way into the water and turned around hoping to see his friends coming after him. And sure enough, all of his friends were smiling and laughing and running after him, ripping their shirts off, putting their phones down, and jumping in, too. And so pretty soon, this very quiet, peaceful pool next to this temple temple was packed full of very rowdy and crazy college kids. Now, to be clear, this pool of water was not intended to be a swimming area. It was dug about 300 years earlier for this temple, and many people began to view this pool of water as sacred because they believed it could cure diseases. And so what Sanjay and his friends were doing was totally taboo and not allowed. But I can promise you Sanjay and his friends did not care. They were having a great time. And in fact, Sanjay was having such a great time that when he turned around and looked back up the steps they had all charged in on, he saw one of his friends, whose name was Vishwas, was standing up out of the water reading what looked like a plaque about this pool of water.

Sanjay hated the idea of one of their buddies not getting to experience this fun. Sanjay, a little out of pocket, yelled out to Vishwas like, Hey, stop reading that and get in the water. Let's go. What are you doing? Vishwas was obviously embarrassed to be called out so publicly in front of the 19 other kids that were there. They're all looking up at him expectantly now like, Yeah, get in here, man. And Vishwas, he's like, Okay, fine. And so he took off his shirt, put his phone down as well, and he got in the water with all of them. And very shortly after he did that, Sanjay forgot about him and decided, Hey, this would be a great time to take a photo of everybody here, memorialize this amazing trip. And so Sanjay, he waded over to the steps. He grabbed his phone. He came back towards the group, and he's looking at this big, rowdy crowd of his friends who are totally not paying attention to him. And he's saying, Hey, guys, come over here. I want to take your photo. Gather up. I'll take a photo of all of us. And so it took a couple of minutes, but eventually, all these kids got in frame.

And Sanjay, he held the phone out, made sure everybody was there, and they all smiled, and he took a picture. And then after he took the picture, Sanjay put his phone back on the steps and returned to just splashing and goof around with his friends. About an hour later, Sanjay and his friends had left the pool and were now in the temple and were just walking around exploring. But eventually, Sanjay just got tired of looking inside the temple. It was not very interesting to him. He eventually just went outside again and sat down on this low wall that was right outside the temple. Because he knew his friends would not be done for at least 15 or 20 minutes or so, he just pulled out his phone and began scrolling through social media and doing what we all do on our phones. But eventually, Sanjay opened up his photo album to look at all the photos he had taken during the hike in, and then also that picture in the pool, and then also some pictures he took inside of the temple. He pulls up his pictures and just starts scrolling through them, and he eventually reaches the photo that he took, selfie style, in the pool with all of his friends together.

He opens that picture up and he looks at it, and he smiles because it definitely was the best picture he took. He got all his buddies in frame. Everybody seemed so happy. But as Sanjay was looking at this photo, he realized there was something odd about it. There was just something in this photo that just seemed like it shouldn't be. As he looked more closely at it, the smile on his face fated, and he began to panic just a little bit. He didn't know if what he was looking at was real or not, But he knew he had to go find out. Sanjay put his phone away and he looked up and began looking around outside the temple at all the other people who had left, and many of them included his friends. They were walking around, talking in groups or whatever. Sanjay, he began looking at all of his friends and he would stare at their faces. He was looking for something, but he didn't see what he was looking for. After scanning the entire outside and not feeling satisfied, Sanjay got up and speed walked back into the temple and began going into each and every room, looking at every single person he encountered.

When he would find one of his friends, he would stare at their face. When he didn't find what he was looking for, he just kept on going to every single room until finally he reached the last room of the temple, and he found the last of his friends and he looked at their faces, and still he did not see what he was looking for. Now Sanjay is truly panicked. He's actually horrified at this point. He runs back outside and he finds their college professor who would come along to chaperone the trip. He ran up to this and he pulled out his phone. He opened up that photo of them in the pool, and he showed the professor what he had found. Sanjay pointed out the strange thing about this photo. The professor, he began looking at the photo, too, and right away, he also could see this very It was a strange thing that seemed very out of place. The professor asked Sanjay a few follow-up questions about what Sanjay had done since discovering this. After Sanjay said, I've been all over the temple, I still can't figure it out. The professor knew the police would have to get involved.

