Defies Explanation Vol. II

0:00Today's podcast will feature two stories about unexplainable phenomena. The audio from both 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 Two-Faced, and it's about a man who's filled with this deep sense of foreboding after a ghastly sight in his mirror. And the second and final story you'll hear is called Make It Rain. And it's about an inmate who has a truly unbelievable ability. 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 place because that's all we do, and we upload two, three, even four times every week.

0:42So if that's of interest to you, please invite the follow button to come with you to a big costume party. But don't tell them you're actually going to a funeral. Okay, let's get into our first story called Two-Faced.

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2:13On the night of November 7th, 1860, a 51-year-old American politician walked inside of his modest two-story home in Springfield, Illinois. This politician was totally exhausted, but he was also really happy because in his hand, he had a telegram that confirmed he had won an election that he had worked so hard for and he wasn't sure he was going to get. And so earlier that night, this politician had been out basically partying and celebrating this huge victory, but now he was totally beat and ready for bed. Once the politician was inside his house, he picked up an oil lamp to light the way, and he walked through his house to his study where he put the lamp down on his desk.

2:53He put the telegram saying he had won this election next to the lamp, and then the politician just collapsed into his sofa to fall asleep. But before he closed his eyes, this politician looked over at a mirror on the wall, and what he saw in the mirror made him gasp, and he sat upright and looked at it like he couldn't believe what he was seeing. In this mirror, this politician was seeing his own face, reflected as it should be, but then next to it was another face, and it was not his. It kind of looked like him, but it actually looked more like a corpse, like a dead person was looking out at him from this mirror.

3:26And so the politician, he stood up and began walking over to the mirror to get a closer look. But as he got closer, the dead person's face disappeared and all was left was his own reflection. And so he's like, okay, I must have been dreaming that, you know, that can't have been real. And so feeling very unsettled, this politician just went back over to the couch and he laid back down thinking, okay, just forget about that, go to sleep. But again, he glanced over at the mirror, and now that he was laying down again, he saw the two faces again, his own and this dead person's face. And at this point, he stood up and rushed out of the room into his bedroom where his wife was.

4:00Now, his wife was a very devoted spiritualist, and so the politician thought maybe he could tell her about what he saw in the mirror, and she could interpret it and tell him what it meant. And so he sat down and he told his wife about what he had just seen, and she would sit there for a minute pondering what her husband had just said. And then her expression on her face just totally changed. She went from intrigued to very upset. And in a quivering voice, she would tell her husband that what this meant was he would serve honorably in the office that he had just been elected to for one term. He would get reelected, but he would not survive the second term.

4:35Now, when the politician heard this, he immediately rejected it. And he said to his wife, you know, there's no way that's true. You know, I probably didn't even see a face in the mirror. I'm probably just so tired. I imagined what I saw. So let's just forget about it. But his wife was not consoled and she fell into his arms sobbing as if he had just been diagnosed with some fatal illness. And over the next several days and weeks and months, this politician's wife continued to be so upset about this potential death omen that the politician had apparently had. Even though, again, the politician is constantly telling his wife, come on, like, there's no way that's actually going to happen.

5:11And sure enough, over time, the politician's wife did sort of stop being so scared all the time that her husband was going to die, and the politician himself, he just kind of forgot about what he had seen in the mirror that night. So he would go on to serve his first term in this elected office, he would be re-elected for a second term, and then during his second term, on April 14th, 1865, this politician and his wife were out at a play in Washington, D.C., and during the last act of the play, a man named John Wilkes Booth famously snuck up behind Abraham Lincoln, who was this elected politician, he was the President of the United States, in his second term, and John Wilkes Booth shot Abraham Lincoln in the back of the head, killing him.

5:54And so, Abraham Lincoln would indeed not survive his second term, just like the mirror death omen had predicted.

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9:43On February 24, 1983, a 21-year-old man named Don Decker walked into a funeral home in the tiny rural town of Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, where Don's grandfather's funeral was being held. And as soon as Don walked inside, he saw his grandfather's casket open for viewing at the front of the room. And then he also saw lots of his family members and friends and friends of his grandfather kind of kneeled around the casket and, you know, sitting in the front seats of this funeral home. And everybody is quietly crying and kind of consoling each other. But Don, you know, he walks in and he doesn't talk to anybody in his family, doesn't talk to any of the friends, he doesn't go up to his grandfather's casket.

10:21Instead, Don sat down in the very last row of seats. He folded his arms and just scowled angrily as he looked around the room. Unlike everybody else inside of this funeral home, Don was not remotely sad. He was instead just totally angry. In fact, as he was sitting there, he was clenching his fists so hard out of fury that his fingernails were practically cutting into his skin. Don had come to this funeral home directly from the Monroe County Correctional Facility, where he was serving a 4-12 month sentence for receiving stolen property. The jail had granted Don a furlough, which is a temporary leave of absence, so he could go to his grandfather's funeral.

