Sometimes the Vanished Never Return | Campfire for a Cause

MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories

Host John 'MrBallen' Allen hosts a special charity episode, telling three mysterious stories live to guest Liana, whose family is raising funds for her leukemia diagnosis and father's ALS battle. The episode features a haunting tale of four

Key takeaways

All video proceeds are donated to Liana's family via GoFundMe to cover leukemia treatment and ALS care costs.
The first story details a 1954 Hong Kong mahjong tournament where four women vanish after seeing a disembodied gray arm reach from under the table to grab cash.

Main topics

Charity episode for Liana's medical expenses
1950s Hong Kong mahjong ghost story

Notable quotes

"The proceeds from this video are going to all be donated to your family. So just watching the video in and of itself will be a way to help with medical expenses..."

Conclusion

The episode masterfully blends eerie, unexplained mysteries with a hea

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:00) All right, welcome to the campfire. Tonight is a very special episode because I have an amazing guest with me tonight. This is Liana, and we're here in Virginia. And Liana and I, we actually met a couple of years ago during the live tour we did in 2024. She is an avid Mr. Ballin fan, and so we had this amazing chance to meet in D.C. at the live show. And at the time when I met you... I knew that your dad had ALS and that had I think fairly recently been diagnosed and it was just so clear that Mr. Ballin or the strange dark and mysterious was really like sort of a an honest to goodness centerpiece of your household It seemed like a lot of people in your family really liked the strange dark and mysterious and it was really touching for me Also, I loved your flannel. Speaker 2 (0:49) That was Speaker 3 (0:50) really cool. We were gonna do a tour this year and our tour got cancelled And we found out, due to the cancellation, that you were going to be going to the live tour, which was canceled. But through speaking to Corey, your mom, as well as Tony, we found out that, unfortunately, Liana has been diagnosed with leukemia. And I not only immediately remembered my meeting with you, but also I have children. I have three children. I have two daughters, one of which is 10, 9, and then I have a son who's 6. I just remember so clearly when I met you in DC, honestly, this is corny. I just, you reminded me so much immediately of my own daughter, uh, that when I found out about your leukemia diagnosis, I mean, honestly, I, I immediately said like, what can we do to, to just put on a show for you? And fast forward to Spottersville, Spotsylvania, Virginia, uh, you know, a few months later we made it happen. And so we're here tonight, uh, to give Liana a private show because she's awesome. Her family's awesome. They're struggling through some things. And I think that they should be highlighted. And they actually, they have a GoFundMe that today, actually, here's how it's going to go. The proceeds from this video are going to all be donated to your family. So just watching the video in and of itself will be a way to help with medical expenses and help their family in such a difficult time. But then also there's a link in the bio for their GoFundMe. uh because you know medical expenses are not cheap and i want everybody to if nothing else just try to support this family support liana support her family if you can and again if nothing else just watch the watch the video and that is in and of itself a supportive thing so liana thank you so much for being here that was a very long-winded intro um and so tonight the way it's gonna go is i have three stories to tell The first two are new ones. These are new to the public, new to you for sure. And then there's a third one that we're intentionally waiting until it gets dark here. We're actually, just so you guys, I don't know if you can see from the camera shot, we're right by this cabin in the woods. This is like a very iconic Mr. Ballin setting. And the third story is, it's an OG spooky story that I think you're really going to like. Speaker 3 (3:07) But before we get into tonight's stories, if you're a fan of the strange, dark, and mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right campfire because that's all we do. And we upload two, three, even four times every week. So, Liana, if that's of interest to you, the next time you're at a campfire, go ahead and invite the like button to come here with you. But don't tell them you've secretly embedded firecrackers in the fire. And as soon as you light them, walk away. Also, please subscribe to our channel and turn on all notifications so you don't miss any of our weekly uploads. Speaker 1 (3:39) Okay, Speaker 3 (3:40) let's get into tonight's stories. Speaker 1 (3:59) For many of us, going further isn't a choice. It's a feeling we can't ignore because ambition has a way of outgrowing where it began. Speaker 1 (4:11) Turning dreams into direction. Speaker 1 (4:16) Every journey brings us closer to the life we imagine. Speaker 1 (4:22) So, where will your journey take you? Etihad. Beyond Borders. Speaker 3 (4:30) So on March 3rd of 1954, there was this woman named Ye who lived in Hong Kong and she and her friends were big time Mahjong players. Now, I actually don't, I had to look up what Mahjong was because I obviously heard of it, but I don't really know how it's played. It's effectively like a card game with tiles, like domino tiles, right? and you're sort of trying to arrange the