Death In Disguise

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 here is called Hot Snow, and it's about a summer camp that experiences this weather phenomenon,

but it's not quite what it seems. The second story here is called Extra Help, and it's about an elderly woman who falls in her bathroom. And the third and final story here is called Thump Thump Thump. It's about a nightmare scenario that unfolds on a train during World War II. But before we get into today's stories, if you're a fan of the strange dark and mysterious,

deliberate and story format, then you've come to the right podcast, because that's all we do, and we upload four times a week. Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.

“So, if that's of interest to you, please sneak into the fall-button's house and superglue all their eggs into the carton.”

Okay, let's get into our first story called Hot Snow. At 5.30 a.m. on July 16, 1945, a 13-year-old girl named Barbara Kent was sleeping inside of a cabin in Rudo so New Mexico, where she was staying for a sleepover summer dance camp. And as she slept, suddenly there was this loud booming sound that literally shook her awake and actually caused her to fall out of her bed onto the floor. Barbara sat up feeling totally confused, and she looked around the cabin, and she saw the nine other girls that were also here for the sleepover camp.

They, too, were wide awake, and some of them also had fallen under the floor. And so the girls, they're all freaking out, they're looking at each other like, "What's going on here? What was that?" And as this kind of pandemonium is ensuing, their lead dance instructor came running into the cabin and told the girls that she thought one of the cabin's heaters had exploded, and that potentially there could be a fire somewhere on the camp. And so all the girls, they're already totally panicked, now they're getting really scared, and the instructor's just like, "Ick Girls, go outside, stand by the river.

I'm going to go find wherever this explosion happened, and make sure everything is okay." And so the girls, they were led outside, totally a mess, and they went and stood by this river near the cabin, and waited for their instructor to go look around. And so Barbara and the nine other girls, they're totally terrified, and they're standing by this riverbank, and they're looking around the property, seeing if they can see smoke or fire, but they can't, and as they're standing there waiting for their instructor to come back, Barbara felt something hit the tip of her nose,

and it was cold and soft, and she looked up, and she realized it was snowing, but it's July and New Mexico, it should not be snowing, but sure enough snow was coming down from the sky. And as the snow came down on Barbara, she looked at the other girls, and they too were looking up and putting their hands up and letting the snow hit them in the face. They couldn't believe it, I mean this was like a totally rare weather event. And so a minute later, their dance instructor came back and told the girls that, you know, she looked all over the camp, and they did not appear to be a fire or an explosion of any kind,

that everything seemed fine, you know, they didn't know what that loud sound was, but you know, by all accounts, it seemed safe here. And so the girls were very relieved to hear this, but already their attention had completely shifted to the snow. I mean again, it's July and New Mexico, there shouldn't be snow.

“So the girls, they turned to their instructor and they're like, okay, well, you know, now that it's safe, would it be okay if we put on our bathing suits and just went swimming in the river while it's snowed on us?”

I mean, this is incredible.

And the instructor, who to this point, had really been focused on finding the fire and the hazard or whatever, you know, now that she knew things were safe, she kind of took in the scene, and also suddenly appreciated how unbelievable it was that there was snow coming down, and so she told the girls, yeah, get your bathing suits, go swimming and enjoy this. This is totally like a once in a lifetime moment here. And so very excitedly, Barbara and the other girls ran back into the cabin, they changed into their swimwear,

and then a moment later, they were out frolicking in the river as the snow fell on top of them. And for hours, they just played in the river and enjoyed the snow, and the snow was kind of building up on the river banks, and so some of the girls went over and scooped it up and rubbed it on their faces, and you know, made snowballs, and they just had a great time. And at one point, the dancers' doctor came by and actually took a picture of Barbara, who was right in the middle of the river, enjoying this bizarre scene.

But eventually, despite how fun the snow was, the novelty of it all sort of wore off, and the girls got tired of swimming, so he changed into the regular clothes, and went about their day. And over the course of the next few days, summer camp went as normal. The girls had a great time, and when summer camp ended, all the girls went home.

Now, the girls never got an explanation for why it had snowed, they all just assumed it was some super rare weather event that they had been lucky enough to experience.

