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Mr. Ballin (11:30)

Our next story is called More Than a feeling. At around 5pm on August 29, 1954, a 53 year old woman named Juliet Exline had just sat down on her couch with a book inside of her home in Los Angeles when she got this weird wave of anxiety that kind of rushed over her. Now there was nothing she could think of that would cause her to feel this way. And she even looked around her house thinking, you know, maybe there was something weird going on, but there was nothing. And so finally Juliet, you know, she put her book down and just took a few calming breaths to kind of go back to normal. Like she didn't know what was going on, but she could tell she was super anxious. Now, generally speaking, Juliet was a very mellow person. She was not prone to anxiety attacks like this. And so that kind of caught her off guard. And the only thing she could think of that was different than normal was her husband. Larry was on a much needed vacation. And so the last couple of days while he'd been gone had been maybe more lonely in the house. And so maybe that was causing her to feel this weird stress. She didn't know, but she told herself, you know, Larry's vacation was definitely a good thing. Larry was an exterminator, and over the past two years, he had not taken a single day off. He was a total workaholic. And so when Larry began to talk about wanting to take a break, Juliet had encouraged him to put in time for some vacation time. You know, put in a request. And Frank had actually done that. And as soon as his boss had approved a two week long vacation, Larry had been so pumped, he had called his friend and they had immediately scheduled a fishing trip. And four days before, Frank and his friend had driven off to enjoy his time off. And so, as Juliet thought about that, she told herself that, you know what, even if she was feeling a little bit anxious about Larry being gone, it really was a good thing for Larry and it would improve not only his life, but her life as well. This was overall a good thing. And so she just needed to kind of deal with this anxiety that maybe, or maybe not was connected to Larry. She didn't know. But for the rest of that evening, Juliet just could not get rid of this kind of baseline low level nervousness she was feeling. And so at some point, she began getting up and walking around her house and confirming all the windows were shut and locked and the doors were locked, she was drawing curtains, you know, checking in closets, making sure everything was totally safe. And then by 8pm, when she still just could not shake this anxiety, she decided she just needed to go to bed and kind of sleep this off. But after falling asleep, Juliet suddenly Woke up at 10:15pm Drenched in sweat with the most intense anxiety she had ever felt in her life. And she was totally disoriented. She's looking around her room like, what's going on here? And then she heard a voice. It was Larry's voice, except he sounded funny. He sounded like, quiet, as if maybe he was outside the house trying to come in, and he was calling to her. And so, kind of in a panic, she jumped out of bed, ran into the hallway, and right in the hallway was Larry. He wasn't outside. He was right there. Except something was wrong with Larry. He was kind of hunched over and grabbing his stomach. He had his hand on the wall, and he also appeared to be soaking wet. And so Juliet had no idea what was going on. But between all that anxiety and now seeing Larry here in this weird state, she couldn't help herself. She just ran towards him to just make sure he was okay. But as soon as she got about a foot away from him, he held out his hand and said, no, don't touch me. I have to go back. And what he said was so disorienting that Juliet just stopped and stared at her husband like, what is this? And that's when she made the startling realization that Larry was not soaking wet with water. He was soaking wet with blood. And he was clutching his stomach like something was Bleeding in his midsection. And the reason he had sounded so quiet when he had called out to her and woken her up was because he was clearly hurt. And so Juliet has no clue what's going on. Like, her husband was supposed to be seven hours away on this fishing trip. And so how is he here? It didn't make any sense. And so, really not knowing what else to do, Juliet just said, I'm gonna call the doctor. And so she ran past Larry, headed to the kitchen. And she was about to grab the phone on the wall, and. But before she could grab it, the phone began to ring. And so Juliet just answered it and said, hello? Hello? And what she heard was the sound of a sheriff in Eli, Nevada. And he said, excuse me, is this Mrs. Exline? Juliet Exline? And she said, yes. What's going on? What's happened? And the sheriff said, ma', am, I'm sorry to tell you this, but I have some terrible news. Your husband got into a car accident, and unfortunately, he has passed away. And now the second the sheriff said this to Juliet, she just froze and goes, no, that's not possible. He's here with me right now. And Juliet turned around and looked into the hallway where Larry had been standing. And now Larry was gone. Larry really had died in that car accident because Juliet would bury her husband that week. But Juliet maintained that. That clearly after her husband had died, his spirit had somehow survived the accident. Because when she saw her husband standing in the hallway, you know, hunched over and covered in blood, it was at 10:15pm she remembers, because when she woke up, she saw the time. It was 10:15. And her husband had died at exactly 10:15pm the exact moment she saw him in the hallway. Juliet would ultimately write an account of what she experienced with her husband. However, from that day forward, she never once saw her husband again. That was the only time.