11:00And Don had jumped at the opportunity, mostly just to get out of jail for a minute, but now that he was actually at the funeral, he kind of regretted going. Eventually, the actual funeral began, and one by one, Don's family members would go up to the podium and say something nice about the grandfather and then sit back down. And at first, Don, you know, he put up with it. But after a couple people had spoken, Don was just livid. He just couldn't hear anymore. And so he tried to focus his attention just on his grandfather's casket, where he could literally see his grandfather's face as he was laying there.

11:33And as he was staring at his grandfather's face, suddenly Don saw something and he stood up really suddenly in his seat. And in fact, when he stood up, it immediately caught the attention of the speaker, which was Don's cousin, and the cousin just stopped and stared at Don. And at that point, the rest of the people in the funeral also turned around and looked at Don. And Don, he knew people were looking at him, but he didn't care anymore. He was now so focused on his grandfather because a second ago, he could have sworn he saw his grandfather's lips moving like he was still alive. But as Don continued to stare at his grandfather, expecting his lips to move again.

12:09They didn't, and so finally Don didn't say a word to all these people who were still staring at him, and he just turned and stalked out of the funeral home. Once Don was outside, he thought for a second about heading to the home where he knew his whole family would be going after the funeral, but Don just could not face being around that crowd again, and so instead, he headed to his friend's home. It was this couple named Bob and Jeannie Kiefer, and the reason Don wanted to see them is he knew they were just kind of laid-back people who would not ask him a lot of questions, and they would just kind of let him have some peace and quiet.

12:41And really, all Don wanted between now and two days from now, when he had to go back to jail when his furlough ended, was just to have some peace and quiet. And so Don made his way to their house, and when he got there, Bob and Jeannie were so excited to see him, they called him inside and said, hey, you know, we're gonna make dinner, you know, go wash up and relax, and we'll eat together. Don didn't say much, but, you know, he nodded a thank you, he went inside, and right away he went upstairs to the bathroom and splashed some cold water on his face because still, you know, Don just could not shake that anger he was feeling when he was inside the funeral home.

13:14And for a second, the splashing of water on his face seemed to be working. He felt like his whole body was getting cooler. In fact, the whole bathroom seemed to have this coolness descend on it. But a weird thing started to happen. You know, Don, as he's feeling this kind of cool come over him, he realized it was actually getting so cold in the bathroom literally like physically cold in the bathroom that it was becoming uncomfortable like he was cold and then when dawn just happened to look up at the mirror right in front of him he could have sworn for a second he saw on the edge of the mirror the face of an old man wearing a gold crown and immediately dawn he kind of freaked out and turned around but there was nothing there and as he's like shivering from the cold from being in this bathroom he began looking all around him you know trying to find this old man with a crown on his head but obviously there was nothing in the bathroom with him and so don felt totally unsettled by this he didn't understand why it was so cold he didn't know what he had just seen and then don happened to look down at his wrists and he saw there were these deep scratches all over both of his wrists and so kind of in a panic don just rolled his sleeves down to cover up whatever was on his wrists he didn't want to think about it he turned off the water and sprinted out of that freezing cold bathroom and just made his way downstairs where bob and genie were just sitting down for dinner.

14:30So Don, he took his seat, he got his food, and he didn't tell Bob or Jeannie about anything that had just happened up in the bathroom. He just sat there and ate in silence. Now, Bob and Jeannie could clearly tell something was on Don's mind, but they'd known him for years, and they knew he was just not the type to come out and talk about anything personal. He basically completely kept to himself, and then when he spoke, he was kind of oddly flat and monotone and emotionless. You know, that was just who he was. But, you know, he didn't cause any problems. He was a very nice guy. And so, for this entire meal, Bob and Jeannie just kind of looked at Don, but didn't ask him any questions and just let him eat in peace.

15:08After the trio was done eating, Jeannie gathered up their dishes and headed to the kitchen to wash up, and Bob and Don headed to the living room, where they sat down and Bob turned on the TV, and for a few minutes, the two friends just watched TV. But at some point, Bob realized when he looked over at Don that Don was not really looking at the TV. He was actually looking down at the ground. It was like he was just sitting there motionless, just staring off into space. And Bob thought to himself, wow, you know, Dawn must be catatonic with grief here from losing his grandfather. But Bob, you know, he felt really bad for Dawn, but he had no idea what to say to him.