It. The professor got in touch with police, and so the police came out to the temple not long after that. The students, Sanjay and all of his friends, had been instructed to stay right by the temple. Do not go down to the pool, stay up here, let the police handle it. When the police came in, they came running by the group, and Sanjay and his friends were just watching anxiously, waiting to see what happens. Then as the officers went down to the pool, from where Sanjay and his friends were standing, they actually did not have a clear view. The temple itself blocked their so they could not see the pool, but they could hear what the officers were doing. At first, as Sanjay and his friends are standing there really nervously, they don't hear anything down at the pool. But then they hear one of the officers shout something out like he's found something, and Sanjay and his friends heard all this splashing as clearly officers were jumping into the pool. It was at this moment when Sanjay heard that splashing that he knew the thing he saw in this photo, it had to be real.

As horrible as that was, it had to be real. The reason why Sanjay's friend, Vishwas, was not in the water with everybody else, why he was up reading that plaque about the history of this pool, was because Vishwas did not know how to swim, but he didn't tell anyone. Nobody knew this. He was probably embarrassed about it. Maybe he was reading this plaque as a way to act distracted, like the plaque is the reason he's not swimming. But then when Sanjay, who meant no harm by this, but he yelled out to Vishwas, Hey, come on, dude, get in here. Come swimming us. Because he did it so publicly in front of all the other friends, it seems like Vishwas felt very pressured into getting into the water. That's what he did. Instead of telling anybody that he could not swim, he just shrugged, took off his shirt, pulled his phone out of his pocket, put it on the ground, and waded into the water. As soon as he did, the entire group just went back to goofing around and splashing and being totally chaotic. Then when Sanjay was like, Hey, let's take that photo, he really did manage to get all of his friends frame somehow, except one of them was Vishwas, and you can only see the top of his head.

It's because he was drowning in the background of that photo, just nobody knew it. Obviously, an hour later, when Sanjay is looking at this photo, he sees the top of Vishwas's head, and he's like, Wait a minute, is he goofing around or is he drowning? Then he ran all around the temple looking for Vishwas. He wanted to prove that he was not in the pool still, that he was up here. But then after searching the entire area and not finding Vishwas, he went to his professor. They called the police, and the discovery was made. And unfortunately, by the time police pulled Vishwas out of the water, he was already deceased. Late on the morning of June 27th, 1957, a 25-year-old Austrian mountain climber named Kurt Diehemberger plunged his ice ax into the deep snow ahead of him and then used the ax to pull himself up and over a big ice clump. Kurt was totally physically and mentally exhausted by this point and only wanted to stop for two seconds just to catch his breath. But he knew that was just not an option. Kurt and his climbing partner, a 32-year-old man named Hernan Buhal, were climbing one of the tallest mountains in the world, called Chogalisa, which is located in Northern Pakistan.

They were doing this climb all alone. It was just those two, and they had virtually no safety equipment. Now, for reference, this was not normal. Anybody who climbed Chogalisa did so with Sherpas and guides and oxygen masks. I mean, this was a dangerous climb, and so serious measures had to be taken to ensure it was safe. But Kurt and Hermann felt like, That takes all the fun out of mountain climbing. There has to be real risk here for this to be worth doing. Also, critically, Kurt and Hermann were well aware of the fact that if they successfully climbed Chogalisa With no safety equipment, so what they were planning to do, that would be a new world record because nobody had ever done that before on this mountain. That felt like a really cool reason to go for this. When they began their journey a few days earlier, when they began the climb, it had still felt like a great idea because the weather forecast was perfect for the rest of the time they expected to be on the mountain. However, earlier that morning, Kurt had turned around to talk to Hermann, and he noticed off to the south was a ominous dark cloud making its way toward them.

