In Too Deep (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

But before we get into today's stories, if you're a fan of the strange dark and mysterious delivered in story format,

“and you've come to the right place because that's all we do, and we upload two, three, even four times every week.”

So, if that's of interest to you, the next time you're walking into a building and the follow button is right behind you,

you obviously following you into the building as well, make sure the second you go in, you turn around,

make eye contact, and then you pull the door shut, don't hold the door for them. Okay, let's get into our first story, which is called "Tangled and Frozen." On a Saturday afternoon in February of 2011, 18-year-old Michael Peery was a thousand feet underground, crouched inside of a dark cave in Lafayette, Georgia, along with four of his friends. As Michael looked around, his headlamp beam bounced off all the low-hanging rocks and underground waterfalls and deep crevices,

and it all just kind of felt like some kind of dark and otherworldly planet down here. So, this cave that they were in was a famous cave called Ellison. And Michael and his friends had driven over 400 miles from their college town in Gainesville to see it. Ellison was almost 12 miles of tunnels and shafts and crevices, and thousands of cavers went through it every year. It was very popular.

“Now, to be clear, caving as an activity was not really Michael's thing.”

He was a marketing major at the University of Florida. And he mostly considered himself to be a pretty quiet person and liked studying or playing in his school band or volunteering with his church youth group.

And so crawling through a tiny pitch-black, very claustrophobic hole, hundreds of feet underground, was not really his first choice for fun.

But Michael was not there today for fun. He was there because his close friend, a guy named Grant Lockenbach, had suggested it. So he had said, "Okay, I'll go with you." Just now, Michael looked over to where Grant was sitting with his girlfriend, whose name was Carrie, and also they were sitting with two of their other friends.

And the group of them were all looking through a backpack and sort of taking stock of the various pieces of gear that they had brought along with them. Now, they'd only entered Ellison just a few minutes ago. But already, the group had stopped because there was something in this area that Grant really wanted to see.

“And when Grant wanted to do something, they usually happened.”

Hence why Michael capitulated and wound up in this cave because Grant wanted him to. And so, you know, like normal, he went along with it. So, Grant, he was the president of their school's Fellowship of Christian Athletes, which Michael, Carrie and the other two friends were also members of. And when Michael had joined the Fellowship, Grant had sort of taken him under his wing and told Michael that he had tons of potential.

In fact, he said Michael had enough potential to be the next president of the Fellowship. And this had given Michael a ton of confidence because he really looked up to Grant. I mean, a lot of people did. Grant was just cool. He was a few years older than Michael and was basically like a six foot tall ball of positive energy

who was always looking for some adventure to go off and do.

Grant had been exploring caves as a hobby for the last three years. And he was actually really the only member of their group with any real cave experience. And it was actually this lack of experience amongst the other people that were with Grant, you know, including Michael. That was the reason they were going through an easier tunnel within Allison that was basically a straight shot through the mountain.

And did not require much gear like rope or climbing equipment. It was like very beginner. But despite that, despite the low level of difficulty of the the caving route they had chosen, they'd brought that stuff anyway, all that extra equipment because along this easier route at the place where they were now stopped, was the entrance to a vertical shaft that Grant specifically wanted to climb down even if he went alone.

This shaft was 125 feet deep. So think of like a 10-story building, that is how deep this pit went. But it was actually called the warm-up pit because compared to the other, you know, deep pits in Allison, it was nothing. Some were way deeper, like over 500 feet.

So this was definitely not beginner. This was an advanced thing to be doing, so Grant was going to do it. But again, it's sort of a novice level, more advanced thing to be doing in this cave. Now, Michael watched Grant take the backpack with all the equipment in it, over to this pit's entrance, which was basically just a very large hole in the ground that was over near this waterfall.

And it was only about a few feet away from Michael. And so Michael walked over to Grant to help set him up, which involved attaching a climbing rope to the rocks that Grant could then use to lower himself into this pit with.

And it took them a while since really Michael had to wait for Grant to instruct him on every step,

“because Michael again is not an experienced caveur at all.”