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Mr. Ballin (17:56)

The next and final story of today's episode is called A Thousand Tortured Souls. Late one night In November of 1999, a 66 year old minister named Colin Grant opened up the iron gates of a cemetery called Greyfriars Kirkland. The cemetery was one of the oldest and most famous cemeteries in Edinburgh, Scotland. Now, the cemetery was basically pitch black. However, there were a few old iron lanterns that lined the cobblestone path that cut through the cemetery. And so Colin pushed open these big gates and he stepped onto this path and he began walking. And on either side of him for as far as he could see were all these headstones, some of which dated back to the 1600s. And as he kept walking, he could see up ahead, even in the darkness, the huge Gothic style church that sat right in the center of the cemetery. Now, at first glance, this cemetery just kind of looked like a pretty typical old cemetery, albeit a pretty spooky one. But to Colin, he knew there was far more than just a graveyard here. Deep underground, in this cemetery below where all the people have been buried at their headstones, was basically another cemetery. There was like this mass burial pit that the cemetery had been built on top of. And in this lower level cemetery, which in no way was marked, I mean, this is basically a hidden mass burial, were thousands of people who had been starved and tortured to death hundreds of years ago. And so Colin stopped for a second on the path and just kind of stared ahead at this church. And for a second he thought about just turning and leaving, because he did not want to be here. He was really only here because the city of Edinburgh had begged him to come here. Colin, in addition to being a minister, claimed to be a psychic, which meant he could speak to the dead. And so the city of Edinburgh, in desperation, had asked him to come to this cemetery tonight and perform an exorcism. And so, as much as Colin did just want to turn around and leave, he knew he really had a duty here, not just to the city, but really to the people of the city. Because if he didn't do this exorcism, there was a good chance more people were going to get hurt. The only thing that was making Colin a little bit less afraid in this moment was was he actually was not alone in the cemetery. There were two people with him. There was a journalist and a photographer from a local newspaper who were basically tagging along to document this exorcism. And so, after taking a minute to compose himself, Colin continued walking deeper into the cemetery with these two following behind him. And then before reaching the big church, Colin left the path and began cutting through the grass, passing by different headstones on the way to perhaps the most Infamous building in the entire cemetery, the Black Mausoleum. The Black Mausoleum was this tall stone crypt with a rounded top that had been built sometime in the late 1600s. And as Colin got closer to this pretty creepy looking building that sat basically on the side of the cemetery, Colin began to feel this really intense sense of dread come over him. And the closer he got, that dread began to kind of manifest itself in like a pit in his stomach. And eventually he began feeling really scared of this building. And eventually Colin actually had to fully stop about 10 or so feet away from the building because he just felt like he couldn't go any closer. It felt evil. And then Colin turned and looked at his companions, the journalist and photographer, to see if maybe they were reacting to this mausoleum. But the two of them were just standing there with blank expressions on their face, like obviously not thinking that anything sinister was happening here. You know, even though the city had asked the minister to be here to perform this exorcism in this mausoleum, you know, it didn't mean everybody believed what was going on here. And clearly these two didn't. They were totally skeptical. But this didn't offend Colin. He was used to people not believing in the things he believed in. And he knew as soon as he actually began his work, you know, doing this exorcism, they would change their mind. And so at some point Colin told the photographer that, hey, you know, I'm gonna go in the mausoleum now. Cause I have to do the exorcism before I do take a picture of the mausoleum. And so the photographer just raised her camera and took a picture of the mausoleum. Colin thanked her and then he turned and began walking towards the building. When he got right in front of it, he looked up and he read the name across the top of the crypt. And it said George Mackenzie. And as Colin read that, he could feel his heart rate start to spike. So back in the late 1600s, George MacKenzie was a Scottish lord who worked for the King of England, enforcing the king's religious laws. But at the time, these laws were very unpopular. And there was one group called the Covenanters who hated these laws so much that they actually mounted a full scale rebellion in 1679. But their rebellion failed miserably. And this is when George Mackenzie came in. He captured over a thousand Covenanters and he marched them all into this huge field which would later become the Greyfriars Kirkland Cemetery. But at the time it was just a big open field and he held them there. And for weeks he had these people starved and tortured and mutilated. And if anybody tried to run or resist because they knew they were doomed, I mean, they all knew they were gonna die here. If anybody took off, he would capture them, cut their head off, and then place their head on a spike around the perimeter of this field until after several weeks, the entire field is just ringed with decaying bodies and bloody heads on spikes. And so after a few months of this, basically everybody in that field had been murdered in some horrible way by George Mackenzie. And their bodies were all dumped into a mass grave in Greyfriars Kirkland and covered over. And then, you know, hundreds of years later, a proper cemetery would be built right on top of that mass