Mr. Ballin (13:58)

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Narrator (16:19)

Our next story is called the Dream.

Storyteller (16:39)

On March 7, 1975, 21 year old Mark Hanson, along with two of his friends from college, Ben Fish and John Chidester, arrived at a parking lot on the eastern side of the Appalachian Trail. All three of the young men were in incredible physical shape and Were excited to spend their spring break challenging themselves on some of the trail's most rigorous hikes. The day before they were supposed to go, they almost canceled the trip because there was this terrible weather system that was coming over the trail, and they were thinking, you know, it's going to be dangerous. It's not such a good idea. And then they started talking some more, and they were like, well, we're already going to, you know, challenge ourselves. It would be even more challenging to hike these really difficult trails with the inclusion of bad weather. So this is another way to, you know, test our abilities. And so they kind of got pumped up at the idea of hiking the appalachian trail in terrible weather. So the guys arrive in the parking lot. You know, the windshield wipers are furiously working to keep the pouring rain off. They hop out, and they're getting soaked by the rain. They put on their ponchos, they grab their heavy packs, and they make their way over to the trail. Their plan was to move west along the trail until they hit the tri corner shelter, where they would spend their first night. The tri corner shelter is one of the many shelters along the appalachian trail. They are open to the public. There's no heating or electricity, but it provides shelter from the storm. You can go in there and, you know, get in a sleeping bag, and you'll be fine. But to get to the tricorner shelter, they would need to hike 16 miles, almost completely uphill, Walking right into the wind, and it's raining on them, and it's supposed to snow later on, so it's just a treacherous, treacherous first day. But they take off. They start walking up this trail, and after a couple of miles, John says, you know what, guys? This is awful. I think we should probably turn around. I think we've underestimated how bad this is going to be. Let's go back to the car, and we'll do this another time. But mark and ben were like, oh, no, we are committed. We are doing this. We are not turning around. And John's like, you know what? Suit yourself. I'm not gonna do that. And he turned around, and he left, and he went back to the car, and he would pick them up when they were done. After john turned around, Mark and ben, you, know, they felt good. They felt tough. They're gonna stick this hike out. And so they take off again, and ben's in the lead. And ben seems to be handling the poor weather and difficult hike and heavy pack a lot better than mark is. In fact, over the next several hours, Mark would Drift farther and farther back, and Ben would need to wait for him. And Mark would be hunched over, you know, really just struggling with this hike. And then at some point, Mark yells to him and says, I got to take my pack off. I can't carry this much weight up this hill until we get to the shelter. I'm not going to make it to the shelter. Then Ben would say to him, you know, if we don't get to the shelter for some reason, you're going to be stranded out here in this storm without any warm clothes, without your sleeping bag, without your tent, without your food, without your water. It's way too dangerous. You have to keep your pack on. And so finally Mark is convinced, and he's like, oh, all right. Puts his pack back on and they continue moving. About an hour later, at 7pm they had reached the section of the trail where they knew they were getting closer, close ish to the tricorner shelter. They were certainly well beyond the halfway point. But it was dark out. The temperature had dropped significantly. At this point, Ben is basically Mark's cheerleader, kind of egging him on to keep moving. And Mark's kind of staggering along this trail, and Ben and Mark are just hoping that shelter just appears at some point here because they don't know how much farther they can go. Another hour and a half goes by. They still haven't made it to the shelter. Mark is groaning. He can barely move. It's pitch black. The rain has now completely shifted over to snow, and it is just dumping snow on them. And Ben is concerned that, you know, somehow did we take a wrong turn? Even though they were on a really well marked trail and he knew they hadn't, he figured they must be so close at this point. And it was around this time that Mark yells out to Ben, I'm done. I can't go any farther. And he sits down right in the middle of the trail. He's sitting down with his pack and he's just laying there. And Ben is like, come on, we're so close. You can't sit down now. And Mark's like, I'm not moving. I can't do anymore. I'm gonna sleep right here. Ben knows this is a bad idea. I mean, they did have