But as Michael worked with Grant to get him all rigged up, he found himself peering into the pitch black hole, and as he looked down into it, just felt like this bottomless abyss. He felt a stomach kind of flip. He was glad he had not promised Grant that he would go into the pit too,

because, you know, seeing it now up close in person, I mean, this was terrifying. He did not want to go into this thing. But Grant clearly did, he was excited. And so Michael and Grant continued to get Grant all set up,

and then eventually, finally, when Grant was rigged,

Michael heard the sound of something pretty heavy sliding off of a rock, and then moments later there was this loud echoing thud from deep inside of this hole, the warm-up pit. For a moment, Michael was just confused. He didn't know what the sound was, you know, maybe it was a rock falling into the pit,

“but he looked over at Grant and Grant had a very unhappy expression,”

and he was looking at the ground right next to the pit hole, and that was where their backpack had been, with all the equipment inside of it, at least the equipment that they weren't using, and the backpack was not there anymore. The backpack had just fallen 125 feet down into this pit.

Now, obviously, this was not good. They did not want their backpack in this hole, but it was actually worse than just losing their equipment potentially, because, in that bag, was their only cell phone that they had brought with them. And it was also where they'd put all their ropes and other climbing gear.

They'd taken some stuff out, you know, to get Grant rigged up here, but still losing this bag felt really bad. Without its contents, they could easily get stranded or trapped inside of this cave, and they wouldn't be able to call or text anybody. They'd be stuck, and so Michael could actually feel himself starting to panic,

but then Grant cut in and played it cool as always, and he said,

"Look, it's no big deal.

“He would just go down there, and he would get it."”

I mean, he was going into the hole anyway, and he was rigged up after all, so he would just go down and retrieve the bag. It would be fine. And then, before Michael or, you know, Grant's cool friend or the other friends could say anything, Grant just, you know, strapped on his harness and a pair of ascenders,

which were climbing tools that would help him move down the rope in a controlled way, and he began sort of positioning himself to go down into this pit. And Michael just watched Grant in complete awe. I mean, Grant was so confident that he was able to basically make everybody else around him feel calm too.

I mean, Michael felt himself calming down just watching Grant. And this was not the only time that Grant had projected calm in the face of danger. During Grant's freshman year, he'd casually climbed up the exterior of one of their school's dormitories, just to see if he could do it, and he did do it. And he also had joined the school's ROTC, which is a military reserve training program,

and learned how to jump out of planes, so he had skydived, you know, sort of a thrill-seeking activity. And so this moment in the cave seemed like yet another example of why Grant was really

such an incredible leader, and Michael found himself hoping that by the time he potentially took

over as president of the fellowship that he could be just as fearless as Grant. But for now, Michael watched as Grant very calmly lowered himself into the hole, and then disappeared into the abyss below. And for the next few minutes, it was very quiet. And all Michael could hear was the sound of the waterfall.

So he and Carrie and the others just sort of talked amongst themselves, and we did for Grant to call back up that he was down there and had successfully grab the backpack. And finally, they did hear Grant, and he did call out from somewhere down in the hole. But Michael couldn't really understand what Grant was saying because the waterfall that was kind of blasting nearby was really loud, and also Grant's voice echoed around the cave,

which made it hard to tell what he was saying. So at this point, Michael and Carrie and the others were not worried. They figured that this was just an acoustic problem, not a safety problem. So Michael just walked over to the edge of this pit and kind of leaned over and just looked down, but you know, he couldn't see Grant.

He was too far down and it was too dark, and so Michael called out, asking Grant to repeat himself because it couldn't understand what he was saying. And Grant did yell back, he clearly replied to Michael, but Michael still couldn't really make out what he was saying. However, this time, there was something really different about the way Grant sounded.

Again, even though he doesn't know what Grant's saying, one thing was definitely clear. Grant no longer sounded like the calm, cool, and collected fearless leader that he normally was. He was talking really fast, he was repeating himself, he was saying something really, really quickly, very urgently. And even though again, it wasn't clear what it was, the tone was very clear.

