Hey, everybody. Real quick, I don't normally make announcements at the beginning of stories, but today is different because I have a massive announcement starting right now, today. The Mr. Ballen podcast that rose immediately to the top of the charts when we launched it in 2022 and then was scooped up by Amazon by the end of the year. Yeah, that show is now available on all podcast platforms, and it is free. Now, don't worry if you've been listening to this podcast on Amazon Music, that's awesome. You can keep doing that because with your prime membership, you will get Mr. Ballon podcast episodes one month earlier than everybody else, and it will be ad-free. But again, the show is on every other platform right now, and it really is free. So go ahead and follow the Mr. Ballen podcast, Strange, Dark, and Mysterious Stories on Amazon Music, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Today's story is about one of the most famous potentially paranormal events of all time, except almost no Westerners have heard of it because it happened in China. But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of the Strange, dark, and mysterious delivered in story format, then you come to the right place because that's all we do, and we upload once a week.

So if that's of interest to you, please put the like button stapler in Jell-up. Also, please subscribe to our channel and turn on all notifications so you don't miss any of our weekly uploads. Okay, let's get into today's story. Late on the evening of July 27th, of 1977, a 21-year-old farmer named Hwaung Yantzsche walked down a wide, dusty road in the little farming village of Baigao, located in Northern China. It had been a very hard day on the rice farm where Hwaung worked because they were all preparing for the autumn harvest. But even though Hwaung was totally exhausted and worn down, as he walked down this road, he was whistling an upbeat tune because for the first time in a long time, Hwaung was actually excited about the future. Hwaung had grown up in a poor family, and he hadn't even finished elementary school. He still lived with his parents in a tiny house, and basically every day of his life was the same. He got up at sunrise, he walked to work. He worked all day until he barely could even stand, and then he He would walk home and he would go to bed.

But the reason Wong was now feeling excited about his future was because he had just gotten engaged to a beautiful girl in a neighboring village, and their plan was to get married after the autumn harvest. Wong was already hard at work, literally building them a house that they could move into after they got married. In fact, on this particular night, that was where Wong was going. He was going to the property where he was in the middle of building this house, and he was going there not to work on the house anymore, but really just to admire his property because, again, he was just so excited about the future. Hong turned the corner and his beautiful half-constructed home came into focus. The foundation, the walls, and the ceiling were all complete. All he had left to do was put in the windows and the doors. And so Hwaung walked up and ran his hand over the beautiful brick he had laid around the outside of the property. Brick was not cheap. He had worked extra hours to afford this brick. And so he was just so proud of it, and he ran his hand over it.

And then he stepped back and imagined the house when it was all done. Then when he felt satisfied that he had seen enough, he just nodded and turned and just continued walking back towards his home, his parents' home, which was only a few minutes away. When Juan got to his home, he went inside, and his mom already had a meal made for him. It was just some rice and veggies. Juan sat down and began eating, and then his parents came over, and they began chatting. Then, of course, the conversation shifted to Juan's upcoming marriage because that's basically all Juan ever wanted to talk about. Then by about 10:00 PM, Hwaung was so tired that he crawled into his bed, and he fell asleep almost immediately. The next morning, when Hwaung's parents woke up, they discovered that Hwaung was not in his bed. Now, this was not totally unusual because they knew their son was a really hard worker, and it wasn't unusual for him to wake up really, really early to head out to the farm to begin his work day. But a little while later, the workers at the rice farm where Hwaung worked, they saw Juan had not come to work.

Because that was so out character for him, one of the workers actually walked to Juan's parents' home to see if he was okay. When Juan's mother found out her son had not shown up to work, she was really worried, but she told this worker, Oh, my son must have gone to the house he's building. Go over there and see if he's there. But the worker from the rice farm went to Juan's property he was building, and nobody was there. When he came back and told Juan's mother, this sent her into a total panic because really for her, this was completely out of character for her son. He would never miss work. He would never just disappear like this. Something was wrong. So Hwaung's mother sent this rice farm worker to go find her husband and tell him what was going on with Juan. Then in the meantime, Juan's mother just walked outside and began going door to door, asking neighbors if they knew where her son was and if they wouldn't mind coming out and helping her look. Now, at this time, the village of Begao was a relatively small place where all the residents more or less knew each other.

