Psychic WRONGLY arrested for helping police | Top 3 Strange But True

Hey Mr.Ballen, wanted to be early just to say that I started watching you over two years ago and I remember binge watching your videos as if they were episodes from my favorite tv-show. Your way of story telling is highly entertaining, you seem very genuine, not to mention you’re my go-to when I feel stressed or anxious.

My father has a similar story as James. He lived in Hawaii in the 60s and an undertow dragged him and his friend far out from shore. While they were swimming back, his friend was making headway, but every time my dad came up for air, a wave crashed on his head. Nobody was around and no one saw him because of how far out he was. He was close to drowning when a man appeared out of nowhere next to him and told him what to do. He said that when the waves comes, go under water and swim with that wave and come up for air after it passes. That's exactly what he did and he was getting closer to land with this mysterious blonde man by his side. And at one time he went down and came back up, the man disappeared and he couldn't find him when he got to shore. He firmly believes it was an Angel

My father in law got in a bad car wreck as a teen where he went over a bridge into a very deep creek and he swears a little old lady came and pulled his head out of the water and talked to him until help came. He was knocked out and saod she woke him and pulled his head outta the water then said "honey, ya gotta stay awake and keep your head outta the water" and she kinda pet his head to keep him awake. He said he dozed off for what seemed like a second and woke back up with cops and paramedics talking to him and he asked them about the older lady because she saved him. They said "buddy you were alome with your entire body in the water but your head was on a big rock but no lady. " He even told his mother to go back to the area and knock on doors to find her and nobody knew of any older lady that fit her description and said they dont see a older woman being able to get down to where he was because it was steep.

She said “I know where a dead body is” to which they replied “come back tomorrow”?!?!?

This type of thing happened to my cousin when she was in a horrible car accident years ago, her car flipped over several times and landed upside. A woman right away stuck her hand into my cousins car and actually handed her her pocket book that flew out of the car and told her that everything was fine and that an ambulance was on its way and stayed outside the car talking to her keeping my cousin awake since she was in a lot of pain and was fading in and out of consciousness. When the ambulance came the woman was gone and it was a male motorist down a ways that saw what happened that had called the ambulance, nobody saw this woman that gave my cousin this moral support and handed her her pocket book. Even my cousin had only saw this womans hand and heard her voice throughout the whole ordeal, never her face or anything else...

One story of the Third Man Effect that stuck with me (I was 12), was of this former gang member from Detroit. He was volunteering at a hospital I was staying in for a research study. Really don’t recall how we got to this topic. But he said the only reason he was alive was because of his great-great-grandfather. He’d gotten into a fight with another gang, and he’d been shot, four times, in the chest. But he heard an old man’s voice saying, “Get up. Get up, son.” Somehow, he did, and felt hands on his arms, steadying him, and giving him a gentle push. Thinking it was an enemy, he tried to run, then stopped and looked back. No one was there. But on his trip to the hospital, he kept hearing this man, and saw him a few times. When he later described the man to his parents, he was told that it matched what his great-great-grandfather looked like. That story just stuck with me these past twenty years.

I love that you clarified that it was not a real photo of the presence that saved his life.

In regards to the last story of the fantom voice, I more or less have had a similar experience. A buddy and I fell through ice on a lake, I remember trying to climb out and every time I would like my body up back onto the ice it would break away and I would find myself back in the freezing cold water. The ice was sharp cutting up my arms and hands. After a while of trying I almost gave up and the only thing that made me keep trying was I saw my mom crying on the couch with my stepdad comforting her. It was like I was actually there witnessing it and hearing her screaming and crying. I snapped back into reality and heard a voice telling me exactly how I needed to crawl and sprawl out my body so I wouldn’t break the ice getting out. I ended up finally getting out, (obviously) and was able to get my friend out. Very interesting how it all worked out.

My dad has what he calls his "Angel story" Back when he was a fire fighter he was at a particularly bad house fire. He was carrying the line up stairs to try and get at the second floor to fight the fire. He felt a tap on his shoulder and a voice that said "We have to go this place is not safe" He left and shortly after either that floor exploded or collapsed I can't remember which. He later ask his fellow fire fighters who the lineman was that tapped on his shoulder and they said he went in alone and no one else was there. This may be that 3rd man effect but my dad truly believes he had a guardian angel watching his back that day. If he hadn't left when he did I probably wouldn't be here typing this story.

At 19 I was attacked and badly wounded due to a case of mistaken identity. My "third man" was a song that forced me to crawl on just my elbows (because my arms and legs were broken). Years later I went to a gig and discovered the name of the song was "the sound of silence". The song still takes me back to that night every time I hear it. But it will forever make me smile, because if it wasn't for that song I'd never heard before, I wouldn't be here

I actually had a similar experience with the 3rd story, but it was in a mall. I was pretty young back then (say, around 4-5 y/o), and there was a boy (probably same age as me) who kept urging me to go play with him in the parking lot, so I followed him outside the mall to play (with my father in tow). Literally moments later, I heard an explosion inside the mall. When I tried looking for the boy, he was nowhere to be seen. I asked my father if he had seen Kino (the boy's name), and he had this really confused look on his face and basically told me I was talking to myself and he had to follow me outside because I was running off.

The third story effect is also something you hear in other countries. There was a brand new department store in Korea that collapsed (due to corruption which led to unhinged architectural decisions), there were a bunch of kids that kept telling their moms that an old bloody man kept telling them to get out of the building.. which none of the adults actually saw.

Hi John! I just wanted to say that my father (who passed away 2 years ago due to complications with COVID and COPD) introduced me to you when you were first starting out. About a year after his death I was watching one of your videos and I came across a playlist that my dad had created on my account with your videos. I sat on the side of my bed and binge watched them all until I got to the last one and it looked like another one of your videos but when I played it, it was a hidden video my Dad had made, and in that video he told me that he hoped I enjoyed the playlist and recommended some other videos to watch as well. He ended the video by saying I love you and that he was proud of his Marine son and that he would be with me always, no matter where I ended up. It shocked me and made me sob like a little baby. You were his favorite storyteller. And because of him, you are mine as well. Thank you for all you do and I’m with ya till the end! -Semper Fi! -Wesley R.

When I was a baby my father was trying to get home one night (he traveks daily for work) but the roads were really bad, it was violently snowing, he was way out in the middle of bowhere and wasn't familiar with the area. Out of nowhere, a car pulled out in front of him. My dad just kept telling himself that all he had to do was keep his eyes on their tail lights. He couldn't see the road, but he could see their lights. He followed the car for about a half an hour, it just kept going the way my dad needed to go, and then all of a sudden there were street lights, he knew the intersection he was at and needed to turn, but the other car was going to go straight. He pulled into the turning lane and went to wave to the driver of the other car, but there wasn't anyone in the drivers seat. He looked again and the car was gone entirely and the only tire tracks on the road led to his work van. There was no car. He's forgotten the details of the story over the years, it's been almost 30 years exactly since it happened, but he told me he was so nervous that night driving home because they were first time parents, I was only a few weeks old, it was 1994, so he had no way to tell my mom he wasn't sure where he was, and he wasn't sure he was going to make it home, and then all of a sudden someone was in front of him and he felt a wave of relief wash over him like he knew he would get back home safely.

That last story is incredible. I’m more on the side of the voice being a psychological survival response to something extremely traumatic, but in the end, only those who have experienced it could ever really know what it’s like. No matter what the phenomenon is, it saved that man and it has saved the lives of others, and that is truly amazing

Hey I know you probably won’t see this, but my moms cousin is Alicia Showalter Reynolds whose murder was never solved, they are starting to look back into her case now and I was wondering if you could maybe do a video on her? I love your videos so much, thank you for everything!!!

I've heard of this Third Man Effect before. A man named Dennis Hale was the sole survivor of a shipwreck named Daniel J Morrel. He and another person were on a life raft shortly after their ship broke apart during an intense storm on Lake Huron on November 29, 1966. He said while he was freezing, he felt thirsty and wanted to suck on the ice formed on the raft but an old man appeared behind him and told him not to do that because it would make his body go into hypothermia and that help was on the way. Shortly after a Helicopter found him and rescued him but the other passenger on the raft passed away. Look up his story, it's pretty interesting.

Something like that last story happened to me when I was assaulted and almost murdered on my way home from work in 2021. Someone helped me that didn’t actually exist and I can’t explain what happened. But I’m forever grateful, whatever or whoever it was.

HOLY HELL I'VE HAD THAT! I didn't know there was a name for it or ever really questioned it! When I was being severely abused as a kid, I had this little girl who looked like an angel who would come into my body and let me go play in a giant picture of a waterfall on the wall in our rental. She was so kind and she gave me the sense that he couldn't hurt her. He was terrible; sometimes he would tell me to say my prayers, that he was going to kill me today, hold a gun in my mouth and then laugh when I cried and say oh maybe tomorrow. She would take over in those moments so I didn't have to be there. She was so beautiful and just... radiated pure love. I'm not sure what that was. I'm not a religious person. Sometimes I wonder if it was a splitting off of my psyche under such tremendously overwhelming abuse. But who knows?

The last story, I can relate to. I was a bad teen, and my mom had no other options, than to send me to a wilderness camp. Basically, we parked in one spot, and made a big loop, that would bring us back to the truck, 3 weeks later. We were expected to walk 13-15 miles per day, make our own fires, and carry heavy packs on our backs. I was with 5 other teenage boys that snuck in a lighter, but refused to let me use it. I couldn’t make a fire, therefore I didn’t eat. The boots my mom had brought for me were too small, so I walked around in the snow, barefoot. I was always lagging miles behind the group, and would just sleep on the side of the path, with no sleeping bag, as it was burned up the ONE night I had a fire, because I rolled into the fire while I slept. One day, I was laying down, and a truck drove up and stopped, asking me if I needed help. I was too scared that the camp counselors would stop the truck, so I refused the help. The camp counselor would drag me by my hair, or my arm, face down in the snow. About 2 weeks in, one day I was absolutely exhausted. I had extreme frostbite on my extremities, and bleeding ulcers on my stomach, from lack of food. I just couldn’t walk another step, and stopped to lay down, and prayed to God to give me the strength to keep going. I remember closing my eyes, I guess I slept for a few hours. I had dreamt of an angel, coming to help me. I stood up, and I was able to walk. I didn’t feel the pain from the frostbite, and I was full of energy. I would often leave tracks of blood, from making a fist, my hands would crack and bleed. Once I started walking, I felt a sense of calm, and when I couldn’t walk anymore, I laid down to sleep in the snow, with just the clothes on my back. I woke up, as the group had made it back to the truck, and came looking for me. As the truck went through a mud puddle, it splashed water in my face, the counselor didn’t take me, he told me he would be back the next morning. When I woke up, my face was frozen from the mud puddle. Once I was reunited with my mother, we started to drive back home, but I was in extreme pain from the car heater starting to defrost my body. I had to be taken to the ER where I stayed for almost two weeks. They would have to scrub off the dead tissue on a daily basis. I say all that to say this, it was either my praying to God, or an angel that came to help me. I would likely have died otherwise. The memories have faded over time, so I might have left some things out, but this story definitely brought me back. Shortly after, a lot of the wilderness camps were shut down, due to injuries, and even deaths. They should have had me evacuated out, but left me to continue suffering. I had memories for many years, and had massive nerve pain in my hands and feet, that’s just now starting to fade.