Today's story is a spooky mystery out of China. Now, it's a little bit complicated. However, if you stick it out till the end and you hear about what authorities find up on that mountain, you will have a wild Internet rabbit hole to go explore. But before we get into that story, 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 move into the apartment directly above the like button's apartment, and then make it a habit to sprint on your treadmill every morning at 03:00 a.m., 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 story.

At 05:00 a.m. On September 30, 2008, a 61 year old man named Xian Tie Xiang finished getting dressed inside of the bedroom that he shared with his wife in the city of Beijing, China. After he finished getting dressed, Xien reached down and scooped up his backpack off the floor that was already packed. And then, as quietly as he could, he kind of tiptoed around the bed to his wife's side to give her a kiss goodbye. Shien was going to be heading out to a local mountain that day for a day hike.

And so Shien, he gets next to his wife, and he bends down to kiss her. And right as he does that, he accidentally wakes her up. And so his wife opens her eyes, and she looks up at him, and shen just says, you know I love you. He gives her a kiss, and he tells her, hey, I'll be back tonight before midnight. And so his wife, she kind of groggily said, okay, and she grabbed his hand and squeezed it, and she told him that she loved him.

And then she fell back asleep. And moments later, she an had left the bedroom and walked out the front door. Shien's home was only a couple of blocks away from the train station. And since he needed to ride a train and then also a bus to get to the local mountain, that was about an hour and a half journey away. The train station was his first stop.

And so Shen, as he walked towards the station, he was all smiles. I mean, he was really excited about this day. So Jen was retired, but he had spent his whole life teaching geography at Beijing number five middle school, and he was a very passionate teacher. But the thing he was most passionate about that. He routinely really pushed on his students, in some ways, more than geography, was his love of nature.

In fact, Xien loved nature so much that when he was not teaching, he basically spent all of his off time out in nature going for hikes. I mean, that was his thing. And today, Jien was especially excited about his hike because he was hiking one of his favorite trails. It was located on Mount Miaofeng, which is a mountain located 30 miles to the northwest of where Jian lived. And this mountain was quite famous because of all the sea, sacred and ancient temples that kind of dotted the mountain all over the place.

And then also there were all these beautiful roses, like the flower that would bloom all over the mountain in the summer. And so it's just this totally, strikingly beautiful place. And normally, Jien would actually hike up this trail and then actually camp out on Mount Miaofeng, mostly because on the summit, there was this incredible view of downtown Beijing. And at night, the view is like, split spectacular, with the city all lit up. But on this particular day, Jien knew an overnight stay was not possible because he had to be back home by the next day, because it was his mother's 90th birthday and he was very close with his mother, and he was not going to miss that.

And so Jeanne eventually made it to the train station. He bought his ticket, he boarded his train, and then he sat down in a seat, and as soon as he did, he opened up his bag and pulled out a stack of papers. For this hike, Jean had packed himself some food and water inside of his backpack. He also packed a newspaper called the Beijing Youth Daily. And he brought along his diary.

But his diary was a little bit unique, Jen, because he loved nature so much and didn't like the idea of wasting anything. What he would do when he was a teacher at Beijing number five middle school, he would just take scrap paper and start writing on that, and he would compile all his scrap paper into these sort of diaries that he would keep. And so the reason he did that was primarily because he, he was so in love with nature, he hated the idea of wasting anything. And so Jien passed the time on the train by writing in his diary, aka his stack of scrap paper, and also reading this newspaper. And Jen knew he really needed to read the entire newspaper pretty quickly, because by the time he got to the mountain, he was going to do what he always did, which is he would bring a newspaper with him on a hike.

And as he walked, he would take out a page periodically and tie it to a tree. Kind of marking his way. That way, when he turned around and came back down, he would have his path marked, because Jien did not always walk on a clearly marked trail. And so this was his way of not getting lost. And so Jian would ride the train car, and then he would get off, and he would board a bus.