It did not take long for the news of Hwaung being missing to spread all across Begao, and the community really came out in force to go look for him. By the afternoon, there were people on bikes riding all around, calling out for Hwaung. People were going to neighboring villages to see if he was there. Another group of villages went to Hwaung's fiance's home, and they spoke to her, and she had no idea where Hwaung was. And so by about the early afternoon, when so many people couldn't find any leads to where Hwaung had gone, it became clear that really nobody had a clue what happened to him. Now, Baigou at the time was incredibly isolated. This is a small town where most of the people who live there don't have phones, they don't have cars, they ride their bikes everywhere, and there were no roads that connected Baygau to any other place. Now, there was a paved road that went through Baygau, but it actually just came to an end on the outskirts of Baygau. So there was just no way to go to other places, at least not efficiently. Basically, if you lived in Begao at the time, there was a finite number of places you could go.

All these people that had gone out looking for Hwaung had searched all of those places, and Hwaung just was not there. They discovered his bike was still leaning up against his parents house, and his work clothes, which he wore basically every single day, were still folded up neatly inside of his room. And so wherever Hwaung was, he was on foot and he was still in his pajamas. That night, Hwaung's parents would to contact the village committee, which was basically like the governing body for Begao. And the village committee decided that this was serious enough because, again, they're thinking, this is impossible. Where is this guy? That they decided to contact the police. But when the police got this call, they did not launch an investigation right away because they had limited resources and there was no sign of foul play here. It was very weird that Hwaung was missing, but he was an adult, and if he wanted to go vanish somewhere, it was like, Okay, you're an adult. You can do that. And so, Hwaung's family and the rest of the Begao villages were forced to just wait and see if Hwaung came back.

But over the next few days, Hwaung did not come back, and there was still no new information about what might have happened to him. Early on the morning of August fifth, so eight days after Hwaung went missing, and still by this point, there's no sign of him, the Deputy Director of the Begao Village Committee came running up the road to Hwaung's parents' house and knocked on the door. When the door opened up, it was Hwaung's father, and the Deputy Director handed him a telegram he had just gotten and said, Read it. And so, Hwaung's father took the telegram and began reading it. And as he did, his eyes went wide. And then when he was done, he looked up and he was just so confused. Last weekend, I asked Old Sago, what he wanted to snack on for our Super Bowl 58 watch party? And he said, without hesitation, Papa, voglio mengiari vari molluski esotici, which, of course, in Italian means papa, I just want to eat various exotic mollusks. And so I said, that's just bully. And immediately I booked us a trip to Alaska. We hopped on a fishing boat, and off we went to snatch up a few of those slippery beings.

But unfortunately, about 15 hours into our seafaring voyage, Lung and I realized we had a problem. Our boat captain was not a boat captain. He was just a simple blind kangoo with vertigo who happened to jump on board before we left, and we just didn't notice. We tried to take the wheel from the rou, but he was so strong that he drove us directly into a storm. And before long, a rogue wave came and capsized the vessel. But luckily, me and old sink, how long we lived. And we swam to a nearby island. And when we stepped foot on land, immediately, a horde of angry coconut crabs came out of the brush, skittering around, wielding their machetes, wielding their machetes. Me and Lung turned to run, but there was nowhere to go. It was just the ocean. And so standing there waiting for death, me and Lung did the only thing we could think to do. We signed up for DraftKings. Now, did that save us from the ready wielding coconut crabs? No. But did it get us jacked up about Super Bowl 58? Yes, it did. And so once again, this year, we are partnering up with DraftKings to make sure all you fans of the Strange, dark, and mysterious out there get access to the very best deals on their platform.