tiles. You pick up a tile, you discard one, and you're trying to build like the best set, the way you would play like with cards. This is probably atrocious for those who play mahjong, but either way, big mahjong player. And in the 1950s in Hong Kong, mahjong was like really, really popular. Like to the point where you'd go into restaurants in Hong Kong and like the tables would have laminated to the table itself, like a mahjong board. So people are playing mahjong everywhere. It's a big deal. And so, yeah, her name, Y.E., yeah, she was a really good mahjong player. And she played, like, really competitively. And she had these three friends, these three women that she always played with. And on this day, March 3, 1954, she's at her apartment. She's in a second-floor apartment. It's a new apartment she just got. Her dad owned it, and he rented it out. And apparently the tenant was out, so he had just given it to his daughter to live in. So she's stoked. She's got this amazing apartment. and she's hosting like a Mahjong tournament with her friends. And that night, it had gone exceptionally well for Ye. She was just crushing it. Speaker 2 (5:58) And Speaker 3 (5:58) the way they were playing was like, for every, I guess, hand, I'm not really sure how they describe it, but for every round you play, the pot just kept getting bigger and bigger. I don't mean to mean they reinvested the money or something, but by the end of the night, it's late at night, and there's this like massive cash pool in the middle of the table for the person who wins the game. And so Yez playing, the other three are situated around this table. It's loud. They've been drinking. They're having a good time. It's late. And it goes to Yez's turn and she draws a tile and she realizes like she's going to win. Like she knows it. Like this is it. This is my big moment. And so she puts down the tile and then they yell out this word. It's like, whoo, it's some word they yell. It's signal. It's sort of like saying bingo, right? Like they yell it out. They win the game. And so she calls it out and her friends, they're like so defeated. They're like, oh. You know, they kind of like push their tiles all over the place because they're just like, of course, yeah, yeah, one again. And so, yeah, she's like celebrating and her friends are sort of beginning to sort of talk amongst themselves. And yeah, it's looking at this huge pile of cash. And she starts like literally like grabbing the money and like pushing it all together. It's a big stack of, you know, singles or whatever. And as she's doing this, she sees a hand like push her hand back as if someone was reaching out and grabbing the money. Sort of like. You're trying to get the money. And if I reach out and push your hand away and her immediate reaction is, oh, my jealous friends are trying to take the money from me, trying to stop me from taking the money. Right. And so she stops what she's doing. She's sort of annoyed. Like, come on, this is fair and square. I won. And she looks up to see which of her friends is taking the money or who is pushing her hand away from getting the money. And she looks at one of her friends and she sees her hands on her lap. And she looks at the other woman next to her and she's doing something with her hands, but she's far enough away from the table. It's not her. She looks at the other woman. They're all three of them. They've stepped away from the table. They're not doing it. And she looks down at the table again and she sees there's this hand that's on the table and it's actively now grabbing at the money. And it's sort of like this, the skin's fairly gray with long fingernails and the arm is coming from under the table. Someone is reaching up from under the table and grabbing at the money. And this is a small table. It's a small kitchen. Picture yourself. You're with your three friends. You know there's nobody else there. And so immediately she's looking at the table thinking, who else is in the room that's under the table right now? Whose disembodied arm is reaching up from underneath the table? And so for a second, Yez just staring at it, knowing that she has to look under the table. She has to. Right? Who's down there? Who's under the table doing this? And so she begins to look under the table. And when she does, there's no one under the table. And then when she stands back up again, there's an arm on the table. And she screams, ghost! And the other three women, they turn and they see the arm as well. They're like, oh my gosh! And they start throwing things at this arm and they bolt out of the apartment. Before I continue. Speaker 3 (9:04) This story was an enormous deal in the 1950s in Hong Kong. I don't know if you follow 1950s Hong Kong lore, but this was a big deal in 1950s Hong Kong. It made national headlines. Like, it was talked about all over the place, okay? But initially, initially, when these women come running out of the apartment because of the ghost arm grabbing at their mahjong table, and they tell the police, the police are like, really? Speaker 3 (9:32) A ghost arm was grabbing at your tiles. You know what I mean? But they bolt out of the apartment. They tell the police. They stay at the police station. They're terrified. All four of them have seen this arm. They're terrified. They left the money in the apartment. A police officer comes to the apartment, goes in the complex. He walks up to the second floor, you know, and he's like, this is so dumb. Like this is going to be nothing more than, you know, they've clearly been partying and drinking. They're