MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories

Episode: The Condition
Date: September 4, 2025
Host: MrBallen (Ballen Studios)

Episode Overview

In this episode, MrBallen delivers two bizarre and disturbing true stories rooted in the world of medical mystery. The first segment, "Gasp," recounts the gripping events of an unforeseen mass medical crisis in Melbourne, Australia, where an entire city is swept into chaos by what becomes an infamous phenomenon known as "thunderstorm asthma." The second segment, "All in Their Heads," follows the tragic and haunting saga of a mysterious, fatal illness—kuru—that nearly destroys the Fore people of Papua New Guinea, with an astonishing revelation about its true cause.

Story 1: Gasp

Starts at 06:30

Key Discussion Points & Insights

• Setup: Night of Danger

  • November 21, 2016, Melbourne: Jodi Santoro, a 21-year-old mother, wakes to her son’s cries and an intense thunderstorm, realizing she feels far worse than overtired—she is unable to breathe and her asthma inhalers are failing her.
  • "The instant her legs swung off the bed and she actually tried to stand up, she knew something was wrong and it had nothing to do with being tired." (07:50)

• Medical Escalation

  • Jodi’s symptoms rapidly worsen despite escalating emergency interventions.
  • In parallel, the hospital rapidly fills with others, all presenting severe asthma-like symptoms—many had never suffered asthma before.

• Hospital Overwhelmed

  • "There were all these people in the waiting room and also outside. And basically, everybody had the same symptoms as Jodi. They couldn't breathe." (13:25)
  • Hospitals, paramedics, and emergency services are pushed beyond their limits as the city’s air itself turns dangerous.

• The Unseen Warning

  • Professor Philip Taylor, an atmospheric allergen specialist, had predicted this event just a day earlier, strikingly alone in his awareness of its potential devastation.
  • "All of the ingredients for a catastrophic event were aligning in the forecast, and the patterns were so precise that it stopped him cold." (15:35)

• Scientific Explanation: Thunderstorm Asthma

  • Three rare weather conditions align: high heat, a powerful thunderstorm, and extremely high pollen.
  • The storm’s wind, rain, and humidity shatter ryegrass pollen into microscopic fragments, making them small enough to deeply infiltrate lungs, sparking severe and sudden attacks in both asthma sufferers and the previously healthy.
  • "Unlike normal pollen, these microscopic fragments bypassed the body's typical defenses and embedded themselves deep into people's lungs..." (18:20)

• Aftermath

  • Nearly 10,000 required medical attention; tragically, 10 died—including many healthy individuals who had never experienced respiratory issues.
  • Jodi survives but, like so many, is left with trauma and a new awareness of life’s fragility.
  • "For Jodi, despite surviving this ordeal, the awful memory of what happened on that night will forever be on her mind." (21:26)

Notable Quotes

• "Her breaths at this point were so small, so shallow, like she knew she was about to pass out any second." (11:55)
• "The storm had essentially made the air everybody in Melbourne was breathing deadly." (18:44)

Story 2: All in Their Heads

Starts at 23:40

Key Discussion Points & Insights

• Setting: A Fatal Mystery in Papua New Guinea

  • In the isolated forests, the Fore people experience a terrifying, mysterious illness—kuru, meaning “trembling.” Victims lose control of their bodies and are fated to a slow, painful death, especially affecting women and children.
  • "But the Fore people did not view kuru as just an illness. They…actually viewed it as a curse." (26:17)

• Personal Narrative: An’s Tragic Ordeal

  • After witnessing her sister die, An herself begins showing kuru’s telltale tremors.
  • In desperation, she defies taboo and seeks help from an Australian anthropologist, Ronald Berndt, who dismisses her suffering as psychosomatic hysteria.
  • "You are hysterical. This is in your head and you should go now." (33:58)

• Descent Into Despair

  • An deteriorates over nine months, ultimately reaching the “laughing death” terminal stage.
  • "…during the terminal stage, so the end stage of kuru, when you’re just about to die, you just begin laughing." (36:41)

• Scientific Inquiry

  • In the early 1960s, Shirley Lindenbaum, a medical anthropologist, challenges the prevailing “all in their heads” thesis after reading Berndt’s accounts.
  • Upon arrival in Papua New Guinea, she collaborates with Dr. Michael Alpers. Together, they note kuru is not hereditary but spread through close groups—suggesting contagion.