And for Super Bowl 58, they got a really good deal. For all customers, there is a Bet One, Get One, which means you get a bonus bet back to you in the amount of your original wager just for placing a bet. Pretty good. And there are loads of other amazing opportunities for Super Bowl 58 on DraftKings, so go check it out now. Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app right now. New customers use promo code Mr. Balin, bet $5 on any wager, and you'll receive $200 in bonus bets instantly. Again, that's promo code Mr. Balin only at DraftKings Sportsbook. The telegram had been sent eight days earlier at around 9:00 AM on July 28th. So basically right around the time that Hwang's family discovered Hwaung was missing was when this telegram was sent. But for whatever reason, the telegram had been very delayed, and so they were just receiving this telegram now, eight days later. The contents of this telegram made no sense. It said that just nine hours after Hwaung had fallen asleep in his parents' home, he was discovered lying on the sidewalk in the middle of this bustling city called Nan Jing, located 600 miles to the south of Begao.

Now, the reason Juan's father and the deputy director were so confused by this telegram was this was impossible. Remember, Juan does not have a car, so the only way he could get around was on foot or on his bike. We know he left his bike by his house, so he's on foot and very likely in his pajamas. What? He's going to go 600 miles? I mean, even if he walked the 30 miles to the nearest train station, 9 hours, because that's how much time it took from falling asleep to being discovered in the city, is not enough time to go the remaining 560 70 miles to Nan Jing. So, Wang's father and the Deputy Director, they talked about this, and they both decided that this just can't be true. Clearly, somebody has mistaken some other person for Wang because he cannot possibly be all the way in Nan Jing. Now, this telegram said that Wang was being held in a deportation center in Shanghai, and so, Wang's father and the Deputy Director decided they would send a telegram back to the sender at this deportation center and tell them, Hey, if this really is Wang, he should have a very specific birthmark on his wrist.

And so when they sent this telegram off, they fully expected to get one back that said, Oh, our mistake, it wasn't him. But they got a reply relatively quickly, and it said, Oh, yeah, he's got that exact birthmark. It's definitely Hwaung, but he's very confused. He doesn't really know what's going on. So somebody from your village has to go get him. Hwaung arrived back home in the middle of August, so about two weeks after he had gone missing. As soon as he got there, his fiancé and his parents were so happy to see him. And pretty soon, a steady stream of friends and neighbors and other family members began coming to Hwaung's house to talk to him, to hear his story, to hear about what happened. But Hwaung really didn't understand what had happened to him. And so mostly, he just didn't answer any questions he got asked. He just kept his head down and just kept saying, I don't know. I don't know what happened. And then really, when his family pressed him and said, You got to tell us. This is so crazy. What happened? He would say, Look, I'm going to tell you what happened, but I don't even know if I can believe the things I'm going to tell you.

So Wang would say, all he could remember was he went to bed in his own bed in Begao, and then the next morning, he woke up and he was laying on the sidewalk. When he opened his eyes, he saw there was this big swimming pool, and then near it was a sign that said Nan Jing. That was how he put together that he was in Nan Jing. Then almost immediately, these two police officers wearing all white just appeared out of nowhere. They walked up to Hwaung, they scooped him up, and without really saying anything to him, they brought him to that deportation center in Shanghai, which is a place where people who seem confused or mentally ill would be sent in order to help them get home. And that was it. That was Hwaung's entire story, that he just basically woke up in Nan Jing with no idea how he got there. And so after he told his family, they all just looked at him like, Really? That's what happened? That makes no sense. But Wang, he was completely lucid. He was explaining it really specifically and really simply. I mean, he looked and sounded exactly like he normally did, and he seemed very honest as he was telling this story.

Over the next few weeks, Wang reintegrated back into his life, but things just were not the same. People were now scared of him. I mean, kids literally ran away from him when they saw him because rumors were going around town that he himself, his body, was haunted or something. Kids were scared of him, and other villages would openly gossip about him right in front of him. I mean, even his beloved fiancé admitted to feeling really uncomfortable around him now. While all of this was obviously very upsetting for Juan, he did also understand why people were acting this way. I mean, this is a very anomalous thing that's happened to him, and he did not have a good explanation for this totally insane event that he was a part of. And so he just got it. And in fact, Juan himself was terrified of himself. I mean, at night, when he would go to bed, he would be terrified that the second he closed his eyes, he was going to be transported hundreds or thousands of miles away to some totally unknown place, and maybe this time, he wouldn't even be able to get back again.