warm clothes and sleeping bags, and they probably would be just fine sleeping out in the middle of the trail. But it just seemed so unnecessarily risky when there's probably a shelter maybe a couple hundred meters away and he would turn out to be right. And so he decides he's going to walk ahead on the trail, and he's going to see if the shelter's there. But he only went about 100 meters. He was within maybe 100 meters of the actual shelter, but he never saw it. And so after going ahead and feeling like, man, I don't want to drag mark any farther, you know, if there's no shelter ahead, for all we know, we took a wrong turn. And so he turns back around, and he goes back near mark, not next to him, but close enough to him that he can see him. And he sits down on the trail, too. He gets his sleeping bag out, he crawls inside, and he falls asleep. That night, Ben would have this vivid, horrible nightmare where he heard mark screaming for help, yelling for Ben to come save him as he's being dragged off the trail into the forest. And it scared him so much that Ben woke up. And he looks down the trail to where mark is, and he can see Mark's backpack is sitting right on the trail. And so he thinks, oh, mark's still there. And he's so tired, he's not about to get up and go check. He's like, that was just a dream. And he goes back to sleep. The next morning, when the sun comes up, Ben gets up again. And the first thing he does is he looks over at mark and he sees the pack. But he realizes that mark is not there. It's just the backpack. And so Ben jumps up and he yells for mark. He doesn't get a response. He's looking around, thinking, he's got to be around here, but he's not. It snowed that night, so any tracks mark would have left to show where he went to were now covered up. And that's when it dawns on Ben that that dream he had the night before that might have been real. And he has this sinking feeling that something horrible has happened to mark and that he didn't save him. And so he thinks, I gotta get authorities. He grabs his bag, he leaves marks there because he's thinking maybe he'll come back and he'll grab it. And Ben turns and runs down the trail in the direction he hopes is towards this tri corner shelter. And he can't believe it when, literally 200 meters away, he finds the tri corner shelter. They were that close. And inside are other hikers. He was able to get one of them to run down and get park services to know that they have a missing hiker on the trail. Searchers were dispatched to the area where mark and Ben had been sleeping on the trail. The first thing they did is they went to his bag, and inside were all the things he would need to survive out in the wild. His tent, his warm clothes, his sleeping bag, his food, his water, everything. It was all left there. Over the next few days, hundreds of searchers combed the area. They had helicopters overhead, and they made no significant discovery. However, one park ranger discovered this huge cave that was not that far away from where they had been sleeping. And inside of this cave, this ranger said a large mammal had been staying recently. It was not there now, and there was all these animal bones inside the cave. So it was obviously a predator of some kind. And so there was speculation that between this cave that probably held, you know, a bear or something like that, and Ben's dream that probably was reality, of Mark being pulled off the trail, screaming for help, that maybe Mark was attacked by some animal that dragged him away. On the ninth day of the search, Mark's body was found. It was located three miles down the hill from where he and Ben had been sleeping. Up on that trail, Mark was positioned up against a tree. His jacket was open, his gloves were off, and his boots were off, and they were placed right next to him. An autopsy concluded he must have died within 24 to 36 hours of leaving that trail. So there's lots of questions with this one. Namely, why did Mark, in the middle of the night, get up, not tell Ben where he was going, and then leave the trail and walk three miles away? The trail they were on was very well warned that even at night, in a snowstorm, Mark, it would be very obvious if you were on the trail or if you were off the trail. So Mark had to have known he was leaving the trail. But even if Mark had a great reason for wanting to leave the trail just hours earlier, he couldn't even stand. That's why they were even laying on the trail to begin with, because he couldn't go any farther. So the idea that he can just jump up in the middle of the night and navigate this really difficult terrain for three miles in total darkness in the snow, that doesn't make sense either. And then you have Ben's dream where he hears Mark screaming for help, and he's yelling for Ben to come save him as he's getting dragged off the trail. There's a good chance what Ben was hearing and seeing in his dream was actually playing out just several feet away from him down the trail.