Until 17 years later, when Barbara was 30 years old at this point, and she learned that all the other girls she had gone to the dance camp with had died. One by one, each of those girls were diagnosed with aggressive forms of cancer that killed them.

It would turn out, Barbara's dance instructor was correct in thinking there had been an explosion on July 16, 1945.

“But of course it was not any of the cabin's heaters or anything local to the cabin or the camp. Instead, the explosion occurred 40 miles away at a US government testing site in the middle of the New Mexico Desert.”

And the explosion that literally caused the girls to be dumped out of their beds was from the world's first ever atomic bomb being dropped.

It was the Manhattan Project's Trinity Test, a test that no civilians in the area had been warned about, and so after this bomb detonated, there was this nuclear fallout that rained from the sky on half a million people that lived within 150 mile radius of the detonation site, and within those half a million people were those 10 innocent teenage girls at their dance camp. The snow that the girls played in was actually radioactive material from this nuclear fallout raining down from the sky that over the course of 17 years would give nine of the girls various forms of cancer that would kill them.

As for Barbara, she did not die young, however she would suffer from multiple cancers and illnesses all associated with radiation exposure.

Our next story is called "Extra Help."

“At about 820 in the morning on June 29, 2025, an 83-year-old woman named June backster shuffled her way down the hallway of her small home in Adelboro, which is a quiet town in eastern England.”

As she walked, she had to keep one hand on the wall to keep her balance. She was pretty free all these days and also just had a lot of medical problems, but she also really valued her independence. And so she was determined to keep living alone even if it was kind of risky. So, June used to live with her husband and their dog, but about seven years earlier, her husband had gotten really sick, and so because of that, they'd had to give their dog to their granddaughter because they just couldn't take care of it anymore and also care for him, and then unfortunately, June's husband did pass away, and so she was left all alone.

But even though she was, you know, all alone in terms of living in the house by herself, she wasn't completely isolated.

“Her granddaughter, who she'd given the dog to, lived close by, and visited a whole bunch, and almost always brought along June's old dog, which June loved.”

Now, in addition to just being good company, June's granddaughter also regularly made herself available to help June with all sorts of basic things, like picking up her prescriptions and going grocery shopping for her and, you know, driving her to and from doctor's appointments, like she was really available to her.

But despite June knowing that, you know, knowing she could always call on her, she tried hard not to call on her granddaughter, because again, she just really liked being independent.

So, on this particular day, she, you know, continued slowly walking down the hallway, you know, guiding herself by holding onto the wall, and then she turned the corner to go to the bathroom. And when she stepped inside, she slipped on the tile, and as she was falling to the ground, her legs scraped the corner of the bathroom counter. Immediately, June's legs started bleeding, and June's yelling out in pain, but she lives alone, nobody can hear her, and so June quickly went from, you know, just reacting to the pain and the blood, June was scared.

I mean, this is the exact scenario that she was so worried about, you know, getting hurt when she was all alone, because she didn't really have a plan. It was like, "I'm going to live alone, so help me." But fortunately for June, she had installed throughout her house all these emergency call bells that would allow her to basically, you know, hit the bell, and they were programmed to contact both her granddaughter and also the local emergency services. And in the bathroom, there was one of these bells, and so once she kind of composed herself a little bit, grabbed the string for the spell, and she pulled it.

About 10 minutes later, June was stolen the bathroom on the ground, holding onto her leg wound, when she heard the front door for house swing open. Immediately, she heard the sound of her granddaughter calling out for her, and June is best as she could, even though her voice was a little bit weak, she called out and said where she was. A moment later, June's granddaughter, along with June's old dog, she'd brought along, came bombing around the corner, and they looked into the bathroom, and they saw, you know, June and her horrible leg wound, and clearly the granddaughter is really worried right away.

I mean, this was a very bad cut, but, you know, for June, she's looking at her granddaughter, and she's just flooded with relief, because she knows, no matter how bad this is, her granddaughter is here, everything's fine, and also her dog was here, which made everything better already. And so while June's granddaughter began rummaging through the bathroom to look for some bandages, June just kind of relaxed and just began petting her dog, who was clearly very worried about June, you know, this is her dog previously, they had a very strong bond, and so she just petting her dog, and then, you know, June's granddaughter did find some bandages, and she wrapped up June's leg, and then by the time the paramedics got there, June actually was feeling basically okay, I mean, her leg definitely hurt, but she was very calm at this point.