And then finally, right around 07:00 a.m. That bus would come to a stop in the tiny village of Chanfang, which is located right at the base of Mount Miaofeng. And so Jian grabbed his backpack. He, he hopped off the bus and then began walking through the village towards the mountain. And then by about 07:20 a.m., so not long after Jien had left the bus, he was almost up to Mount Miaofeng when he pulled out his cell phone and he called his cousin.

It was a brief conversation, and all Jien really wanted to do was just to make sure his cousin was gonna be around the next day for Jeanne's mother's birthday. And the cousin said he would. And so Jien told him, okay, I'm going hiking today, and I will see you tomorrow. And then he hung up. And then, only a couple minutes later, Jien disappeared into the beautiful forests of Mount Miaofeng.

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So Jien's wife did not expect to hear from Jien at any point that day, because she knew he would have terrible cell phone service up on the mountain. But she did expect her husband to be home on time. He had told her that morning before he left, that he would be home that night, before midnight. And if you knew, Jen, you knew this guy was never late. He said, I'm gonna be someplace at a certain time.

He would be there. So when 10:00 p.m. Rolled around that night and still Jien was not back yet, and he had not called, Jeanne's wife was actually not worried because she was thinking, okay, well, it's ten. He'll be home in the next couple of hours, because he said he'd be here by midnight tonight, and he will be here tonight. And so she went to bed expecting to wake up and see Jien in bed with her in the morning.

But the next morning, when she woke up, Jien was not in bed, so he did not come home. And so his wife immediately was very concerned and began calling Jien's family, and nobody knew where he was. And so that day, the family went to the police, and they reported Jien missing. The local police immediately organized a search for Jeanne. However, they knew this was going to be a very challenging search.

Mount Miafeng is not some enormous mountain by any means. It's a decent sized mountain. But, you know, it's really known for having these paths that twist and turn all over the place, so it's pretty easy to get lost. And then also, there's a whole bunch of sheer cliff faces kind of all over the place. So if you're not paying attention, you could literally just walk off a ledge.

So, in short, this is a dangerous and confusing place. And at the same time that the search was happening out on the mountain, the police were also in contact with Jien's cell phone service provider to see if they could track down Jien's cell phone, because obviously, if they could find that, they might find Jien, too. But the only way a cell phone can be tracked is if the cell phone is on, because when it's on, it connects to the nearest cell phone tower. And that's how these service providers are able to tell where these phones are. They look to see which tower it's connected to.

But when Jeanne's cell phone service provider looked for his phone, they quickly determined his phone was off. So unless the phone came back on again, they would not be able to locate the phone. However, they were able to pull all of Jeanne's cell phone signal history up until his phone was turned off. And what they found in this signal history is the day before. So the day Jien went missing, his cell phone was on at 04:00 p.m.

That evening, and he received a phone call at 04:00 p.m. And the service provider was able to see that when this phone call came in, Jien's cell phone was not where they thought it would be. It was not high up Mount Miafeng. It actually was near the base of the mountain. And when police reached out to the person who had called Jien at 04:00 p.m.

They discovered it was just a friend of Jien's. And this friend said that Jien said he was coming down the mountain now and he'd be home soon. So this new information did basically line up with what Xien had told his family he'd be doing that day. You know, just a quick day hike. Although, again, they kind of expected it to be a little bit longer.

It seemed a little odd he'd be down the mountain by 04:00 p.m. But still, this basically lined up with what they thought he was doing. However, this new information did not help explain what happened to Jien. Like, why was he missing? The expectation was he must have gotten lost, lost or heard or something up on this mountain.

You know, maybe he's stranded somewhere and can't go anywhere. But now, based on this phone call, it sounded an awful lot like Jien was not even on the mountain when he disappeared. So where was he? Police had already checked all the bus stations and train stations in the area, you know, to see if maybe Jien took a different way home or something. But when they went to all these different stations, there was no evidence that Jien had been to any of them.