grave. And then when George Mackenzie died later on, I mean, he lived a normal, happy, full life after doing all these horrible things. They built him this beautiful mausoleum in Greyfriars Kirkland in the proper cemetery. And so here's this horrible person, George Mackenzie, who's a mass murderer, and he's put to rest in this beautiful mausoleum just, you know, feet away from this mass grave of all these people he killed. For almost 300 years after Mackenzie was buried, the Greyfriars Kirkland Cemetery was quiet. It was not considered a haunted place. That all changed, though, in 1998. So that was one year before Collins showed up to perform this exorcism. That year, in 1998, a homeless man broke into the black mausoleum, and he fell through the floor and landed in one of those mass burial pits of those people Mackenzie had killed. And apparently, basically right after this happened, visitors to the cemetery began reporting the same thing, that anytime they were in or near the black mausoleum, they'd get pushed or tugged on or scratched or burned or even strangled. I mean, people were coming out of the cemetery terrified. And so quickly, people in town began to speculate about, you know, what was going on in the cemetery. And quickly a story began to circulate around town that maybe when that guy fell through the floor in the mausoleum, that that had released George Mackenzie's evil spirit, and his spirit was responsible for all these attacks. And so it went on like this for about a year until finally this young woman was found outside of the black mausoleum, unconscious, looking like she'd been strangled. And when she came to, she had no memory of what happened. And so people assumed this had to be another attack by the spirit of George Mackenzie. And so by this point, the city of Edinburgh was totally fed up with this. They didn't know what to do. And so they said, you know what? Let's just Try an exorcism. Let's have someone go into that mausoleum and literally confront the spirit of George Mackenzie and banish him, get him out of here and stop this madness. And so ultimately, Colin was hired to perform this exorcism. However, as Colin stood there, you know, reading the name George Mackenzie and mentally preparing himself to go inside of this horrible place, he realized he just couldn't do it. This was too much. And so Colin is just standing there feeling totally stressed out. He's embarrassed, he feels like a coward. He has no idea what he's gonna say to the photographer and journalist who've literally come out here to document what he's gonna do. And now he's not gonna do it. But as Colin turned around to basically blurt out this really embarrassing news that, hey, guys, we gotta leave, he realized he actually knew something else he could do that in many ways might actually be better than going into this mausoleum and doing an exorcism. And so without saying anything, Colin just turned and began speed walking over to this big field that was not too far away from the black mausoleum. And when he got there, he just began chanting prayers and walking in circles. Flicking holy water didn't explain anything he was doing to the journalist and the photographer who'd followed him over there and are just watching him like, what's going on here? They got no idea. He's not clarifying. And for hours, this is what he did. He just kind of paced in this field, you know, just kind of doing what looked like stereotypical, you know, exorcism type behavior. And that's what the journalist and the photographer assumed he was doing. And so as Colin did whatever he was doing in this field, the photographer, whose name was Susan Berle, just began doing her job, you know, again thinking that he was doing the exorcism. And so she just started taking pictures of him. And Then finally around 2am so again, this has been hours of Colin doing this thing he's doing. Colin just abruptly stops and walks over to Susan and the journalist and. And Colin looks horrible. He's totally haggard, his hair's all disheveled, he's sweating, he's pale and his head is down. And he says to the two women, I failed. He explained to them that his original intention was to go into the black mausoleum and confront George Mackenzie's spirit head on and banish him from the cemetery. However, he had had a change of heart at the door and decided to go this other route, which was to go to this big open field in the middle of the cemetery and an attempt to free the spirits of all those Covenanters who had been tortured and killed by George Mackenzie. Colin's thinking was, you know, if I can free all of these poor tortured souls, that maybe once they're gone, George Mackenzie's spirit will also go away. And while according to Colin, he was able to free, you know, 200 some odd trapped souls, he said there were many more that still needed to be freed. And he just didn't have the strength. Like, he couldn't do this right now. And so he said, you know, I have to rest and do this at another time. Now, the journalist and the photographer were totally over this and did not care at all. It's 2am they don't really understand what he was doing. They don't really know if this was the exorcism or if it was something else. But to them they're like, okay, fine, we'll get out of here. It's late. It's not a big deal. And so the three of them, they began walking out of the cemetery. And right when they got in front of the church. So basically between where the black mausoleum was and where that field was, where Colin had been for the past several hours, Colin abruptly stopped. And he told the journalist and the photographer that actually, you know what, he had a little strength left and he felt like it was his duty to try this again because he knew he could free more souls and so he was gonna give it another go. And so the journalist and the photographer are like, okay. And so Colin, you know, he gets out his Bible and he begins kind of doing the same thing he was doing out in the field, you know, walking around, chanting Bible verses, spraying holy water all around. And then at some point, for reasons he did