probably just seeing things. There's no way this is real. He gets to their apartment door and he sees it's partially open. It's ajar. And he's like, okay, you know, I guess what must have happened is someone broke in or something. So he goes into the apartment and, you know, there's clearly signs that from what they described, which is in a panic as they're leaving, they're flipping tables over. He saw the mahjong tiles are on the ground. He saw some tables were upturned and whatnot. But there's still money on the ground, you know, which suggests if this was a robbery, if someone broke in and, you know, tried to steal from you, wouldn't they take the money that's literally scattered around the room? So he's like, that's weird. And so the officer, after scanning the apartment. He leaves and he ends up calling his superior and he's like, hey, I think this is just a hoax. I don't know to what end. I don't know why they did this because there's really nothing about this that feels like it gets them anything. It's just a weird sort of unbelievable hoax. No one's really thinking a ghost arm grabbed you, right? So he goes back to the station and his plan is to get into the station and not interrogate, that's probably too strong of a word, but was to speak to these women and be like, all right, let's go through the details of what you actually saw. So he goes back to the station and he goes into the interrogation room where the women had been waiting and they're not in there. There's four seats inside of this room where they had been and sitting on all four seats is a single mahjong tile on each of these chairs. But the women aren't there. And this is the 1950s. There wasn't robust surveillance in or outside of the station. But they looked for these women. Nobody saw them leave. No one could report where they went. And they were never found. They vanished this night. Their families, nothing. They have no idea what happened to them. And so following this incident, if you will, that apartment became... quite famous because mahjong was such a big deal in hong kong and now there's like this crazy mystery attached to it and so shortly after this became huge news around hong kong to the point where people were like there was a pilgrimage to go to this apartment from all over the country and people were trying to sneak into the apartment to like see the ghost who plays mahjong to the point where they had to put uh police police escorts and they walled off the compound with so many people were going there but uh To this day, we don't know what happened to the women, and we don't know if there really was or was not an arm. Pretty creepy story nonetheless. That Speaker 2 (12:22) was scary. Speaker 3 (12:23) Pretty creepy. So yeah, so what's your take on that? What do you think? Do you think that a literal disembodied ghost arm is responsible for their disappearance? Speaker 2 (12:32) I mean, it wouldn't make sense if they saw an arm, but nothing underneath. Speaker 3 (12:37) It's an odd thing to claim right because if you're gonna claim that you better be pretty confident That's it But all of them said it was it was arms and actually one smaller detail is that as the as yeah Stood back up again after looking under the table and seeing nothing there when she stood back up again She described the hand had gone from just grabbing the money to like moving the tiles around So the ghost arm is now playing mahjong. I think it became like the mahjong ghost after that. So anyways You are a captive audience. I love it. You know, it's funny when I have done live stories, so much of how I feel and how it's going is really built on how I believe the audience is perceiving the story. So I'll give you an anecdote. When we were in actually Washington, D.C., where I met you and your family for the first time, the audience, you included, were really into it. Like there were gasps. There were like... moments where it was obvious the audience was like literally reacting to the story I was telling, which was great because on stage you're like, I'm nailing it. You know, people really get it. Conversely, we, and this is no, no shade on anybody. Uh, in fact, in some ways it's a reflection of someone's manners. We went to the show, we did a show in North Carolina and people were so polite, like freakishly polite. Like everyone we met before and after the show couldn't have been nicer. Couldn't have been, couldn't have been more devoted. Like, from a fan fandom perspective. But this is later in the tour and I'm on stage and it was like silent in the theater. But I think it's because people were trying to be very respectful of like me on stage. They were not trying to move around too much. And so it felt sometimes like I was talking into a vacuum, which was really jarring. And as I'm sitting here listening or telling the story to you, you are an excellent audience. You really are. and they can see it in like your eyes you're really paying close attention so i really appreciate it so far Speaker 1 (14:33) For many of us, going further isn't a choice. It's a feeling we can't ignore because ambition has a way of outgrowing where it began. Speaker 1 (14:44) Turning dreams into direction. Speaker 1 (14:50) Every journey brings us closer to the life we imagine. Speaker 1 (14:55) So, where will your journey take you? Etihad. Beyond borders. Speaker 3 (15:10) So in 1964, there was this family. Who were? Speaker 2 (15:15) Stephen, Henry, and Della. Speaker 3 (15:18) Stephen and his son Henry, who's 14, and Della. Very good job. We were just rehearsing before this.