And there was another problem. Members of Jeanne's family told the police about Jeanne's habit of tying newspapers to trees to mark his trail as he hiked. And the family told the police that Jien did this every single time he hiked. And his wife told the police that for sure, she knew her husband had brought along a copy of that newspaper. So by all expectations, there should be markers up on that mountain, literally leading searchers to wherever Jian went.

But after an entire day of searching Mount Miaofeng, they didn't find a single newspaper anywhere. For the next several days, this big search for Jian continued, but nothing was found. That is, until October 7. So one week after Jien had vanished, on that day, Jien's cell phone service provider noticed that Jien's cell phone had suddenly turned back on. And the phone was not on or near Mount Miaofeng.

Instead, it was located 36 miles away from the mountain at a train station called Beijing west railway station. Now, the cell phone was only on for a couple of seconds, but it was on long enough for the provider to confirm that it really was in that location. And so the police immediately dispatched a team to go to Beijing west railway station and see if they could find Jian. But when they got there, Jian was not there. His father phone was not there.

You know, they looked at all the security footage. There was no sign of Shein. They searched the surrounding areas. Nothing. And on this day, at basically the same time that police are at this railway station, trying to make sense of, you know, what's going on with the cell phone.

A villager from Chanfang village, which is that little village that sits at the base of Mount Miaofeng, came forward with a very strange story. He said, on the day that Jian disappeared, this villager was at his little shop. He sold walnuts to hikers that were making their way towards Mount Miaofeng. It was basically like snacks for the hike. And he sees this guy walking up through the village towards the mountain, and he looked exactly like Jien, because now Jien's face was on the news, and this villager had seen it, and so he felt like he had seen Jien.

And so this villager said, you know, this guy who looked exactly like Jien, he walked up and actually stopped at this villager's shop to buy some walnuts and this villager and this man who looked like Jien, they just chatted for a few minutes, and at some point, this guy, this guy who looked like Jian, asked the villager, you know, hey, these are great, but where else can I buy walnuts? I want to buy other types of walnuts and bring them back to my family. And so this villager was like, oh, yeah. Well, the best walnuts in all of Beijing are actually located about 30 miles away at the base of another mountain. It's called Teotois Mountain, and there are vendors over there who sell the best walnuts.

So that's your answer, right over there. And then after the villager said this, this guy who looked just like Jien, it's like everything changed for him. It's like his expression changed, his tone changed. It's like he's been given this information that's changed his life, you know, about these walnuts. And he says to the villager, okay, I'm gonna go there right now.

And without saying anything else, this man just turned and began quickly walking away from the walnuts, back through town, back towards the bus stop. So away from Mount Miaofeng, in theory, this guy is going to the bus to what? Commute 30 miles to this other mountain, Teotua Mountain, to get these walnuts. I mean, the villager does not know this guy, but even he felt like, this is bizarre. This guy comes up, he's buying snacks to go hike Mount Miaofeng.

He seems really excited, excited about it. And I offhandedly mention these walnuts, and he's like, boom, I'm out of here. I'm gonna go 30 miles to this other mountain to get these walnuts. It just seemed weird. And then when police spoke to Jien's family about this new information, they would learn that Jeanne did not have a special interest in walnuts, and neither did his family.

And even if there was a reason why Jien just really wanted these walnuts, he would not have had time in that day to take the bus 30 miles to Teotua Mountain, get these walnuts, go 30 miles back, and hike up Mount Miaofeng, because he can't stay the night. He needs to come back tonight in order to go to his mother's birthday party the next day. So it just made no sense. But this walnut thing was basically the only lead police really had, because everything else was a dead end. And so they decided to shift their search area from Mount Miaofeng to Teotua Mountain.

And pretty much right away, they saw something that gave them hope that Jien could be here. They found pages from the Beijing Youth daily newspaper tied to trees on the mountain. And when they looked more closely at the newspapers, they found the publication date of this newspaper lined up with the copy that Jien would have had with him on the day he vanished. And so, of course, the searchers just began following this trail of newspapers, hoping Jien would be at the other end. For two days, searchers very diligently followed this trail up the mountain.

