Unreal

0:00Today's podcast will feature three stories that sound just impossible. Moments that were so unlikely that they really should never have existed. Yet, somehow, they did. 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 Just a Bit Cramped, and it's about a horrifying accident that has a very unlikely outcome. The second story you'll hear is called Scenic Route, And it's about a woman who gets into a car accident on her way to work, but not everything is as it seems.

0:34And the third and final story you'll hear is called Out With a Bang, and it's about a funeral that ends with a deafening roar and chaos. 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 four times a week, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Fridays. So, if that's of interest to you, please install hidden cameras all around the like button's house, and then live stream that footage to Facebook. Okay, let's get into our first story, called Just a Bit Cramped.

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2:28At 4.45 a.m. on Saturday, January 17, 2015, a 27-year-old farmer named Caleb Whitby drove his pickup truck down a highway in southeastern Oregon. Caleb knew conditions for driving were not great. In fact, they were kind of awful. The road was icy, it was foggy out, the sun wasn't up so it was pretty dark out. but he felt like he didn't really have a choice. He had to go pick up a shipment of cattle for his family's farm. After driving for another 10 minutes or so down this road, so it's just before 5 a.m. at this point, Caleb found himself right behind this big semi-truck who was going under the speed limit.

3:02And so Caleb's cruising along here, getting frustrated, and he's thinking about passing the truck. But when he kind of peeked around the side and looked up ahead of the truck, he saw there was a very sharp turn coming up, and he didn't really have enough runway to make the pass, at least not safely. And so Caleb just kind of throttled back and decided he would make the pass after making the turn. And so the semi-truck, which is right in front of Caleb, it ends up making this turn and gets out of sight of Caleb. And then a moment later, Caleb makes the same turn. And as soon as he does, he sees something that he couldn't have seen before.

3:33He's seeing it right now that sends a jolt of panic through his body. And reflexively, he jams on his brakes. He loses control of his truck. It starts to slide. And all Caleb can do is just brace and pray that he doesn't get killed. And then a second later, he heard a loud crunching sound, and then his truck stalled, and everything went quiet. But the silence was broken when suddenly there was another crunching sound, and at the same time, Caleb suddenly felt his lungs getting crushed together, and all the air was just pulled out of his body. Moments later, a different semi-truck driver was going down the same stretch of highway that Caleb had been, and he rounded that exact same turn, and when he did, he saw the same thing that had horrified Caleb and caused him to swerve out of control.

4:16Except this semi-truck driver, when he hit his brakes, he was able to basically maintain his truck and he sort of gently hit the guardrail and, you know, crashed, but it didn't cause any damage to him or really to his truck. And so after kind of composing himself, this semi-truck driver got out of the cabin and he looked out at this unbelievably horrific scene in front of him and instinctively he knew if he goes forward and inspects this, he's just going to see dead bodies. And he didn't know if he could even handle that. And so he's just standing there in utter shock when he hears this sound.

4:46And he knows this sound is something that he has to go investigate. And so even though he was terrified of potentially seeing dead people, he walked towards the sound and suddenly he saw where it was coming from. And he just couldn't believe what he was looking at. It would turn out when Caleb Whitby rounded that corner and then saw this horrible thing that caused him to crash, Well, what he saw was a massive pileup of over two dozen cars just completely blocking the road. And so he smashed on his brakes and he tried to stop himself, but ultimately he smashed into the semi-truck that just moments before he had been driving behind.

5:22The semi-truck had also crashed. And so Caleb has now crashed into the side of the semi and everything's silent for a second. And then another semi-truck comes around the corner. Caleb can't go anywhere, and that semi-truck blasted into the back of Caleb's car. After that, the other semi-truck, the third semi-truck if you will, rounds the corner, sees the pileup, hits the brakes, but this guy, he manages to crash into the guardrail, avoiding major injury and damage to his truck. And so he gets out of his truck, and he's surveying this horrific scene, and he hears a sound. And he follows that sound right into the crash, and eventually he finds it.

6:01And that sound was Caleb. Somehow, when Caleb's truck was smashed from both directions, it created this perfect pocket of space just big enough for Caleb to fit inside of. And so despite being smashed together by two semi-trucks in this huge pileup, Caleb was basically unhurt. And so when this third semi-truck driver found Caleb, he actually was able to pull Caleb out of the wreckage. And minus a bruise and a couple of cuts on his face, Caleb actually was just fine and ultimately walked away. And in fact, after first responders showed up and cleared the wreck, it would turn out that incredibly nobody was killed.