Narrator (26:27)

The next and final story of today's episode is called Big footprint.

Storyteller (26:46)

In early July of 1953, Mr. And Mrs. Huggin, along with their three young daughters, left their home in Winnipeg, Canada for a six week summer vacation. They were headed to the girls grandparents summer cabin in Wade, Ontario, which is one of the more remote and wild sections of Ontario. Their cabin was right in the middle of this huge swampy forest and they were not too far from one of the biggest lakes in Ontario called Fox Lake. The family arrived late on July 4th, so they didn't do anything when they arrived, they just hung out at the cabin. And then early the next day all the adults decided they wanted to take the girls to Fox Lake for the day. So they began gathering all the supplies they would need while the three girls played outside the cabin. Now there's no neighbors or anybody else anywhere near this cabin and so it was totally normal to have the girls just play outside. They were not concerned about, you know, them getting taken or something. And so the two older girls played in the front yard of the cabin and Geraldine, the five year old, was playing on the side of the cabin. So the two girls in front couldn't see Geraldine. And the adults, they were keeping their eye on all three girls, but they were mostly just kind of going in and out of the cabin, getting their stuff together, periodically poking their head out. But the girls were fine. At 10am that morning the parents had finally packed up the car and they were ready to collect the girls to head over to the lake. And so they went outside, they got the two girls that were out front and they went to the side of the house and they couldn't find Geraldine. Now they weren't worried because where could she have gone? And so they walked around the house, they're yelling for Geraldine and they asked the two girls, you know, have you seen Geraldine, Where'd she go? And they're like, oh, we don't know, she was just over on the side of the house a minute ago. And so they can't find her outside. And so they go in the cabin thinking she must have gone in there because that's the only place she could be. But after thoroughly looking through the cabin and not finding her, they started to get a little bit more worried. At this point the adults start talking to each other and they're saying, did anybody see Geraldine in the past couple of minutes? Has anybody seen her? And they all said, yeah, I poked my head out the window and I saw her within the past 10 minutes right on the side of the cabin. And so they all agreed within the past 10 minutes they had seen her right outside the cabin. So they're alarmed, they can't find her, but they're thinking, we're gonna find her. They go back outside and they're looking around and they're yelling for her. Now, this is such a remote section of Ontario that there's really no noise pollution and sound travels really, really well. And so when they were yelling her name, it was booming through the woods. And even if Geraldine had, you know, sprinted for 10 minutes away from the cabin, she still easily would have been within earshot. And all she had to do was just, you know, yell back and they would see her, but she didn't yell back, and there was no sign of her anywhere. And so at this point, the family is panicking, and so they call the police. The police show up and they're looking around thinking, we're not going to be able to search this very effectively on our own. This is a huge, wild, remote section of Canada. And so they called in some professional trackers that were familiar with this area to come in and help them with their search. They also called the army in Winnipeg to send over some people to assist as well. But as soon as the search started, the skies opened up and dumped rain all over the entire area, basically washing away any footprints that they could have used to potentially find her. As the day wore on and the sun was starting to set and there was still no sign of Geraldine, her father said something to the searchers that was intended to help them find his daughter. But it was just this incredibly heartbreaking comment. And what he told them was his daughter was afraid of the dark, and that once it got dark out in the woods here, she's just going to sit down and cry. And so that will stop her from moving farther away from us, hopefully, and we should be able to find her. But they didn't. And for three days they looked everywhere for her, and there was no trace of her. And to make matters even worse is the weather had been really rainy and cold, not below freezing temperatures, but close, like in the 40 degree Fahrenheit range. And she just had a light shirt and shorts on. She was not prepared for the weather. On the evening of the third day, they found footprints that they believed to be Geraldine's, high up on this ledge in some moss overlooking Fox Lake. And the footprints indicated that this child, which was probably Geraldine, was looking out over the lake and then turned around and walked away from the ledge down into the swamp where her footprints dissipate. And so the search effort was pushed to the swamp. And they have thousands of people