I mean, her leg definitely still hurt, but again, her granddaughter put that dressing on it, and basically stopped the bleeding, and also June has her dog, that she's petting, like her comfort animal, and so she was very calm, paramedics come in, and they assess her, and they take off the dressing to check the wound, and after they cleaned it, they said, look, this is a pretty minor cut, you don't even need stitches.

“I think you're okay, you know, just be careful, and maybe have your granddaughter stay here for a little bit, just to make sure you don't fall again, but you're okay, like we're gonna go.”

And so, June, you know, she thanked the paramedics as they walked out the door, and then she entered granddaughter, and the dog, just sort of sat there, feeling grateful that this fall wasn't more serious. However, the next morning when June woke up, she knew something was wrong, because, you know, all she's doing is laying in bed, but her heart is racing, she's sweating, she's lightheaded, like clearly something is off here. Now, the day before, after the paramedics laughed, her granddaughter did stick around for a little bit, but really, I mean, June was okay, and so June was alone, and that night, you know, she had some soreness around the cut, but it really wasn't that serious.

She really felt like dodged a bullet there, but now, you know, 12 hours later, something's going on here.

“Now, June had no way of knowing if her current symptoms were indeed connected to her, you know, minor cut on her leg, but, you know, maybe they missed something, maybe it was in fact that her something.”

And so, her concern that maybe this was serious and could potentially spiral really quickly made her not pull on one of those emergency bells, but instead, she just picked up the phone and called an ambulance to take her to the hospital. When she got to the hospital, doctors immediately began running all these tests on her, and very quickly, they determined that she did have a very severe bacterial infection, which she must have gotten after cutting her leg.

And unfortunately, that infection had already spread into her blood, which would explain why she was feeling sweaty and lightheaded and why her heart was racing.

Now, the medical staff definitely had some questions, like how in the world could this have developed so quickly, especially after the paramedics that day before, had, at least according to them, properly cleaned this wound before they left.

“Their issue now was not how did this happen, but instead just stabilized June, treat her. And so right away, they began treating June with general antibiotics to try to fight off this infection, but it just wasn't working.”

And June was 83 and already in relatively poor health, and her condition was clearly deteriorating rapidly. So, the doctors began running more tests to try to determine exactly what type of bacteria was causing this infection, because if they knew that, they might be able to give her more targeted treatment than just general antibiotics, which clearly were not working. And they did eventually identify this bacteria, but by the time they did, June had unfortunately already developed sepsis, which is a life-threatening condition that occurs when a person's body tries so hard to fight off an infection,

that it basically ends up damaging their vital organs in the process. Medical staff did everything they could, but it wasn't enough, and so eventually one week after going to the hospital, June passed away. It would turn out the deadly bacteria that found its way into June's open wound was introduced to her by her granddaughter, completely by accident. The bacteria is called pastarella multicita, and it's found in a very specific place inside the mouths of domestic dogs. While June laid on the bathroom floor, waiting for her granddaughter to find bandages to wrap up her leg, June's old beloved dog, who her granddaughter had brought over, was trying to comfort June, and June was allowing the dog to do that.

But what the dog was doing actually doing to comfort June was licking her open wound, and so that led to the bacteria going in and it would kill June one week later. The next and final story of today's episode is called Thump Thump Thump Thump. At 1 AM on March 3, 1944, a young train operator named Michelle Palo stood in the caboose car of a freight train that was slowly going up the side of a mountain in southern Italy. Michelle's job was to operate the brakes for the back half of the train, and tonight he had to be unhigh alert, because they were traveling under really dangerous conditions.

In fact, Michelle was worried they might not even make it to the next stop.

First of all, it was raining and snowing outside, so the tracks were naturally very slippery, which meant it was going to be harder for the train to get the traction it needed to go up the mountain.

The train's engine wasn't working as well as normal, and that was in large part because the coal the train company had to use was this really cheap crappy kind of coal, because this is 1944, World War II is raging, and a coal shortage had been created as a result of that, because all the good coal was being shipped off to be used in the war.