15:41He knew Dawn was not about to launch into some deep story about how he was feeling. And so Bob just sat there and said nothing, hoping that, you know, just his physical presence next to Dawn was comforting in some way to Dawn during this really difficult time. And so a few minutes goes by, and the two men are still silently sitting in their seats, when Bob begins to hear what sounds like running water. And at first, he looked over at Dawn, thinking maybe Dawn had spilled a drink on the ground, but Dawn didn't have a drink. Dawn was still just sitting there, catatonic, staring at the ground in front of him.

16:12And then, you know, Bobby turned and looked towards the kitchen, thinking maybe Jeannie had spilled a drink, but she didn't appear to have done that. And then Bob felt a drop of water land on his head. And so he looked up and he saw water was coming through the ceiling. And so right away, Bob stood up and he yelled to his wife that a pipe had burst. And then Bob, he grabbed his phone and he called his landlord who lived right nearby and said, you got to get over here. You know, there's a pipe that's bursting your house. And just a couple of minutes later, the landlord and his wife arrived at the house.

16:40The landlord ran inside and he and Bob rushed upstairs to try to find the origin of this leak and when they got up there they looked everywhere and there was no obvious sign of where water could be leaking from the toilet wasn't overflowing neither was the sink you know they couldn't hear the sound of running water anywhere and then they also realized as they're walking around upstairs that where the leak was coming through the ceiling above the living room they went to that rough area above the living room and the landlord was like there's no plumbing over this area. There should be absolutely no water anywhere near where the water was coming through.

17:15And so Bob and the landlord were very confused and they began walking downstairs to try to figure out what else they could do. And when they walked downstairs, two things happened very quickly. The first was as they came down the stairs, they were entering the living room where the leak had originally been noticed. And when they walked back into the living room, they saw right away that this leak had grown and it was now not just coming out of the ceiling of the living room but it was also now leaking out of the walls of the living room basically all the different walls and surfaces in the living room were leaking water and then the second thing they noticed was dawn dawn was still sitting on the couch still just totally catatonic staring at the ground not doing anything which made no sense everybody else in the house is running around trying to figure out this leak, and there's Don just staring at the ground.

18:03And so Bob, who at this point is pretty overwhelmed with what's happening here, but he thought, I gotta make sure Don's okay. And so he just walked through the leaking living room right over to Don, and he said, Don, are you okay? And Don, he didn't say anything, he didn't move, but his mouth kind of contorted into this weird smile with his lips kind of pulling away from his teeth, and all the tendons on the top of his hands began to tense as he wiggled his fingers. And Bob, at this point, he realized there's something wrong with Don and they needed to call the police. A couple of minutes later, two police officers named John Bojan and Richard Wolbert arrived at Bob and Jeannie's house.

18:39And so they came inside and Bob quickly tried to explain what was going on. But John and Richard, I mean, they walked inside and immediately saw, okay, something totally weird is happening here because they looked into the living room and they saw water coming down from the ceiling, coming out of the walls. It was even bubbling up all over the floor. And in the middle of all this chaos was one person, Don, who's just sitting there totally erect, not moving, wiggling his fingers with this weird expression on his face. And the police very quickly said to Bob that we don't know what this is. We don't even know how to help.

19:10So we're going to get our police chief. And as soon as those officers left, it was like Bob, Jeannie, the landlord, the landlord's wife, they were now scared to be in this house. Before, it was just baffling. But now, with Don sitting there tapping his fingers, with that weird grimace on his face and water coming out of everywhere for no reason, it was like terrifying. And so the four of them just kind of huddled in the dining room, staring at Don and the living room, until finally the two officers came back with their police chief. Once the chief came inside, things did not get any better. Because the chief walked inside, and he saw how totally weird this was.

19:44But his reaction was, this is not a police problem. You clearly have some sort of totally weird plumbing issue that seems very extensive. And your friend, he seems okay. He's just acting really weird. And so the chief told his two officers, John and Richard, to not talk about what they saw in this house and just leave. Don't report it. Get out of here. We're done with this. And just like that, John, Richard, the police chief, they said, okay, guys, your problem. And they left. And then Bob and Jeannie's landlord was like, okay, we're going to get a plumber over here right away, you know, and you can deal with this.

20:16And then they left.

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22:47And so Bob and Jeannie at this point are totally unsettled and they just stood in the dining room staring over at the living room where Don was just sitting there tapping his fingers, you know, water's leaking all around him. And then finally, a plumber came to the house, and they searched the whole house, and they could not find anywhere where there was a leak. It literally didn't make sense that the living room was still leaking water. And so Bob, you know, he contacted his landlord and said, you know, what do you want me to do? And the landlord said, you know what? I don't know. We'll send out more plumbers tomorrow.