But as the days wore Then, Hwaung continued to wake up in his own bed in Baigau, which over time made him feel more secure that whatever happened to him was a one-time thing, and it's not going to happen again. However, Hwaung would be wrong. On September eighth, 1977, so three weeks after Hwaung had returned back home, he went to sleep in his bed in the village of Begao, but when he woke up the next morning, he was not there. The first thing Hwaung noticed when he woke up that morning were the sounds around him were totally different. They were not right. Normally, when he was asleep in his home, he would hear the sound of his mother and father snoring right by him, and he might hear some insects or birds out his window, and those sounds were gone. Instead, he heard what sounded like footsteps, but not ordinary footsteps. They were footsteps of somebody walking on cement who was wearing high heels, like a clicking sound. Then, Hwaung also became aware of the fact that his face was clearly pressed up against cement. He was laying on the ground, but Hwaung couldn't open his eyes.

As hard as he tried, he couldn't do it. He couldn't move his body. And so he's just laying there on cement with his eyes closed, listening to the sound of these footsteps, these high heels, getting closer and closer and closer. And as they did, his anxiety was growing and growing. He had no idea who this person he was. And then these footsteps, they got right up to him and then passed by him. And Wong felt the breeze as this person walked right past him. And then after this person in high heels had walked off in the other direction, Wong finally was able to wrench open his eyes and He sat up and he looked around, and one, he couldn't find anybody. It was totally abandoned all around him. So whoever had those high heels on had somehow vanished in plain sight. And then also, as Juan continued to look around him, it looked like he was in the middle of this city. But again, there's nobody out there. It's like this abandoned city street. All he had in front of him was this clock up on a building that said 1:00 AM. And so pretty soon, Juan was just walking in circles, screaming out for help.

Right when he was about to just start sprinting in any one direction in hope that help would be somewhere out there, Hwaung felt a tap on his shoulder. And then the person tapping him from behind him said, Are you Hwaung Yantzsche? Hwaung spun and he saw there were these two men in military uniform standing there. And for a second, Hwaung felt relieved. Somebody was here to help him. But then he thought to himself, How do they know my name? What's going on here? And so he asked them, How do you know my name? But the two men didn't answer Hwaung. Instead, they told him that he was at a Shanghai railway station 700 miles from Baigao, and that they, these two soldiers, were here to take Hwaung to a nearby army base. At this point, Hwaung was so scared, He just didn't know what to do. So he just wound up going with these two soldiers who put him in the back of a Jeep. Then they hopped in and began driving, and they drove him out of this weird abandoned city where he had woken up. After driving for some time, they arrived at this huge army base that had all these rows of fencing around it with razor wire on top and all these sentries that guarded all the doors.

These two soldiers brought him through several of these checkpoints. Then when they reached the very last one, they stopped the car, they got out, Juan got out to, and the two soldiers that were with him grabbed Juan's shoulders, and they basically led him through the last checkpoint, which was manned by armed guards. As Juan was led through this gate, the armed guards seemed to not even notice these soldiers or Juan. It was like they were invisible to the armed guards. But either way, they got through the final checkpoint, and then the two soldiers that were carrying Juan led him to this nondescript big building, and they opened up a door, and they began walking this long hallway that zigged, zagged. It was like a maze of different directions you could go. Then finally, they brought Hwaung right to this big door that said division headquarters over it. Then before Hwaung could say anything, one of the two soldiers that was with him knocked on the door. Then before anybody could respond, that same soldier reached down, opened it up, swung the door in, and then they pushed Hwaung inside, and they stepped in after him and shut the door behind them.

In front of Hwaung was this big desk, and sitting behind this desk was a very senior-looking military official wearing a uniform. This official, when they looked up and saw Hwaung standing there, they got up to their feet and put their hands on their gun and said, What are you doing here? How did you get in here? Hwaung, sensing there was something wrong, threw his hands up to show he was not a threat and pointed behind him and said, They brought me here. The military official, who still had his hand on his gun, looked behind Hwaung and said, Who brought you here? Hwaung, he turned around and he saw the two soldiers who had picked him up and driven him here and that led him to this room, they were gone, which was impossible because Hwaung would have heard them leave. He didn't hear anything. The door never opened. They just somehow were gone. A second later, the senior military official had pulled out his radio and he was screaming commands. Then another second later, armed soldiers came running into the room. They grabbed Hwaung, who still had his hands up. They came in, they arrested Hwaung, and they began asking him all these questions about how he got in here.