not explain to either Susan or the journalist, he pulled out 12 candles from his backpack that he had brought along and he put them in a circle on the ground right in front of this church. It also encompassed this big Celtic cross that was on the ground. And Colin was inside of the circle and he lit all these candles. And the whole time again, you know, he's chanting out these Bible verses. And he stands up and right after all the candles have been lit, suddenly Susan and the journalists noticed the candles begin to flicker. And it's not windy at all inside the cemetery, like they shouldn't be flickering. And at the same time, Colin seemed to sense that something was happening around him. And he turned his whole body, his whole presence, and he looked over at the black mausoleum and began chanting these Bible verses. Louder and louder, like he was aiming them at the black mausoleum. And as he was doing this, the candles were flickering more and more and more. And at some point, Colin actually picked up one of these candles and kind of held it out at the black mausoleum. And so at this point, the journalist and the photographer, Susan, they're sensing that something weird is happening here. Like, this is spooky what they're seeing. Like, why are the candles flickering? What's going on with Colin? Like, what's happening here? And for a minute, the two of them kind of abandoned their actual job, which is to document what they're seeing. And they just stood there kind of witnessing this totally bizarre event. But then Susan sort of broke out of it. She lifted up her camera, and right as Colin is passionately chanting out these verses, she takes a picture of him. And the second she does, the flash lights up the cemetery. And then after the flash goes away, Colin. It was like the light went out on him and he just crumpled to the ground. And so the journalist immediately ran over to Colin to see if he was okay. And Colin, who's, like, barely conscious at this point, he just kept repeating, this is going to kill me. This is going to kill me. And so Susan was about to run over and join her colleague and make sure Colin was okay. But before she did, she glanced down at her camera to see the picture she had taken of Colin right before he collapsed. And as she glanced at it, she couldn't believe what she was looking at. At first she thought, you know, maybe this is some trick of the light, like, this can't be right. But then she zoomed in on the photo, and when she looked closely, she screamed, colin, the minister, is standing there with the candle outstretched, and behind him is the big church. And on the church on the left side, there are windows. Now, this church was locked up. Nobody was inside the church at the time. But you can clearly see in the left window there is a figure in that window looking out at Colin. Now, of course, this is not evidence enough to make everybody believe that, oh, that must be George MacKenzie's spirit staring out at Colin. He's the reason Colin collapsed. But I'll tell you, this photograph is not the end of the story. Remember, after Colin collapsed to the ground, after this photo was taken, the journalist ran over, and all Colin kept saying was, this is gonna kill me. This is gonna kill me. Well, it would turn out that he'd be right. Not long after this failed exorcism, Colin would die. Inexplicably, his death would come as a total shock to his friends and family. No one has ever been able to debunk the photo that Susan took that showed that dark figure in the window of the church, meaning nobody knows what that was. The church really was supposed to be empty and locked. And so how is there somebody or something in the window? Nobody knows. A lot of people think that could be the evil spirit of George Mackenzie, you know, striking Colin down. And Susan managed to capture it on film, but, you know, it's up to you if you believe that or not. But I will say to this day, people go into that cemetery and come out with scratch marks on them and, you know, claiming they were pushed or pulled or strangled. And so that cemetery is considered to be one of the most haunted places in the world. And George Mackenzie spirit who supposedly haunts it is considered to be one of the most dangerous poltergeists in the world as well. 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. Ballin podcast Strange, Dark and Mysterious Stories is hosted and executive Produced by me, Mr. Ballin. Our head of writing is Evan Allen. Our head of production is Zach Levitt. Produced by Jeremy Bone. Research and fact checking by Shelly Shue, Samantha Vanhus, Evan Beamer, Abigail Shumway and Camille Callahan. Research and fact checking supervision by Steven Ear Audio editing and post produced by Whit Locasio and Cole Locasio. Additional audio editing by Jordan Stidham Mixed and mastered by Brendan Cain Production coordination by Samantha Collins Production support by Antonio Minata and Delena Corley Artwork by Jessica Claugston Kiner theme song called Something Wicked by Ross Bugden thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin podcast. If you enjoyed today's story and you're looking for more bone chilling content, be sure to check out all of our studio's podcasts. There's this one, the Mr. Ballin podcast, as well as Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, Bedtime Stories, Wartime Stories, Run Fool Redacted, Late Nights with Nexpo and a Twist of History. All you have to do is search for Ballin Studios wherever you get your podcasts. To watch hundreds more stories just like this one, head over to our YouTube channel, which is just called Mr. Ballin. So that's gonna do it. I really appreciate your support. Until next time, see you avoiding your unfinished home projects because you're not sure where to start. Thumbtack knows homes so you don't have to don't know the difference between matte paint finish and satin or what that clunking sound from your dryer is with thumbtack. You don't have to be a home pro, you just have to hire one. You can hire top rated pros, see price estimates and read reviews all on the app download today.