MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories
Stranger Than Fiction Vol. VIII
Thu, 13 Feb 2025
Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction. And today’s podcast features 3 stories that demonstrate that. The audio from all three stories has been pulled from our main YouTube channel, which is just called "MrBallen," and has been remastered for today's podcast.Story names, previews & links to original YouTube videos:#3 -- "Doctor WHO?" -- A family's dark secret is revealed in a fire (Original YouTube link -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zaa53S-8lDM)#2 -- "Drunk" -- Police ask a woman on the side of the road if she has been drinking. What happened next was so rare, it was documented in scientific journals. (Original YouTube link -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJJmwCKgHAQ)#1 -- "Identical Strangers" -- A chance encounter connects two long lost relatives, but that's only the beginning of this insane story (Original YouTube link -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIvIBKiQhVM)For 100s more stories like these, check out our main YouTube channel just called "MrBallen" -- https://www.youtube.com/c/MrBallenIf you want to reach out to me, contact me on Instagram, Twitter or any other major social media platform, my username on all of them is @mrballenSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Chapter 1: What stories are featured in this episode of Stranger Than Fiction Vol. VIII?
Hey, Prime members, you can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction, and today's podcast features three stories that demonstrate that.
The audio from all three of these stories has been pulled from our main YouTube channel and has been remastered for today's episode. The links to the original YouTube videos are in the description. The first story you'll hear is called Doctor Who, and it's about a family's dark secret that is revealed in a fire.
The second story you'll hear is called Drunk, and it's about a woman with a condition so rare it was documented in scientific journals. And the third and final story you'll hear is called Identical Strangers, and it's about a chance encounter that reconnects two long-lost relatives. But that's only the beginning of this insane story.
But before we get into today's stories, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday.
So if that's of interest to you, please invite the Amazon Music Follow button over to play Mario Kart on your N64, and when they say yes, force them to play with your broken Mad Catz controller. Okay, let's get into our first story called Doctor Who.
Redacted Declassified Mysteries is a new podcast hosted by me, Luke LaManna. Each week, I dive into the hidden truths behind the world's most powerful institutions. From covert government experiments to bizarre assassination attempts, follow Redacted on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Chapter 2: What is the story behind Doctor Who and Jean-Claude Romand's secret life?
In 1974, Jean-Claude Romand enrolled in medical school in Lyon, France. He was a model student who excelled despite the notoriously brutal course load. In 1980, he married his girlfriend, and shortly after that, they had two kids, a boy and a girl. In 1983, he officially became a doctor and landed a great job as a researcher at the World Health Organization in Geneva.
His focus was on finding new medicines to treat arteriosclerosis, also known as heart disease. His wife would proudly tell her friends that her husband was a super doctor who worked quietly in a neon-lit lab in Geneva to develop all these incredible treatments. From the outside looking in, Jean-Claude's life looked perfect. But looks can be deceiving.
In the early morning hours of Monday, January 11th, 1993, Jean-Claude's best friend, Luc, received a call informing him there had been a terrible accident. In the night, a boiler had caught fire inside of Jean-Claude's house, killing his wife and his children. Jean-Claude had barely escaped alive, but when he got to the hospital, he had slipped into a coma.
The two men had been friends for nearly 20 years. They were both doctors, they both got married at almost the exact same time, their kids had grown up together, and now Jean-Claude's family had been completely destroyed. Later that day, when Luke arrived at the hospital to see his friend, he was met with two policemen standing outside of his room, barring anyone from going inside.
And when they realized Luke was his best friend, the policemen said, hey, can we actually pull you aside and talk to you about Jean-Claude? And so Luke was confused, but he walked over and sat at a table with the two officers, and they proceeded to tell him that the fire that had killed Jean-Claude's family had not been an accident, and Jean-Claude was not a doctor.
Jean-Claude had enrolled in medical school in Lyon back in the 1970s, but he failed to show up for his first year exam. And without passing that exam, you can't advance in medical school. And so the school allowed him to retake the year. And so Jean-Claude did that for 12 consecutive years. All the while, he told his friends and family that he was following normal medical studies.
And eventually he told them he had become a doctor. Instead of going to Geneva to discover new medicines for heart disease, Jean-Claude would drive around the border area between France and Switzerland and periodically go to the World Health Organization's Public Information Center and would just walk around the lobby and read pamphlets before going home again.
When Jean-Claude went on overseas business trips, he would actually just leave his house, hop on the highway, and stop at a motel, stay there for a couple of days, and then return with gifts. He lived off money from the sale of his student apartment in Lyon that his parents had bought for him.