Now, obviously, when you're on the ground and you look up and you see a dark cloud, you think, Okay, it might storm, or it's actively storming. Maybe it's rain, maybe it's snow, but it's probably not a big deal unless it's a tsunami or a hurricane or something. But dark clouds are just not really a big deal. But when you are four miles up one of the most treacherous mountains in the world, you got no other people with you, you got no safety equipment, and you see a dark cloud coming your way, yeah, That's terrifying because storms have been killing mountain climbers basically for as long as mountain climbing has been a thing. When Kurt and Hermann saw this cloud, even though the weather forecast had been good, they knew that there was a real chance a storm was going to hit them before they reach the summit, and so they had to make a choice. Abort the mission now, go back to camp, and potentially give up on this climb altogether, thereby not getting the world record, or they could risk it and just try to speed their way up to the summit before the storm arrived.

Because Kurt and Hermann were actually within about a thousand feet to the summit when Kurt noticed this dark cloud, they decided, You know what? Let's just risk it. We can get up there to the summit, get this thing done before this cloud ever gets to us. That was the decision they made. It was also why Kurt and Hermann knew there was no way they could slow down even for a second, because basically this was a sprint to the top, and if they slowed down, they might die. And so panting and exhausted with the wind whipping up like mad, Kurt and Hermann just kept moving up that mountain as fast as they possibly could. But when they got about maybe 500 feet away from the summit, so they're really close at this point, something changed. As Kurt was about to bring his ax back down into the snow to pull himself up one more step, he suddenly realized he couldn't see the mountain in front of him. There was nothing. It was just pure white all around him. He couldn't even see the sky. It was like he was in this void all of a sudden.

The reason for this is because that dark cloud had caught up to them. They were literally inside of the cloud. That's why they couldn't see anything. And so from behind Kurt, even though he can't see anything, he could hear Herman desperately screaming up to him, Hey, we got to turn around right now. Kurt obviously knew, Yeah, it's too late. We are not going to make the summit. We got to go. Kurt knew Herman was right. I mean, this is an absolute crisis. If the storm that's basically brewing all around them didn't them, certainly the result of the storm would. I mean, all the snow that's going to land is going to fill in their tracks, and it would be nearly impossible to find your way back down again. And so this was like, We totally miscalculated. Turn around and get out of here as fast as possible. And so that's what Kurt and Herman began to do. As fast as they could, they began going down the mountain, following along their tracks they had left on the way up. And pretty quickly, Kurt and Hermann began making serious progress. And so Kurt was starting to feel optimistic that maybe Maybe they had managed to escape this just in time.

But right at that moment, the ground underneath Kurt began to vibrate. Then Kurt looked down, and even though his visibility was basically nothing, he could tell from his legs that the ground was basically shifting underneath him. Then suddenly, Kurt felt this feeling that you get when you're on a carnival ride and you're dropped, that feeling in your stomach that you're falling. He got that because the ground underneath him just gave way. It was an avalanche. And so in absolute desperation, Kurt, who knows he's about to be sucked into an avalanche, he just jumped as far away from the mountain as he possibly could, at an angle to the right, like he was leaping up and out of the avalanche and over to the right. But you got to remember, he's on this really steep slope. This is not like jumping on flat ground where you jump up and just return to where you jumped from. He's on a slope. So when he jumped out and to the right, it was like he was jumping off a building. He fell something like 30 or so feet before he hit the ground again. But when Kurt hit the ground, he expected to be gobbled up by the snow and keep being sucked down the mountain.

