Ballen Studios Presents: A Twist of History

Having an encounter with a UFO is one of the most bizarre and overwhelming events a person might experience. But in a large percentage of these cases, the sighting itself is just the beginning. Over the years, hundreds of witnesses have reported being visited by strange, unearthly men in the days and weeks following their sightings. Are they government agents of suppression, extraterrestrial visitors in disguise, or something else entirely? Who are the Men in Black? And what can we learn from the recent videos that claim to finally prove their existence? MUSIC  Tracks used by kind permission of Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Tracks used by kind permission of CO.AG Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In April 1991, the body of an otherwise healthy 35-year-old man was found inside his Seattle apartment. He was fully clothed, kneeling in an empty bathtub, with no signs of a struggle or forced entry. The death was quickly written off as the result of natural causes. But when his friends came forward, they told a different story. They claim he’d spent a week evading a supernatural force he swore had been sent to kill him. Did he literally scare himself to death? Or was the peculiar death of Christoper Case really the result of a witch’s curse? MUSIC  Tracks used by kind permission of Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Tracks used by kind permission of CO.AG Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Each year, hundreds of thousands of people go missing across the United States. Most are eventually found, sometimes safe, sometimes not. But then there are the anomalies - the people who, for whatever reason, seem to completely disappear without a trace. These cases often linger for decades, fuelled by rumour, strange clues, and unanswered questions. This is one such story - a disappearance so bizarre that it left people around the world asking, “What happened to Jared Negrete?” MUSIC  Tracks used by kind permission of Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Tracks used by kind permission of CO.AG Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For those who believe in extraterrestrials, the military is commonly seen as the first line of defence. For over a century, radio dramas, films, and literature have asked: what would really happen if our military forces engaged an advanced interstellar species? At least two men claim to not only know the answer, but to have participated in just such a conflict, only to be abducted, and their minds mysteriously wiped. Their tales raise an important question: just what happened during the Fort Benning Incident? MUSIC  Tracks used by kind permission of Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Tracks used by kind permission of CO.AG Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Story One – What Killed Olivia Mabel? One afternoon in 1994, a series of silent 911 calls from a remote Texas property would result in several police officers descending upon the scene. What they found after breaking in through the front entrance, would shock them to their core and leave them questioning what killed Olivia Mabel. Story Two – The Strange Death of Gaurav Tiwari In July 2016, a young ghost hunter died in mysterious circumstances after visiting a supposedly haunted property. Authorities hastily ruled it a suicide, but this was not a satisfactory answer for many people, including those closest to him, who are still trying to understand the strange death of Gaurav Tiwari. MUSIC  Tracks used by kind permission of Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Tracks used by kind permission of CO.AG Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There have been multiple alleged interactions which are reported to have taken place between the US military and extraterrestrial visitors. These include the supposed crash of a UFO near to Roswell in New Mexico, and the craft that was encountered by US servicemen in Rendlesham Forest near RAF Woodbridge. In this episode we examine yet another such story, where an alien trespasser is believed to have been incapacitated by sentries who were stationed at another military site. An incident which over time has become known as, the McGuire Air Force Base Encounter. MUSIC  Tracks used by kind permission of Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Tracks used by kind permission of CO.AG Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Time, for most of us, feels like the one true constant - a steady progression from past to future. Yet throughout history, people have reported moments where time - and perhaps even reality - seems to falter. Some claim to have been pulled into the past or thrust briefly into the future. Others describe slipping into worlds that look almost like our own, but with subtle, unsettling differences. In most cases, these experiences are fleeting glimpses across eras. In others, they resemble accidental detours into entirely separate dimensions. Unlike stories of time machines or interdimensional travel, these events - often called time slips or interdimensional rifts - are completely beyond the experiencer’s control. And in rare cases, they leave lasting and sometimes even tragic consequences. MUSIC  Tracks used by kind permission of Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Tracks used by kind permission of CO.AG Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The course of history never follows a straight line. These are the epic stories that have shaped the world we now live in. From Ballen Studios, join us - for the most heart pounding podcast in history.  New episodes every Wednesday. Listen now: ⁠https://ballen.lnk.to/atwistofhistory Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For decades, paranormal researchers have heard tales of a strange anomaly in the hills of central Washington - a hole so deep that it devours everything thrown into it, and which seems to possess supernatural powers. In the late 1990s, a man named Mel Waters came forward, claiming to own the land upon which the bottomless pit resides. But after going public, he found himself at the centre of a conspiracy involving top branches of the US government that ultimately led to his disappearance. Was it all a hoax, or is there more to the curious case of Mel’s Hole? MUSIC  Tracks used by kind permission of Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Tracks used by kind permission of CO.AG Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In August 1993, a group of kayakers from Ukraine travelled to Irkutsk in Southern Siberia. Whilst enjoying the river and scenery south of Lake Baikal, they came across something haunting: a 17-year-old girl, covered in blood and mumbling incoherently about a tragedy that had befallen her and her friends. Her name was Valentina Utochenko, and the terror she survived still baffles experts, who refer to the event simply as the Khamar-Daban Mountain Deaths. MUSIC  Tracks used by kind permission of Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Tracks used by kind permission of CO.AG Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices