Today, we're going to cover two very strange but very true stories. But before we get into those stories, if you're a fan of the Strange, dark, and mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right place because that's all we do, and we upload once a week. If that's of interest to you, please invite the like button to go skydiving with you, but replace their parachute with an Anvil. 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 stories. One afternoon in the spring of 1990, a young mother tidied up her family's living room in Ping Yang Township, which is a small rural community made up of several villages in Southern China. She was almost done when she heard her three-year-old twin daughters start to cry. This really caught her off guard because even though these kids were only three years old and three-year-olds cry, well, her daughters basically never cried. They were like, silent all the time. The girls' names were Xi Tsai and Xi Hong Wu, and they'd been really easy babies because they were basically quiet all the time and just wanted to sleep.

However, as they got older, their silence became more concerning. All they really wanted to do was just lay around and sleep and do nothing. Even at three years old, they hadn't even said their first words yet. So When this mom heard these girls crying, she rushed down the hall to see what was going on, one, just obviously to make sure her kids were okay, but two, just out of curiosity. This is so uncharacteristic to be making any noise at all. The mom, she burst into the nursery and she saw her girls in their crib and they were sobbing hysterically, totally upset. The mother rushed over and she scooped them up and asked, What's going on? Are you okay? But of course, the girls didn't say anything because they didn't speak. They just continued to cry. But the mom, she assessed her kids and couldn't see any injuries. They didn't seem sick. They were just upset about something, but she had no idea what it was. The mom just stood there comforting her girls until they calmed down. Then she put them back into the crib and they both went to sleep, and that was it.

A couple of days later, the twin girls were back to their normal routine, being totally silent and sleeping for most of the day. As the girls slept in their nursery, their mom just went around the house doing some housework, and at some point, she walked down the hallway past the the girl's bedroom. Now, their door to the nursery was shut. Again, they're just sleeping and being totally quiet. The mom hasn't heard them at all all day. Then as she's walking down the hallway, she suddenly comes to an abrupt stop right outside the nursery door because distinctly, she can hear her girls making noise in their room, but they're making a noise that just doesn't make any sense to the mother. Her daughters were not crying or fussing or anything like that. They were talking. At first, the mother wanted to rush in there and experience this firsthand this landmark moment of her girls speaking for the first time. But she also worried if she went in there, they might go silent and she'd ruin the moment. Instead, she just pressed her ear to the door and just listened. As she listened, she really couldn't believe what she was hearing.

Because these girls weren't just babbling, saying random words. These girls were having a full-blown conversation with each other, like adult-level sentences being spoken back and forth. These girls who, apparently, they, at least according to the mother, couldn't even speak. How is this even happening? However, the more the mother listened to her daughters, the more unsettled she became. Not only because she's listening to her daughters speak for the first time at an adult level, which is totally bizarre. But the content of this discussion her three-year-old daughters are having made no sense. These girls were talking about stuff that they could not possibly know. The girls were talking in detail about people and events from a totally different village, a village their mother knew they had never been to, had never even heard of, and certainly didn't know anybody who lived there. Now, in basically every other part of the world, if a mother suddenly heard her three-year-old twins who had never said a word before suddenly having adult-level conversations with each other about people and places that they can't possibly know about, that might be enough to spurn that mother to at least call their doctor.

But this mom, well, she lived in Pingyang, Ping Yang Township. That meant when she heard what her daughters were saying, as alarming as it was, she actually did know what was going on. Ping Yang Township has a very strange secret, and that secret is that of the approximately 7,000 residents who live there? Over 100 claim to be the reincarnated spirits of people who have died traumatic deaths. This is not just some wacky thing these people are saying. No, in Ping Yang Township, it's not just those 100 people who believe they are reincarnated. It's the whole community. All 7,000 some odd people 100% believe that these people truly are reincarnated. How that plays out is that periodically, the reincarnated folks will go to a non-reincarnated person in the township and will claim things like, Hey, in my past life, your family owed me a debt, and so now you're going to pay it out. These non-reincarnated people will absolutely pay that debt. Or another In many cases, there have been fights, physical altercations that have come from a reincarnated person approaching a non-reincarnated person and basically saying, In a previous life, you or your family or your relatives insulted me in some capacity, my previous self, and we're going to fight about it right now.

Those fights take place in this town, and it's totally normal. But the interactions between the reincarnated and non-reincarnated people in this township, it's not just about conflict. In fact, there's been lots of decisions made in this township that are designed very specifically to avoid conflict between the reincarnated and non-reincarnated. For example, there was a little boy who claimed to be the reincarnated spirit of a pig who was butchered in town, and the butcher, who this boy said butchered him when he was a pig, well, the butcher, to make sure he was not offending this boy or potentially other people who were the reincarnated spirits of other animals he had slaughtered, the butcher shut down his business just to be like, I don't want to offend you all. I'll find something else to do with my life. When this mother heard the sound of her twin girls who had never spoke before suddenly having this detailed conversation about people and events from this other village, as jarring and shocking as that was for her, because she lives in Ping Yang, she instantly understood that the only way my girls could have that information and be able to have this conversation is if they are reincarnated spirits.

This mother did what she thought was right, was not to call a doctor, but instead to get the word out to the people not just in her village, but across the Ping Yang Township that her twin daughters are actually reincarnated spirits. The mother's hope was that perhaps there were still family of these reincarnated spirits in this other village her daughters were referencing in their conversation that would find out about this, and maybe they'd want to come here and meet their family who now live inside of her daughters. Sure enough, less than a week after this mother got the word out, this man and woman who she didn't know came knocking at her door. When the mother let them inside the house, her girls immediately recognized them. One of the twins said that this was her mother and father from her previous life. Then the twins, these little three-year-old girls, went on to tell this unbelievably complicated and sophisticated story about how in their previous life, these twin girls were not actually sisters. Instead, they were best friends, and together, they had taken their own lives approximately one month before they were reborn in the bodies of these twin girls.

After that, the twins just continued talking to this man and woman for quite some time, giving specific details about this village that, again, these girls, at at least, according to their mother, had never been to before. These girls also gave intimate details about these teenage girls' lives and even had information that was very specific to what happened to them when they took their lives and where their bodies were found. Again, information these girls shouldn't have Then at some point, the mother of the twins asked this man and woman, Are these details they're giving you accurate? Is this true? The man and woman said, Yep, it's all true. Then at some point, the twins turned to their biological mother, and they told her that the reason they had been silent to this point was because they were trying to keep their reincarnation a secret. Also, the reason they slept all the time is because when they slept, they would dream about their previous lives, which they claimed to miss. To this day, no one's ever been able to offer a better explanation for how these twin girls, these toddlers, had such accurate information about people they had never met and places they'd never been to.

Basically, the only explanation that works is that they must actually be the reincarnated spirit favorites of those teenage girls. Ping Yang Township remains a hotspot of alleged reincarnations, and nobody knows why. As many of you may already know, we launched the Mr. Ballon three years ago on Valentine's Day, 2022. Now, it was totally unintentional to launch the show on Valentine's Day, but after doing that, we decided to make it an annual event that every Valentine's Day, we not only celebrate our love for our partners and families and friends, but also our love for the strange, dark, and mysterious. To celebrate this year's Ballantines Day, you see what we did there? We are going to host our very first live show of the year, and it will be totally free right here on YouTube. All you have All you need to do is click the link in the description, and that will bring you right on over to the scheduled live show so that you can set a reminder and get a front row seat. Ballantines Day is on Friday, February 14th, and the live show starts at 1: 00 PM Eastern. Again, it's going to happen right here on YouTube for free, so go ahead and click that link and enjoy the show.

Okay, so this next story is going to sound really far-fetched once it gets going. But stick with it because at the end, there is a crazy plot twist. This is one of the better stories we found in some time, so stick around till the end. On a spring afternoon in 1883, a young woman named Sarah tidied up her farmhouse in a tiny settlement called Eagle Creek in Arizona. While Sarah cleaned, her sister Elizabeth took a bucket outside to get water from their outdoor spring. Sarah and Elizabeth actually lived together in this farmhouse along with their respective families. The American West at this time was sparsely populated and dangerous, so it was not uncommon for families to band together like this. Their husbands herded the sheep and worked the land, while Sarah and Elizabeth looked after the house and also took care of their collective four kids. On this day, as Elizabeth was out getting water, Sarah continued to tidy up the house with one eye on the kids, making sure they were okay, when all of a sudden, the family's dogs who were leashed up outside began barking really aggressively. Now, for Sarah, But this was really alarming because the dogs typically were pretty docile and didn't make a lot of noise.

Clearly, something was going on outside. Sarah told the kids to stay inside, and she quickly went outside onto the porch to see what the dogs were barking at. Once Sarah was out on that porch, she immediately surveyed the area out in front of her, and off to her left and off to her right was just rocky scrub land. Then right in front of their house was this big sandy hill that obscured their view off into the distance. The dogs who were leashed up right in front of the property out in the front yard, they were all looking right at that hill and barking at it. At first, Sarah couldn't understand what the dogs were even barking at. She looked around a few more times to see if she was missing anything, but there was nothing happening out here. But then, as Sarah continued to stare at this hill where the dogs were still barking, she suddenly saw this huge creature emerge over the top and begin coming down the hill in her direction. It was this massive four-legged creature with red fur and back was all twisted up. And on the back of this creature was this man, except it was not a normal-looking man.

His face was horrible and sunken and his mouth was in this huge grin. And as she staring at him in total, In real shock and disbelief, she saw he was missing eyes. Now, Sarah was a deeply religious person. And so as she's watching this creature being ridden on by this person come charging towards her, all she could think was, This is the devil. The devil is riding on this red creature, and it's coming to get me and my family. And so instinctively, she just turned, bolted inside the house, barricaded the door with the kitchen table, and then rounded up the four kids and sat in the kitchen, huddled over them, praying to God to save them from the devil. But as she was doing this, Sarah suddenly heard this blood curdling scream come from somewhere outside. Then she knew it sounded way too human of a scream to coming from the devil or the creature it was riding on. Then she remembered her sister was out there getting water. That scream almost certainly came from her sister. But Sarah was so scared. She couldn't move, and she had these four kids to look after. Instead of going out to try to save her sister, she just held the kids closer and continued to pray, hoping her sister would survive.

Hours later, Sarah was still inside the barricaded house, clutching the children praying, and her sister, Elizabeth, had not made another sound, and she had not come back to the house. She's been gone for hours at this point. Sarah feels horrible. All she wants to do is go out there and find her sister, but she just feels like she can't leave her kids, and she knows the devil is out there, so she can't go out there. But just then, she hears footsteps out on the porch, and then she hears the sound of the door knob turning and then bumping up against the barricade. Sarah immediately thinks, It's the devil. The devil's back. And so she screams and the kids are screaming. But then on the other side of the door, Sarah hears the sound of two familiar voices. It was the sound of her and Elizabeth's husbands. They had come back from herding the sheep, and they're calling into her like, Hey, what's going on here? Let us in. This A huge wave of relief came over Sarah. She rushed to the door, she got rid of the barricade, flung it open, and immediately began sobbing and telling these men about what had happened, about the devil, about hearing that scream which she believed was Elizabeth.

And oh, by the way, Elizabeth is still not back yet, no idea what happened to her. The two husbands are immediately so concerned. They have no idea about the validity of the story, but Elizabeth is gone. They have to go find her. The two men, they grab their guns and lanterns, and they head off towards the outdoor spring to hopefully find Elizabeth. The two men, they began making their way down this path towards the spring. At first, they were walking, keeping their composure. But quickly, as they're calling out for Elizabeth and not getting a response, they just took off running. As As they turned the corner and they finally saw the spring, they also saw Elizabeth, and she was face down on the ground with blood all around her. She was dead. As Elizabeth's husband wept over Elizabeth's body, Sarah's husband rode off into town to get the local corner to come out and investigate to see what happened to Elizabeth. The only thing that seemed fairly obvious about Elizabeth's death, at least to the two husbands, was that Elizabeth looked like she had been trampled to death. There were all these hoof prints all around her when they her.