The reality was, is that there were over 500 stowways on board weighing the train down. Again, this is World War II. There are all these people that are trying to flee war torn parts of the world, and one of the ways they would do that is by stowing away on trains.

“And now Michel and the other crew, they were aware of these stowways. It was not subtle. They're literally in the cars, they're on top of the cars, and they're just trying to make their way into Italy to get away from war torn parts of the world.”

And Michel and the other crew, they were supposed to call security and tell these people to get off the train, but they didn't do that. They felt bad.

And they sort of felt like, you know, allowing these people to, you know, make their escape was, you know, a morally good thing to do. But tonight, between the horrible weather, making the tracks slick and, you know, the coal that was not very good and sort of made the engine not work very well, and all this additional weight from the stowways, it just seemed to Michel, like, if there was ever going to be a time that this train could not make it up the mountain, it was going to be tonight. And so the reason he's on high alert is if the train reached a point where it could not go any higher for any of the reasons I've just told you, the train would start to backslide.

And that's incredibly dangerous and it would be on Michel and also the engineers at the front of the train to hit the brakes and stop the slide. So Michel, you know, he's on high alert, he's got the lever for the brakes, he's watching for any sign of like, you know, the train slowing down, something like that, and they begin to make their assent up this mountain up ahead. And at first it's going relatively fine, but it was just very clear to Michel who knew this train well, that it was struggling to get up the tracks.

But he saw up ahead, there was this tunnel, they would have to pass through before they made the trip the rest of the way up and over the mountain. And Michel's thinking, great, the tunnel is going to provide us dry, clean tracks, where the train, if we just get into that tunnel, we can sort of get some momentum, get through the tunnel and ride that momentum, because we know the tracks are going to be good up and over the rest of the way.

“And so Michel is anxiously watching as the train is sort of sputtering its way up towards this tunnel. He knows that's going to be the key, just get to that tunnel and we'll be able to get over this mountain, no problem.”

So up they go, inching their way, and he sees the front of the train goes into the tunnel and right away he feels like the train's gaining a little bit of speed here, as more and more of the train is getting onto those dry tracks in the tunnel, and they're moving right along, but then sort of inexplicably the train begins to slow down. As the train is again entering into this tunnel, remember it's late at night, you can't really see what's going on, you can just tell that there's the tunnel the train's going in, but we're slowing down here. And in fact, by the time that the caboose, where Michel was, was about to enter into the train, the last car here, the train had finally slowed down so much that the train actually came to a stop with Michel and the caboose, right outside the tunnel.

So, you know, 99% of the train is in the tunnel, Michel and the caboose are outside the train is now fully stopped.

Now, generally speaking, the conductor who was situated in the very front car of the train was overall in charge of the train. And so in any sort of emergency situation, it was often on the conductor to sort of make the call about what the crew was going to do in response.

“Now, the train was clearly not backsliding, there wasn't an active emergency here, but Michel knew that this is wrong. There really wasn't a clear reason they should be stopped here.”

If anything, again, this tunnel represented their best chance to move quickly and gain momentum and ride up and over the mountain. And so Michel does not know why they're stopped, but clearly there's some sort of issue. However, Michel knows from his training that what he needs to do is still be weary of the break here, because for all he knows, you know, maybe there is some issue with the train. And it is backsliding, but it's just slow and so we need to be ready to hit the brakes. And so what Michel did is he held the break and waited for a signal from the conductor.

Basically, the conductor would blow a series of whistles that Michel would be able to translate that would tell him what to do, whether it was, you know, locked the brakes or come up and talk to me or any number of different things he might need to do in this situation. And so Michel, he just sit in there waiting for the train whistle, but there's nothing. There's just quiet. There's no other sound except for the idling engine, you know, towards the front of the train. And so Michel, he just started to have this bad feeling that this doesn't make sense.

There's no good reason why we've stopped here. And so Michel, operating on gut instinct here, you know, despite not getting any signal from the conductor, no whistles, no anything.

He abandoned the caboose, he abandoned the break station, and began walking from the caboose, basically up the center of the train, going into the next car.