that are Combing through this mosquito infested bush to look for this girl. And once again, there's nothing. Then, on the seventh day of the search, they find another set of footprints in the swamp around the area where they were looking for Geraldine. But it wasn't Geraldine's footprints because they were these huge prints that if it was a human print, they would need to be an enormous human being, or these prints belong to some enormous animal. But they were unable to determine what animal it was at this point, Although there's not really any real evidence connecting that print to geraldine, People are starting to suspect that whoever left this print or whatever left this print has something to do with whatever happened to Geraldine two days later. So nine days after Geraldine has gone missing, Some of the professional trackers were two and a half miles away from where that large print was found in that swamp, and where geraldine's footprints were found up on that ledge, they found a piece of her plaid shirt 2 1/2 miles away on the eastern shore of another lake called long lake. And so they pushed the search effort over to that section of long lake, and within 24 hours, they would find Geraldine's remains. The scene where geraldine was found was bizarre. There was very little left of geraldine, and from what was left, it was clear there had been significant animal predation. And so initial thoughts were, you know, she must have been attacked by wolves, you know, that that's what killed her. But upon closer inspection, they saw that her clothing had not been torn and there was no blood on her clothes. So the animal predation had most likely occurred after she was deceased, because they would have been able to pick around the clothing. Whereas if it had been a wolf attack, they would have cut right through the clothes, and there would be marks that obviously, you know, she was attacked by animals. But geraldine's remains appeared to have been dragged out of a nearby meadow to where she was ultimately located. And so they followed the drag line into this meadow, and it led them to this opening where all the grass had been matted down. And investigators said it looked like something big had been laying there. And they speculated that that might have been the area where geraldine had been killed. And then afterwards, animals had dragged her over to where she was found. And so investigators are like, well, we found that large footprint in the swamp on the seventh day in the same area where we had found Geraldine's footprints. And we thought they might be connected. And now we're finding a large, what appears to be body print in this meadow that's right near where Geraldine's remains have been found. And so probably whoever or whatever left that print in the swamp is the same one that left this print here in the meadow and therefore is probably Geraldine's killer. But this left investigators with two theories that didn't really make any sense. The first one was, okay, these prints, the swamp print and this body print belong to an enormous person, like a giant who ran up to the cabin and abducted Geraldine and ran off and no one saw them or heard them. And for weeks they've managed to totally evade capture despite being, again, an enormous person lumbering through the forest. So that seemed really unlikely. One, that this giant person even existed, and two, that if this giant person existed, how could they not get caught? They're so big, running through the forest, they would be easy to spot. But if you rule out the enormous person theory, you're left with the enormous predator theory, which does make more sense on the surface because there are enormous predators that have attacked humans, so that does happen. But when they looked at her remains, they ruled out a wolf attack and really, they ruled out animal attacks. But if this is an enormous predator, how did it kill Geraldine? The family was told that unfortunately, because there wasn't enough left of her, they weren't able to determine a cause of death. And so their best guess is she was probably mauled by wild animals. But they would even level with the family insight. Honestly, we don't know what did this. A quick note about our stories.

Mr. Ballin (35:43)

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.

Narrator (35:57)

Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin podcast. If you enjoyed today's stories and you're looking for more bone chilling content, be sure to check out all of our studio's podcasts, this podcast, the Mr. Ballin podcast, and also Mr. Ballin's medical mysteries, Bedtime Stories, Wartime stories. Run fool and redacted. Just search for Ballin Studios wherever you get your podcasts to find all of these shows. To watch hundreds more stories just like the ones you heard today, head over to our YouTube channel, which is just called Mr. Ballin. So that's going to do it. I really appreciate your support. Until next time. See you.

Mr. Ballin (36:50)

Hey, prime members, you can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. And before you go, please tell us about yourself by completing a short survey@wondry.com.

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