It kind of wound around, and they went pretty slowly because as they're moving, you know, they're constantly checking everything around. They don't want to miss any clues. But finally, after two days of following this trail, they eventually found something. The newspapers led them to a campsite. Now, the campsite was abandoned, but there was a bed of hay.

There was some used water bottles and some toilet paper. And so just from the looks of it, this campsite looked relatively active, like somebody had been staying here recently for at least a day or two. And so it seemed pretty likely, based on everything else, that this was Jeanne's campsite. And pretty quickly after searching the campsite, they found something that virtually guaranteed that this was his campsite. Authorities found this plastic bag that was sitting next to the bed, and inside of the bag was a piece of scrap paper from Beijing number five middle school.

And on this scrap paper was a note. And the note said, jien had indeed hiked up Teotuan mountain on September 30. This would have been the day that he left. So the day he disappeared. And then on his way down, he said he got lost and was forced to spend the night out here.

And so that explained the campsite. And then on October 1, so that would have been the day after he spent the night out here, he said he was going to attempt to follow the ridgeline down the mountain to a nearby village, to safety. And this note ended with the phrase, leaving this note here, just in case. Love to everyone who passes by. Now, at first glance, this note was, like, amazing news, because suddenly it seemed totally possible that Jien was just fine.

I mean, the way the note was written, it sounded like he was at least healthy and safe, albeit I'm sure he was not happy to be, be stuck up on a mountain. But, you know, he loved being in nature, and so he seemed okay. And then he had a reasonable plan for how he was going to get out of there. You know, follow the ridgeline, go down to a village, go to safety. But as the police analyzed this note, they noticed that some things were off about it.

First of all, this note basically directly contradicts other facts of this case. Remember, cell phone records prove Jien got a phone call at 04:00 p.m. On the day he went missing from his friend. And his friend would report that Jian told him that he was coming down Mount Miu Feng and he'd be home soon. But according to the note they found, that was not possible because the note said Jien at 04:00 p.m.

On September 30, the day he went missing, he would have been on Teotua Mountain, either hiking up or being in the process of getting lost, and, you know, ultimately making that campsite. He camped out for at least one night. And so in addition to this factual discrepancy with this note, another issue with the note was just the way it was written. Now, Jeanne's wife had a chance to look at the note, and she would say, that is my husband's handwriting. But the note contained a bunch of very strange language choices that just didn't make sense for Jien to be using.

For example, this note, which really should have been a first person point of view. You know, Jeanne has gotten lost. He's by himself. He's writing to the world, kind of letting somebody know what's going on with him. And so it really should have been written in the first person.

My name is Jien. I am lost. Here's what I'm doing. But the note was written in the third person. Jien got lost on the mountain, and so he is going to camp out for the night, and tomorrow he's going to make his way out to safety.

But despite being written in the third person, it did sound like somebody was talking about the. It did not feel like somebody else was attempting to document what Jeanne was doing. But by far the weirdest part of this note was the tone shift that happened about halfway through. So the first half of this letter was written, albeit in the third person, but it was grammatically correct and sort of formal, like you would expect from a very well educated, retired teacher. But once you get to that second half of the note, the grammar started being really awkward.

And then the very final line, which says, love to everyone who passes by, that actually sounds totally awkward in Chinese. So love to everyone who passes by is the translation into English, and that basically makes sense to us. Like, that's not an awkward phrase, but if you put it back in Chinese, it's so awkward, it would be like if I tried to say to you, I take the bus to work. But instead I said, to work, take bus. Right?

Like, I wouldn't say it that way. And it would immediately seem very awkward for anybody who knows me if I wrote or said something like that. And so this last line stood out so much that actually, police and friends and family of Jien assumed he must have left that in there as, like, a secret message or a code, like a distress signal, especially when you consider the other weird factors around this note. But nobody could figure out what it meant. The day after this note was discovered, a searcher was up in the vicinity of Jiennes campsite on Teotiois Mountain.