• Breakthrough Investigation

  • After convincing grieving parents to allow an autopsy on a young victim, they find a shrunken, hole-filled brain, and send tissue to the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
  • "His brain was completely shriveled up and covered in holes as if like a worm had drilled through his brain." (48:22)

• Revelation: Ritualistic Cannibalism

  • NIH discovers kuru is infectious through brain tissue. Shirley realizes the Fore’s funerary cannibalism, an act of love and spiritual protection, inadvertently spreads the disease as women and children (the main participants/eaters) consume contaminated brains.
  • "…by having these women consume the quila, consuming the dead person, you’re protecting the living…" (54:40)

• Resolution and Legacy

  • Colonial powers ban the practice. Kuru nearly vanishes, and the Fore population rebounds.
  • In the 1990s, scientists finally identify the culprit: prions—misfolded proteins that destroy the brain.

Notable Quotes

• "The way it worked is: a few days after a Fore member has passed away, this huge feast is prepared. Except the feast only consists of the quila. Basically, the person who is dead is chopped up and prepared by the women; their entire body gets consumed." (54:17)
• "It took until 1990 to actually figure out what was going on inside of these people’s bodies when they had kuru. …they finally figure out what's actually going on. Basically, somebody with kuru has these proteins in their brain called prions that fold wrong…" (1:01:35)

Memorable Moments & Quotes with Timestamps

• "I'm going to die. I'm going to die." – Jodi Santoro during her attack, highlighting her terror (11:10)
• "Taylor sat in his backyard watching the storm unfold…the sky was pitch black…all he could hear was thunder. Thunder and sirens. And he knew, unfortunately, his prediction had been right." (16:55)
• "This is not an actual laugh…you're not thinking something's funny. It's like you could be weeping and totally depressed…but you keep hysterically laughing…" – on kuru’s final stage (36:53)
• "You are hysterical. This is in your head..." – Ronald Berndt rejecting An's plea (33:58)
• "And so by getting this letter, Shirley knew she was going to get information about whatever they discovered in this boy's brain...they had injected some tissue from this boy's brain into a chimpanzee. And very quickly, that chimpanzee developed kuru." (49:33)

Episode Takeaways

• Both stories illustrate how cultural practices, environmental events, and misunderstood diseases can spiral into mass calamity and tragically misunderstood suffering.
• The stories featured haunting twists: a mysterious “asthma” event triggered by wholly unique weather conditions and a fatal brain disease rooted in rituals meant to preserve—not destroy—community.
• Both tales end with a hard-won, science-driven understanding, but not before tremendous human cost, social upheaval, and enduring trauma.

Important Segment Timestamps

| Segment | Description | Timestamp | |----------------------------------|-------------------------------------------------------|------------| | Story 1: Gasp begins | Jodi Santoro's crisis starts | 06:30 | | Paramedics arrive | Jodi's critical moment, hospital chaos | 11:00 | | Thunderstorm Asthma explained | Taylor's warning and scientific cause | 16:00 | | Aftermath and statistics | Outcome for Jodi and Melbourne | 19:30 | | Story 2: All in Their Heads begins | Kuru in the Fore tribe, An's ordeal | 23:40 | | Ronald Berndt dismisses An | Outsider anthropology perspective | 33:58 | | Shirley Lindenbaum arrives | Modern investigation begins | 43:45 | | Autopsy & scientific revelation | NIH animal testing and cannibalism epiphany | 48:22 | | Disease mechanism discovered | Prion identified as true cause | 1:01:35 |

This episode delivers classic MrBallen: stories that boggle the mind, provoke empathy, and spin scientific inquiry into gripping, cinematic narrative, always revisiting the fragile, mysterious, and deeply human.