How did you get through the guards? Did you climb the fence? Did you cut the fence? How did you get in here? It's not possible that you are here right now. But Hwaung did not have any answers. All he could say was, The two soldiers, they brought me here. A couple of days later, Hwaung would be bused back to Baigau. Again, his friends and family and everybody in town had all these questions about what happened. But again, Hwaung just had no answers. Then just 11 days after coming back home the second time, Juan would disappear again. This time, he would tell people he encountered two men who told him they were the same two men from the other two times he had gone missing. You had the first instance where he woke up and two police officers in white, picked him up off the ground and brought him to the deportation center. Then the second time was the military base where you had those two soldiers who brought him through the gates and brought him to division headquarters. Basically, these two men he encountered on the third trip were saying they were the same men across all three instances.

On this third instance that he went missing, Wang said these two men put him on their backs and they flew him to nine different cities around China for reasons unknown, and then they flew him back to Begao and just dropped him off right outside his house near a tree, and that was it. Now, of course, this final disappearance sounds the most absurd because what? He was flying on the backs of people to all these different cities. That doesn't make any sense. But when Wang was aggressively questioned about this third story because it sounded the most made up as compared to the other two, it would turn out Juan had all this insider information about each of the nine cities that he supposedly was flown to by these two men. He knew the weather in each of those cities on the night that he was gone. He knew what shows were playing on the night he was gone. He also just had really specific descriptions of where he was in each of these cities when they got there that all checked out. Now, you got to remember that getting that information correct would have been really hard for Juan at the time.

He did not have Internet access. He didn't have a phone. He didn't have a car. I mean, he lives in an isolated small village in rural China. So the idea that literally the morning after all this happens, he's flown to these different cities, that he would have all this information perfectly correct, that's hard to do. That would be hard to lie about. As of today, no one has ever been able to debunk Juan's stories. Basically, there's enough legitimacy and verifiable information in his stories that you really can't discount them. They really could have happened. Add in the fact that Juan actually took a lie detector test and passed it, and suddenly you're looking at a story that, as crazy as it sounds, really could have happened. And so Hwaung's story today is considered far and away the most famous UFO story in China's history, because the leading theory here is that Hwaung must have been abducted by aliens, and that's how he was being moved around to all these places. And maybe those two men that kept showing up in each of these events were the extraterrestrials that had scooped him up. Nobody knows, but that is the theory.

As for Hwaung, he wishes none of this had ever happened because his disappearances and whatever happened to him basically wrecked his life. His fiance broke up with him because she was so uncomfortable around him, and there was a lot of stigma around Wang, especially in the village where everybody thought he was a liar. Then on top of that, all these news and film and TV crews came to the village because they wanted to shoot shows and documentaries about Hwaung, and Hwaung did not want anything to do with them. But again, all these people are coming to the village for Hwaung, and it's making the rest of the villages upset. Then also there was a really lengthy investigation by the police and by the military to try to figure out how in the world Hwaung got into that army base. I mean, there were layers and layers of security that he somehow got through, and all those armed guards that were watching the gates said they never saw Hwaung walk through, even though Hwaung said he literally just walked through the gate with the two soldiers that were carrying him through. And so today, Wang actually still lives in Baigou, and he had a son and a daughter, and he has grandkids, but he refuses to talk about what happened to him because, again, it wrecked his life.

So that's going to do it. If you enjoyed today's story, be sure to check out our podcast called The Mister Ballin' Podcast, which has hundreds of stories, a lot like this one, but many of them are only on the podcast. Again, it's called The Mister Ballin' Podcast, and it's available wherever you get your podcasts for free, or you can listen early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Wait, don't go anywhere. If you're looking for more Strange dark mysterious videos, click here.