And they were walking around, kind of retracing their footsteps, looking for new places to search. When they turned a corner and up ahead, they noticed there was this tree kind of hanging out over this rocky cliff. And dangling from the tree was something gray that looks sort of out of place. And so the searcher, you know, sensing this could be a clue of Shein's whereabouts, he yelled out for other searchers in the area that he had found something. And then he took off running towards this thing to see what it was.

And when he got up to the tree, he looked up, and he saw it was a pair of sweatpants that had clearly been intentionally tied to this branch in the tree. And so the searcher, he reached up and grabbed one of the pant legs and kind of tugged on it. And when he did, all these white things began falling out of the pants and landing on the ground. And when the searcher stopped and looked down to see what they were, he couldn't believe it. It was a whole pile of human bones.

However, they were not Jien's. In fact, nobody ever figured out who these bones belonged to or why they were stuffed inside of pants and tied to a tree on this mountain. But the discovery of these bones would open up a whole new mystery, because after these bones were found, all the searchers came over and basically just began combing the area near these bones. And the police began uncovering body after body after body. They found two more sets of human bones stuffed into pants and tied to trees, and they found the other bodies at the foot of a cliff and also inside of this well and inside of this cave.

And so, in total, authorities found ten sets of human remains in the vicinity near Jiennes campsite. But none of the human remains belonged to Jien. Officials were only able to identify a few of the bodies, and they were not able to figure out how they died or whether or not foul play was involved. But the discovery of those bodies did mean one thing for Jiens case. It meant, you know, all these people had previously gone up Tiatois mountain before Jien went up and vanished.

And when these other people went up the mountain, clearly something horrible happened to them, and we don't know what it is. Is there a killer on the loose? Is there some animal or creature out there that's taken people out? I mean, we don't know. But what started to happen since Xian went missing and his story was all over the news in China is that all these other hikers who've been on Teotuan Mountain before have begun sharing their experiences.

Experiences when they hiked up Teotua Mountain. And some of their stories about what they've seen on that mountain are horrifying. One person said they were walking up the mountain. They had their partner with them, who was a little bit farther back the trail. And so they're kind of walking up on their own, and the first person, as they're walking up the trail, suddenly sees this guy just kind of come out of nowhere wielding an ax.

And he walks up to this person, and all he says is, are you alone? And the hiker's like, no, my partner's back there. They're coming up here. What's going on? But the axeman, he basically acted like he didn't even hear their answer.

And he just asked it again, are you alone? And the hiker was like, no, my partner is back there. And the axeman again just said, are you alone? Are you alone? Are you alone?

And this ax person kept doing that until the hiker and their partner just turned and ran. And then another hiker shared a story about how they were walking up a trail on Teotua Mountain, and at some point, they lifted their head up, and he saw a little ways up the trail, kind of off the trail. So in the treeline, were all these people, like, this group of strangers, just standing there motionless, kind of half behind trees, like they were kind of trying to hide themselves, but also not. And they were just staring at this hiker, unmoving, not speaking, just staring. And so the hiker, you know, they look up, and they see this, and they were so unnerved so quickly that they just turned and left.

And they have no idea who those people were. And so, obviously, we have no way of verifying these other hikers stories about what they saw on Teotua Mountain. But when you combine their testimony with Jien's story, it really makes you wonder what's going on up there. The official search for Jien was called off at the end of October, so roughly one month after, after he vanished. But unofficially, the search for Jien continues to this day.

However, they still have not found his body, and basically no real progress has been made.

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So go to shopmrballen.com and get your mrballen merch. So that's gonna do it. If you enjoyed today's story, be sure you check out our podcast called the Mister Ballin podcast, where we have literally hundreds more stories right now that sound an awful lot like this one, but many of them are only on the podcast. They are not available on YouTube. So again, that podcast is just called the Mr.

Ballin podcast, and you can listen to it on any podcast platform. Thank you so much. Until next time. See ya. Wait, don't go anywhere.

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