Grant was scared, there was a problem. Now, obviously, problems arise when you are repelling into a 125-foot hole underground in this cave, that, you know, problems can happen. But for Michael and the others, when they sort of realized that something was wrong for Grant, it was really shocking, I mean, Grant is the guy that got other people out of problems.

it was really unsettling for those at the surface.

“And so Michael and the others, I mean, they're kind of hit with the sudden realization that”

one, it's very unsettling to hear Grant sounding this way, but worse, too, is they're not Cavers, they can't go into this pit and save Grant if he needs saving. Not only because they lacked experience, but also all the cave and all the climbing equipment was in that backpack that fell into the pit that's down there with Grant. So there's no way they can realistically help him if he is in any sort of trouble down there.

And also, there are one cell phone, it's down in that backpack in the pit. And so unless Grant can figure out whatever problem he's gotten, get back up here on his own, Michael and the others without even saying it knew like they were kind of helpless. And so as this realization is setting in for Michael and the others, Grant goes from trying to talk to them even though, again, they can't tell what he's saying, he just sounds sort of

panicked to straight up screaming. He's screaming for them, something is horribly wrong.

“And so Michael and Carrie, I mean, they start yelling down to Grant, trying to get him to clarify”

what's going on, but you have this waterfall that's causing all this noise and splashing everywhere, it's dark and Grant clearly is so panicked that he's not even listening to them. And so it's chaos, it's madness. And so Michael and Carrie, they turned to the other two friends, and they say, look, we're going to stay here at this hole and wait for Grant, you two, leave the cave, go get help. And so the other two, they rushed off to do just that.

While Michael and Carrie just sat there listening to Grant getting more and more hysterical by the

second, you know, somewhere down in this hole, they still have no idea what's wrong, but clearly,

there is an emergency here. And so for a little while, after the friends have gone off, Michael and Carrie, even though they're not really talking to Grant because he's just kind of rambling and yelling and screaming, they can't understand him. They're just kind of shouting down into the hole that everything's going to be okay, we've sent to get help, it's going to be

“okay, you're going to get out of here soon. They have no idea if he can hear them or understand”

them. I mean, they're assuming that the acoustics are bad down there too. Again, the sound of that waterfall is so loud, it's so dark. And so they're just like having this this awful moment, but then what cut through all this chaos was at some point Michael heard Grant say something that he really did understand. Grant at some point in a very high pitched, almost screaming voice yelled out Michael's name, like he was directly yelling to Michael, like I need you,

Michael, to help me. Now, at this point, obviously, the situation has escalated dramatically and already, like things are bad. And for Michael, this felt like a big deal. I mean, before that, all the yelling and screaming was obviously bad, but Michael, you know, he kind of views himself as, you know, Grant's successor, potentially. He's going to be the next, you know, president of this fellowship, and he looked up to Grant so much, primarily because Grant was like this fearless leader,

and so Michael sort of felt like when he heard his name called out that Grant was specifically sort of challenging him, like you, Michael, I need you, Michael took on that responsibility. And he felt like I can't just sit here, I can't just wait, something needs to be done, and I need to do it. I need to save Grant. And so Michael, he jumped up and he grabbed the extra harness they still had and he put it on. And as he was doing that, he could hear Kerry, who, you

know, she's seeing what's happening. And she's telling him, don't do it. You don't know what you're doing. You don't know how to go down this thing. Like, this is dangerous. Or what are you doing? Don't go. And Michael, he just looked at her and he said, I have to do this. I know Grant would do this for me. I'm doing it for him. He needs me. I'm going down. And Michael, you know, he's listening to Kerry still trying to tell him not to go, but he just said to her, please pray for me.

And then he walked over and he attached his harness to the same rope that Grant presumably was still attached to down at the bottom, but stuck for some reason and into the pit he went. As soon as Michael disappeared into this hole, Kerry knelt down beside the pit, she put her hands together. And she prayed as hard as she could for Michael and Grant to be okay. And after a few minutes, she heard Michael call out from somewhere in the hole.