When the money ran out, he asked his friends and family to give him their life savings so he could invest them into these schemes that he knew about because he was a UN employee. And because he's this very successful, reputable doctor, people agreed and gave him their money. But by late 1992, some of his victims were asking for their money, and he didn't have it.
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Chapter 3: How did Olivia discover her rare condition in the story Drunk?
Follow Scam Factory on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of Scam Factory early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery+.
If you're listening to this podcast, then chances are good you are a fan of The Strange, Dark, and Mysterious. And if that's the case, then I've got some good news. We just launched a brand new Strange, Dark, and Mysterious podcast called Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries. And as the name suggests, it's a show about medical mysteries.
a genre that many fans have been asking us to dive into for years, and we finally decided to take the plunge, and the show is awesome. In this free weekly show, we explore bizarre unheard of diseases, strange medical mishaps, unexplainable deaths, and everything in between. Each story is totally true and totally terrifying.
Go follow Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts, and if you're a Prime member, you can listen early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Hey, listeners, big news for true crime lovers. You can now enjoy this podcast ad free on Amazon Music with your Prime membership.
Listen to all episodes of my podcasts, Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries and Mr. Ballin's Strange, Dark and Mysterious Stories, along with a huge collection of top true crime podcasts completely ad free. No more wading through cliffhangers or dealing with ads, because let's be honest. Ads shouldn't be the most nerve-wracking part of true crime.
To start your ad-free listening journey, download the Amazon Music app for free or head to amazon.com slash ballin. That's amazon.com slash b-a-l-l-e-n. Dive into uninterrupted true crime stories today. The next and final story of today's episode is called Identical Strangers.
In 1980, Bobby Schaffran was on his way up to Sullivan County Community College, which is two hours outside of New York City, to begin his freshman year. Even though he was from the area, he didn't know anybody that was going to this particular school, and so he was pretty nervous about it. Plus, he wasn't that popular in high school, and he had a hard time making friends.
When he pulled into a parking spot at the school, he saw a sea of people getting out of their parents' cars and carrying boxes up to their dorm rooms. And so he took a deep breath, hopped out of his car, grabbed his backpack, and began walking across the lawn towards the dorm building.
On his walk over, Bobby was surprised when he felt like all these random strangers on the lawn were looking at him like they knew him. And a couple people yelled out to him and said, hey, it's good to have you back here. And one girl actually ran up to him and kissed him on the cheek and said, oh my gosh, I'm so happy you're back. And Bobby said, I think you got the wrong person. I don't know you.
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Chapter 4: What is the story of Identical Strangers and the twin discovery?
Michael would say after Bobby and Eddie just stared at each other for about a minute, they just started laughing. It was like they were total strangers, but at the same time, they had this connection immediately. They knew they were related and they were laughing and they hugged and they just stared at each other.
And Michael said anytime Bobby would tilt his head, Eddie would mimic it and vice versa. It was like they were looking into a mirror. Shortly after, this story of these two long-lost brothers reconnecting found its way to Newsday, which was a prominent local newspaper in New York, and they decided they would look into it to see if it was really true or not.
And so one of the editors had a junior reporter fly out and actually see Bobby and Eddie face-to-face and see if it was really true that they were, in fact, identical twins. And as soon as this reporter saw them, they knew immediately that, yep, they're related.
And so Newsday printed this totally heartwarming fairy tale story about these two long lost brothers reconnected after all these years, just because of a chance encounter in college and everybody loved it. But this is where the story went from amazing to truly unbelievable.
Friends of another young man living in the New York area named David Kelman began telling David that he had to check out this Newsday article about these long-lost twins because these two twins look exactly like David. Specifically, they said, you gotta look at these guys' hands. They are just like yours, David.
David was known for having these enormous hands, and a lot of the pictures of Bobby and Eddie in the news showed their hands, and they too were enormous. And so David finally picked up a newspaper and looked at a picture of Bobby and Eddie, and sure enough, he was shocked. They looked exactly like him.
And then when he read the article, it showed their birthday was July 12th, the same as his, and they were born at the same hospital he was born at. And so he's thinking, these are too many coincidences. They have to be my brothers. And so David called Eddie's home phone number and Eddie's mother picked up and she asked who was calling. And David said, hi, my name is David Kelman.
I was born July 12th, 1961. And I'm looking at a newspaper article of two identical twins that look just like me. And one of them is your son. I think I'm the missing third twin. After hearing this, Eddie's mom apparently dropped the phone and yelled out, They're coming out of the woodwork!
So Eddie and Bobby went to David's house, and as soon as they walked in and saw David, they knew right away he was one of them. He was the third twin. And apparently, within minutes of meeting each other, they were wrestling and laughing hysterically on the ground. It was like even though they were strangers, they somehow already knew each other and had an instant connection.
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