The coroner, he comes out and he looks at the scene, he sees Elizabeth, and he agrees that it looks like she was trampled to death. However, when he examined the hoof prints that were all over the place, they were way too big to be a horse's hoof print. The coroner literally said, I can't say she died by being trampled by a horse. This was not a horse. The coroner wound up speaking to Sarah, who would tell him all about how the devil came over the hill on this big four-legged creature that was all red, and she heard the scream, which must have been Elizabeth. And so the devil has trampled her sister to death. That's what happened. Now, the coroner agreed with Sarah that very likely her sister had been trampled to death by something gigantic. However, he didn't believe the actual details of Sarah's story. He did not believe that the devil killed Elizabeth. And so ultimately, because the coroner just couldn't be sure what actually happened to her, he wound up listing Elizabeth's cause of death as just unknown. But the coroner's doubts did did not stop the story of the devil from spreading.

Before long, basically everybody on the Arizona frontier had heard about the devil and the strange creature he rode to the point where they were given a nickname. Together, they were called the Red Ghost. Still, most people who heard the story didn't really believe it actually happened. They figured it was a joke or maybe an exaggeration, just lore passed around town. But over the next few years, following Elizabeth's death, sightings of the so-called Red Ghost became much more frequent and more strange. Many campers claimed to have seen the Red Ghost trotting through the Arizona wilderness. In fact, some of these people claimed that in the middle of the night, the Red Ghost would appear and trample on their tents. One cowboy claimed he got close enough to the Red Ghost that he was able to actually lasso its neck. However, the Red Ghost, in turn, took off so quickly and so powerfully that the cowboy got dragged and had to let go. And so stories like these, run-ins with the Red Ghost out in the wild, persisted for years until about a decade after Elizabeth's death, this farmer in Eastern Arizona happened to look out his window, and there, standing in his turnip patch, was the so-called Red Ghost.

This farmer had heard all the stories about the Red Ghost, and he had already made up his mind about what he would do if he ever ran into the Red Ghost, and that would be to shoot it. And so what did he do? He grabbed his rifle, he leaned out the window, and he fired. The red ghost crumpled to the ground right in the middle of the turnip patch. Once the creature was down, the farmer rushed outside and ran up to the carcass to finally see what the heck the red ghost was, what was causing all these stories to spread over so many years. When he got out there and actually looked down at the red ghost, he knew immediately that all the stories about this creature had been wrong. It would turn out the Red Ghost was not the devil riding some supernatural monster. Instead, the Red Ghost was a combination of two very mortal beings. The The first of these two beings was a creature that if you saw it today, you would know what it was. But for folks in Arizona in the late 1800s, they would have no way of knowing what this creature was.

They had never seen it before. It had red fur, a long neck, and a humped back. It was a camel. It had been brought to the United States from the Mediterranean to help haul supplies through the Western frontier, and it had escaped captivity. But this camel alone was not responsible for scaring the people of Arizona. What terrified the people of Arizona and created the legend of the Red Ghost was the rider of the camel. When Sarah saw the rider on the camel, at first she thought it was a person. But when she looked more closely, she saw they didn't have eyes and they had this disgusting toothy grin. They just couldn't be human to her. And so she had decided this must be the devil. But it would turn out her first instinct was right. This was a person. There was a person on the back of that camel. The devil on the back of the camel was a man's decomposing corpse. And because he was a decomposing corpse, his flesh and eyes had rotted from his face, making it look like he had no eyes and gave him this huge toothy grin because there was no flesh there.

Now, we don't know who this man was or how exactly he died. All we know is at some point he was riding this camel. This camel escaped, he died, and somehow didn't fall off, and his dead body remained in an upright seated position on this camel. Then this camel just roamed around Arizona for years with this corpse on its back, giving the impression that it was the devil riding on a monster. Today, the Red Ghost remains a local legend in Arizona. In fact, there's even a permanent statue of the camel in a small Arizona town called Quartzite. Thank you so much for watching. Let me know in the comments what you thought of today's episode. Also, remember, we have hundreds more videos for you to binge right now. But if you want a recommendation of which video to invest your time in, well, here are two great options right here. If you want more Mr. Balin content, click on this one. If you want some redacted Declassified mysteries with Luc LaMana, click over here. All right, until next time. See you.