And for some reason, she could actually understand what Michael was saying, which was basically that

he and Grant were okay. He was with Grant, you know, but they were just very, very cold, really flooded over Kerry and as she exhaled all the tension she'd been holding in and as the adrenaline kind of began to leave her body because now she's thinking everything's okay. She also realized that she too was very cold. She just hadn't been thinking about it. She was so fixated on the safety of her boyfriend and also Michael. You know, after all, she was only wearing a T-shirt

in the, the cave was very damp and there's this waterfall kind of spraying water everywhere. It was cold. It was a damp environment. So she's, you know, or teeth are chattering too. She's cold. And so Kerry naturally yelled down into this hole. You know, she can't see them, of course. She's just yelling into the darkness. You know, what's going on? What's wrong? You know, is Grant okay, but Michael just shouted back to her, "I'm fine. I'm fine."

there's something really wrong down there and it probably has to do with Grant. And so she stood up. She began pacing back and forth, you know, or stomachs and knots.

“And she's periodically yelling down into the hole to Michael, like, "What's going on?”

It's, is Grant okay? Are you okay?" But Michael all he would say back to her is, "I'm fine. I'm fine." He would just say that back to her. But his response time began to slow down. He wasn't responding to each and every one of her calls. He would just, you know, yell out, "I'm fine. I'm fine." But it just, it began to become more and more spaced out, as Kerry began to ramp up her questioning, asking more and more, "What's going on?"

And until finally, Michael just stopped answering all together. There were no more voices coming

out of the hole. And so the minutes ticked by, and Kerry, she continued to pace around yelling out to Michael and Grant, but the only reply she got was the sound of the water from the waterfall lapping up against the cave walls. About an hour and a half later, just before 4pm, a man named Anmar Merza, along with two other men, ran into the Ellison Cave with a bag of climbing equipment

“and medical supplies. Now, there was a bigger team of rescue workers on the way up the mountain”

behind them that had more gear and more personnel, but that group was moving slowly, because it took time to respond to a cave accident. Because typically, there were a lot of people and a lot of equipment specialized equipment that was required, and also usually the victims were trapped in pretty remote and difficult to access places, like tunnels and shafts deep inside of these caves. So Anmar and his team were the initial smaller group that went ahead of the larger

one to just kind of get the rescue started. A few minutes after entering the cave, Anmar saw a headlamp beam up ahead in the darkness, kind of bobbing around. And as soon as he reached the origin of the slide, he found a young woman who was sitting by a large hole, and she was shaking and terrified. She explained that her name was Kerry, and that her boyfriend, whose name was Grant, along with one of his friends, whose name was Michael, were down in this hole, and that

“granted gone in, there had been some issue, Michael had gone in after him, and now when she called”

out for them, neither of them were responding. After hearing this, Anmar directed one of his team members to take Kerry and bring her out of the cave, and then once they had left, Anmar put on his climbing gear, and as soon as he was ready, he began to repel down into this pit.

As Anmar repel, he's looking straight down into this dark shaft, and at first he can't see anything,

but after a little while, he began to see somewhere down below where what appeared to be two lights towards the bottom of this pit, which he assumed belonged to the two men. But before he could actually reach them, he felt something wet and freezing cold splashes cheek. Then, he saw something emerge out of the darkness right below him. It would turn out when Grant repel down into this warm-up pit, he had made a terrible, terrible mistake. He had attached his

rig through a section of rock that was directly in the path of a freezing cold waterfall. Now, this alone could have been okay. You can repel effectively through a waterfall. If you're careful, except what happened with Grant is, as he was repelling literally through the water, like the water is coming off this waterfall, it's hitting him. He got stuck, his rope got tangled, and where he got stuck was literally in the path of the waterfall. So he's stuck in the cave,

he can't go up, he can't go down, and he's just getting pounded by freezing cold water.