But he wasn't. He hit the ground and didn't move. Then he sat up and he looked around and he realized he had successfully jumped out of the avalanche. He had done it. He saved himself. So he began looking around. The visibility is still terrible, but it's a little bit better because now the avalanche has basically gone the mountain. The storm is passing, and so the visibility is decent. Kurt, he's looking around, screaming out for Herman. He doesn't see him. Then it's like suddenly the visibility just opened up, and Kurt was able to look to his left where the avalanche had gone. As he was looking, he saw what looked impossible. Basically, the land where they had been walking down this mountain was gone. It was like the avalanche had removed that part of the mountain. So Kurt is basically laying in the snow on the edge of a new cliff where the avalanche had basically broken away the mountain. And so he's looking into this crevasse where the avalanche went and thinking, I can't believe how lucky I am, but I got to go find Hermann. And so Kurt stands up and he's pretty battered from this 30-foot fall, but he's got adrenaline pumping through him, so he feels pretty good.

And he scrambles his way 30 feet back up the mountain to this ridge line where he originally jumped out of the avalanche, hoping when he got up there that he might find some sign of where Hermann went to because they were pretty close together when the avalanche started. But when he got up there, there was no sign of Hermann, and he turned around and looked back down the mountain, and he couldn't see Hermann anywhere. But when he turned back around, looking now back up the mountain, so in the direction of where they had originally intended to hike, and then where they had to come back down from when they were in the cloud, he noticed that he could see very easily their tracks, he and Hermann's tracks. And so with his eyes, he just tracked these tracks all the way down the mountain to where he was. As he did this, he noticed something. At first, it was like his brain couldn't compute what he was seeing. But after a moment, he knew. Here is a photo of what Kurt would have seen. However, keep in mind, this was not a photo Kurt took, and it's also from a slightly farther away perspective.

But conceptually, this really is what Kurt saw that told him what happened to Hermit. In this photo, you can see the mountain and the summit's at the top, and there's a trail that goes straight down and that appears to diverge where there's tracks that go to the left from our perspective, the viewer's perspective, they go to the left around that cliff line and the other set of footprints that disappear off the cliff. Well, if you haven't figured it out yet, the footprints that go to the left are Kurt's footprints. He just magically jumped and landed on the absolute edge of where this avalanche was going to happen. And Hermann is the other set of prints. And so when that avalanche started, there was nowhere for Hermann to go, and he was sucked into that avalanche and dragged over a thousand feet down the mountain, and his body was never recovered. Hey, everybody. If you haven't heard yet, we announced some really big news recently. We are putting out a book, and it's amazing. It's called Mr. Ballon presents Strange, Dark, and mysterious: The Graphic Stories, and it's an amazing graphic novel we have been working on for over a year.

And it's our very first book, so we're all very proud of this. We think it's going to be so amazing. So in this book, there are nine stories, five of which are of the old variety. So you've heard them on YouTube, and they've been remastered and put into this book. And then you have four full-length brand-new stories, which are amazing, that have also been put inside of this book. And the way we made those four new stories is to have them replicate the feel of YouTube. In fact, I would say this whole book is like the written version of our YouTube channel. It's totally a throwback to our OG fans who found us on YouTube. This is the book for you. It's going to be so good. The book is not coming out until my birthday, October first, but you can pre order it right now by going to book. Boleynstudios. Com. And also after you pre order, be sure to follow me on social media and all the other places that we put out content because we're going to be teasing stuff about this book before release. Things like sneak peeks into the book and some pieces of artwork and some behind the scenes stuff.

There's a lot of stuff going on, but it all starts with pre-ordering that book. So again, go to book. Ballinstudios. Com and pre order our first ever official book. It's going to be great. Enjoy. So that's going to do it. If you enjoyed today's stories and you want to hear more like it, be sure to check out the Mr. Ballin podcast, which is available on all podcast platforms. It has hundreds of stories, and many of them are only available on podcast. So if you're consuming this content only on YouTube, there is a whole world over in the podcast side of the house that you should go check out. Again, it's called the Mr. Ballin podcast, and it's available everywhere. Wait, don't go anywhere. If you're looking for more strange, dark, and mysterious videos, click here.