And when he got into the next car, you know, it's totally dark because it's one AM. This car is the first car that he's walking into that's in the tunnel, so it's very dark.

And so it's quietly as he could. He's walking through the aisle of this next train car, and, you know, he doesn't notice anything. Everybody is asleep for the most part.

“And he's walking along, and as he gets to the next train car, he realizes he's starting to hear a new sound.”

And it's not coming from in the train. It's coming from somewhere outside in the tunnel. It's like this loud thumping sound. Something is hitting the rocks on the side of the tracks somewhere in the tunnel. And, you know, Michelle, he doesn't know what it is. He still doesn't know what's going on. He hasn't discovered any sign of, you know, what has actually happened here. And so he just keeps on walking, and as he goes into the next car, he continues to hear all these thumping sounds somewhere outside.

And the train's still not moving. There's no whistles from the conductor. By the time he's about halfway down that next train car, he's now into the second car he's investigating.

He realizes that in addition to the odd thumping sound and the lack of movement and lack of anything really going on in this tunnel, he also realizes that the car itself that he is in is very quiet. Remember, there's basically dozens of people in each of these cars kind of laying on each other, sleeping as they make their way into Italy. And so for the first time, Michelle turned on his flashlight and he's aiming at the ground right in front of him.

“And he turned and began to scan all the storeways, sleeping in this car. And what he saw was so horrifying, he dropped a flashlight, turned and ran out of the tunnel.”

It would turn out, Michelle was right to be concerned that this train might not be able to make it up the mountain. By the time the train's sputtered into that tunnel, despite the fact that, yes, the conditions were much better in the tunnel for the train to maintain speed and momentum.

Despite that, the other factors were too much to overcome. The train was too heavy from all the storeways, and the coal was quite bad, so the engine was not as powerful as it normally would be.

So even though the tracks were not slick, it was just too much. And so the train, ground to a halt inside of the tunnel. And so what needed to happen as soon as the train came to a stop like that is the conductor and the crew at the front of the train, they needed to basically jump start the train.

“They needed to put as much coal as they could into the furnace to get this engine turning enough that it could pick up speed again and continue their journey.”

They basically needed to rev the engine if you will and really fire this engine up and get it going. But in order to do that, they had to put a huge amount of this coal into the furnace to make that jump start happen. Because again, this coal is not high quality. It doesn't burn as well, it's not as efficient.

And so basically what could have been accomplished with two times the amount of coal, you needed like ten times the amount of this bad coal to do the same thing.

But one of the byproducts of burning this type of coal really coal in general, but especially this cheap kind of coal, and especially this much of this cheap kind of coal, is it produces a ton of carbon monoxide, and that filled this tunnel. Michelle was outside of the tunnel. His caboose was the one car that was not in the tunnel, but everybody else on this train was suddenly being exposed to a huge amount of poisonous lethal gas, and it killed virtually everybody on this train. Very quickly. Those dumping sounds that Michelle was hearing were the sounds of people's bodies after they had died rolling off the train and falling to the ground.

When he walked through the train car and looked around, the reason it was so quiet is everybody in these train cars were dead. Out of the approximately 600 stoleways and crew who had been on board this train, 521 were found dead. 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. Ballon podcast, strange dark and mysterious stories, is hosted and executive produced by me, Mr. Ballon.

Our head of writing is Evan Allen, produced by Jeremy Bohn and Cole Lacasio, research and fact-checking by Shelley Shu, Samantha Van Hoos, Evan Beamer, Abigail Shumway, Camille Callahan, Alex Paul, Ben Fassiano. Research and fact-checking supervision by Steven Eher, audio editing and post-produced by Whit Lacasio and Jordan Stittam. Production support by Antonio Minata and Delana Corley, artwork by Jessica Klogston-Kiner, theme song, something wicked by Ross Bugden. Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballon podcast, and just a reminder, every new and exclusive episode we put out on the Mr. Ballon podcast,

you can also now watch on the Mr. Ballon YouTube channel that very same day, and trust me, some of these stories you truly have to see to believe.

If you want to listen to episodes one week early and add free, you can subscribe to SiriusXM Podcast Plus on Apple Podcasts

“or visit SiriusXM.com/podcastplus 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!

[Music]