Now, at first, what Grant likely did is kind of flail around to try to get out of the path of

this water, but there was nowhere to go. He's in this shaft, there's nowhere to go, and he's just dangling there, and he began trying to stream out for help, but that was why his words were muffled, because the water was hitting him in the face, so he couldn't speak clearly. And then also, as he's just dangling there, very quickly, having that icy water hitting him nonstop would have actually sent his body into shock, and it's like he wouldn't have been able

to speak or think anymore. I mean, he was becoming hypothermic, and then, and what was possibly one of his final moments of clarity, he managed to belt out Michael's name, and he said it really clearly kind of managed to get his face out of the water for a second, and Michael, who trusted Grant completely when he heard his name being called. It felt like it was his calling. He needed to go in there and save Grant himself. And so into the hole he went, and he hooked his

rope up into the same exact spot that Grant had, and down he went. And Michael, you know, he did an incredibly brave thing by doing this, and it was something that Grant very likely would have done for him too. But again, Michael really had no idea what he was doing. He was basically just going in blind. However, unfortunately, because he just kind of followed Grant's lead and went down there without a plan. Well, in the darkness as he went down, he eventually reached where Grant

was, but got stuck as well. Also, in the path of the waterfall. Grant that he was not nearly as exposed to the water as Grant was, like his face was not getting blasted by water, so he was

move his bodies getting hit by this icy water. And so even though the rescuers did eventually

“get down to Michael and Grant, by the time they did, it was too late. The two men had froze to”

death. They basically dangled inside of this hole, getting hit by this water for about

two hours before their bodies just shut down. In 2013, two years after both Michael and Grant died inside of that cave, the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission gave Michael a posthumous metal for risking his life to save Grant's. Our next story is called "Not Going Anywhere." On a Friday night and late March of 1980, an 83-year-old man named Harry R. Truman,

sat on his couch and his Washington state lodge with a whiskey and coke, and turned on his battery-operated radio to listen to the news. And just a second or two later, he found himself having to jack up the volume of the radio, because he couldn't hear it anymore because a couple of his cats and the other room were fighting

“and yowling and it was causing a whole commotion. Harry had lost track of how many cats he actually had.”

But it was a lot, you know, maybe a dozen. And even though at this moment, he yelled and cursed it them and told them to knock it off. He was actually glad they were out there with him, because he liked their company. Five years earlier, Harry's wife, Edna, had died. And since then, he had lived alone, minus all these cats, and he also didn't have a lot of neighbors either. So for the most part, he had been fairly isolated the last few years.

Also, Spirit Lake, the lake that his lodge was on, was four-hour south of the major city of Seattle and pretty far into the wilderness. The lake did get busy in the summer with Torres, but at this time in March, there were only about 60 people that lived there, and they were very spread out. But Harry didn't really mind the solitude. He missed Edna a lot, but he had his cats, and he had his radio, and the jaw-dropping mountain scenery, and Lake, and he had his whiskey and

“coax. So overall, even though he was sort of a gruff guy, he was actually quite happy with his life.”

But just then, there was a loud knock on Harry's door, and Harry was not surprised by this. I mean, yes, he lives way out in the middle of nowhere and he did not expect visitors, but in this case, he knew who it was, and as soon as he thought about that, his face contorted into a scowl. He was really annoyed. At this point in Harry's life, he really had only one problem, and it was a major problem, at least to him, and that was the government. And for the last few days,

government agents, like almost certainly the ones that were knocking on his door, had been harassing him, trying to get him to leave his lodge and the wilderness that he loved so much, because they needed to conduct some kind of federal operation, and they wanted everybody to clear

out. Now, Harry loved his country, and he'd even fought for it during the first World War,

but he really did not like authority, and he could not tolerate being told what to do. During Prohibition, for example, which was a period of time in the 1920s, when alcohol was illegal in America, Harry had simply ignored the law and made his own boots, like he just didn't care. So, over these last few days, that these federal agents had come to his house trying to get him to leave, Harry had not been intimidated, he had simply stood as

ground, and he figured it was really only a matter of time before the federal government, sent a local police officer over, and hopes that Harry would be more cooperative with somebody that he likely already knew. But what they didn't know about Harry is that Harry really didn't cooperate with anybody, not with the government, certainly not with local police, not with his own family, not with his friends, or not with the 2x wives he'd been with before

finding Edna. He was just somebody who marched to the beat of his own drum. So now, Harry did not get up to answer the knock at his door. Instead, he just waited until the person out there, the visitor yelled through the door and announced who they were, and not really to Harry's surprise, it was the local deputy that Harry did know, you know, clearly being sent here by the federal agents to try to get Harry to leave. And when Harry still didn't answer the door, when the deputy

clearly had announced themselves, knowing Harry would know who they were. When Harry still didn't

get up, didn't answer the door. The deputy finally just sort of frustrated, called out.

Harry, are you sure you don't want to go? Now, even though the deputy was being a whole lot more amicable than the government agents had banned, they had been really forceful, basically telling him you got to leave. The deputy here was at least kind of giving Harry a chance to make a decision. Despite that, the question the deputy had asked, just made Harry really mad. Because leaving his house was just not something he would ever consider doing.

Harry had lived in this lodge for 54 years. And 37 of those years were spent running this lodge as an in, as a business, with his late wife Edna, who was the love of his life. Now, he'd let the lodge go a little after she had died, so truthfully it was kind of falling

was his and he would never give it up. And not only that, but just outside his doorstep was spirit

“lake, which Harry believed was the most beautiful, perfect place in the entire world. It was quiet”

and serene and situated right at the base of some of the most breathtaking mountains he had ever seen in his whole life. And so to say Harry loved it here was a complete understatement. His lodge, and spirit lake were basically his whole identity. Harry didn't know if he believed in God, but he did believe in the trees and the lake and the birds that screeched at him at all hours of the day. It was like his home, this area, was his religion. And he certainly was not about to give it up,

just because some federal authority or government agent or whoever told him to. So, all Harry said to the deputy waiting outside was a very firm, good night, which Harry was actually quite proud of himself for because he had a really hard time not swearing. So this seemed pretty mild. After that, Harry waited to see if the deputy would challenge him or say anything else, but he didn't. And moments later, Harry heard the deputies footsteps crunching down the gravel

“driveway and heading back towards his cruiser. After that, Harry leaned back into his couch”

and smiled to himself and picked up his drink kind of toasting himself for standing his ground.

And at the same time, sort of hoping that maybe now, finally, officials would understand that

he was not going to change his mind. But that's not what happened, a little more than a week later, on the morning of April 5th. Harry sat in a folding chair and a clearing by his house with his binoculars pressed to his eyes in a glass of whiskey in the cup holder of his chair. This was an area of the woods near his house, he called his cocktail lounge, where he'd often go to relax with a drink. He was covered by a thick canopy of evergreens,

but it also had a great view of the mountains and also the lake. But Harry was not here to relax. He was actually on very high alert because the woods were absolutely crawling with federal agents and local law enforcement officers. Harry could literally see them right now through his binoculars, walking around the various camps they had set up all over the mountain side and also near the lake. And there was nobody to stop them. Because everybody else who lived in this forest

had bowed to the pressure and left when told to, which meant Harry was quite literally the last resident still fighting the good fight. Now so far, officials had not physically attempted to do force him out. But now that Harry saw them assembling all over the mountain side, he had to wonder how long he had before they did try. But at the same time, he also knew that he had

“one piece of very important and very surprising leverage over the authorities. And that was”

that over the past couple of days. Harry's refusal to leave his wilderness home just because the government told him to, had turned him into a media attraction. Reporters had heard about what was going on and they had started coming to his house. Now, usually Harry just did not like the press, you know even though he clearly listened to the news himself, he still thought of the press, thought of the media like they were, it were vultures, it was looking for dead meat and chaos.

But Harry also really liked to talk and he had a lot of very strong opinions. And now seeing his beautiful lake inundated by outsiders, Harry realized he had to take full advantage of this this media interest in him if he wanted to stay in his home. Because the way he saw it was, the government could really not make him do anything against his will, if the whole world was watching. So over the next month, Harry gave a lot of interviews. And pretty quickly, he became kind

of an international celebrity. He was this single older man standing up to something way bigger

and way more powerful, which was sort of admirable, although people didn't really understand it,

but it was still a big story. It was very interesting. But more than that, it seemed like the public just sort of liked Harry. In his interviews, Harry would swear and yell and rant and rave and tell reporters about how no authority figure would dare try to get him out of his house. And he'd also talk about his life, just telling these crazy stories that had nothing to do with the wilderness, like about the whiskey that he'd bottled in distilled during his prohibition

days, which he called Panther P. And about his relationship with his late wife and how they used to dance together at the edge of the lake, or his war stories from World War I. I mean, this guy was just really quite fascinating. And so by the time, May rolled around that year, Harry went from being bombarded by the government, to being bombarded by the media. Today, this would be like going crazy viral, where everybody's seeing you on their feet, but this is 1980, and so people got

their news from newspapers and the television and the radio. But those mediums were all full of Harry and people were kind of obsessed. Everybody from average citizens to school kids,

took helicopters just to get there more quickly. And Harry, if he was being honest, he sort of

“relished all the attention. A few months earlier, he'd been happy with his quiet life, you know,”

no phone, and he just had his 1,000 cats for company, but now it's like the whole world cared about him, and it was pretty cool. A few weeks later, though, everything changed. On Sunday, May 18th,

the sun came up on Harry's lodge, and the woods around it were totally quiet for the first time

in weeks. Because Harry, in some ways, had won. He had kept his word and he'd stayed strong and refused to give in to the government's demands to leave. And finally, the government had backed out, and the sheriff had even come by the day before to tell Harry that, okay, you know, no one's going to come by and ask you to leave anymore. It's on you. And so now, on May 18th, as Harry was

“getting up, it was just him, the lake, the trees, and the big beautiful mountain. And then,”

at 8.32 a.m. that morning, a deafening boom shook the earth. It would turn out,

the media was not totally finished with the story of Harry R. Truman. In fact, what happened on the

morning of May 18th, 1980, would, in many ways, make Harry even more famous than he already was, because Harry didn't live at the base of just any old mountain. His lodge was situated directly at the foot of Mount St. Helens, which was an active volcano. The government operation that the federal agents and local law enforcement were trying to run here was in a evacuation. They were not trying to impede on Harry's rights. They were trying to save him. But Harry was so convinced

that the land he loved so much that he had lived on for nearly 60 years would not hurt him. And so he ignored the authorities' repeated warnings, but Harry's decision was the wrong one. And on May 18th, he paid for his mistake. Because that morning, Mount St. Helens erupted, sending an avalanche of searing lava and mud directly onto Spirit Lake and Harry's lodge,

killing him and his cats instantly. His remains were never found.

57 people died during this eruption, including Harry. Today, in that area, Harry has both a trail and a ridge that are named after him. So, in a way, he remains a part of the mountain that he loved so much. 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. Ballenpodcast, strange dark and mysterious stories, is hosted and executive-produced by me,

Mr. Ballen. Our head of writing is Evan Allen. Our head of production is Zach Levitt, produced by Jeremy Bohn. Story editing by Evan Allen. Research and fact-checking by Shelley Xu, Samantha Vanhoose, Evan Beamer, Abigail Shumway, and Camille Callahan. Research and fact-checking supervision by Stephenier. Audio editing and post-produced by Whit La Cassio and Cole La Cassio, Perry Crowell, and Jordan Stitham. Mixed in Mastered by Brendan Kane,

production coordination by Samantha Collins, production support by Antonio Minata, and Delana Corley. Art work by Jessica Klugst and Kiner, theme song called "Something Wicked" by Ross Bugden. Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballenpodcast. And just a reminder, every new and exclusive episode we put out on the Mr. Ballenpodcast, you can also now watch on the Mr. Ballen YouTube channel that very same day. And trust me, some of these stories you truly have to see to believe.

“Again, my YouTube channel is just called Mr. Ballen. If you want to listen to episodes one week early”

and add free, you can subscribe to SiriusXMpodcast+ on Apple Podcasts or visit SiriusXM.com/podcast+ 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.