6:49Our next story is called Scenic Route.

7:05At 8.40 a.m. on July 7, 1967, a 17-year-old girl named Nancy McKeown was driving along a highway in Brooklyn, New York. She was on her way to her job as a secretary at her dad's office in Brooklyn, and she was coming from her home in Long Island, New York. Now, the commute to her office took about an hour, but Nancy didn't mind, because her dad had just got her this beautiful, brand-new yellow Camaro, and she loved driving it. And the highway she was on had this amazing view of the beach and ocean down below, and so that day, Nancy rolled down her window so she could feel the ocean breeze as she drove, and then she took in a deep breath, and she smiled.

7:41At the same time Nancy was doing this, a police lieutenant was driving in his car, a couple cars back from Nancy, and as he was just driving along, he suddenly sees this yellow Camaro that, to this point, had been driving completely normally, suddenly veer off the road, miraculously miss the oncoming cars, and then smashed into a tree on the side of the road. And so the police lieutenant instinctively jammed on his brakes and veered over to the shoulder and stopped behind the Camaro. And as the lieutenant got out of the car, he was thinking, clearly the driver must have just had some kind of medical emergency, because he didn't see any obstacles in the road, And, you know, the car, the Camaro, had been driving completely normally to that point.

8:20So, like, what would cause them to veer and crash into the road at such a high speed other than a medical emergency? And so the lieutenant jumps out of the car, runs over to the driver's side window, and he looks inside. And he sees this teenage girl, this blonde teenage girl. And she's slumped over the wheel. And she's not looking up at him. She's not making any sound. She's just sitting there. And so he opens up the door and he asks her, like, are you okay? And she didn't say anything, but she did moan. And so she was breathing, she was alive, and there weren't any obvious physical injuries.

8:48Like, clearly, she's just crashed into this tree at high speed, so she's definitely shaken up. But there weren't any obvious, grievous injuries that have occurred here, at least none that he could see. And so he asked her again, like, hey, are you okay? What's going on here? And she just continued to moan. And so again, considering he's looking at her and she seems, you know, basically okay, all things considered, he thought, you know, maybe she's drunk. I mean, that would kind of explain, you know, the sudden veering off the road. And so at this point, the lieutenant radioed for backup and also called for an ambulance.

9:18And while he waited, he began searching the car, just basically looking to see if maybe there was some clue in the car as to what happened here. Like, for example, containers of alcohol. And so he's looking around and he doesn't see any empty bottles and he can't smell any alcohol in the car. But still, this whole time, the girl is not responding. She's just moaning and just kind of slumped over there. And then a couple of minutes later, he hears sirens and he looks up and a bunch of first responders came over. they pulled the girl out of the car, got her in the ambulance, and off to the hospital she went.

9:49Once Nancy got to the hospital, medical staff was able to determine that she was not drunk. But she did clearly appear to be having some kind of medical emergency, but they didn't know what it was. And again, there was no visible injuries on her. I mean, she just basically looked really shaken up and was non-responsive. And quickly, after Nancy was at the hospital, her condition only got worse, to the point where doctors were giving her shots of adrenaline to try to keep her alive, but it didn't work. And at 11.30 a.m., roughly two and a half hours after Nancy crashed into the tree, she died. And it was only then, after Nancy was dead, that the medical staff made a discovery, something they had totally missed when Nancy at first came in.

10:30And that was, on the back of her head, hidden amongst her hair, was a small circular hole. It was a bullet wound, and for some reason, it didn't bleed at all. Clearly, Nancy did not just randomly veer off the road and smash into a tree. No, she had been shot. About 30 minutes after this discovery was made, a detective named Albert Seidman was standing next to Nancy's crashed car on the side of the highway. Seidman had a reputation as being this totally no-nonsense detective who effectively would stop at nothing to try to solve a case. By this point, he'd already spoken to Nancy's parents, who obviously were devastated and very confused by their daughter's death.

11:10They said that, you know, Nancy never got in trouble and certainly didn't have any enemies, and so it made no sense that somebody had just shot her as she was driving. And Detective Seidman had to agree, this was not an average murder case. But regardless, he knew the best place to start this investigation was Nancy's car.

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14:28The car was actually in pretty good shape. I mean, despite striking this tree at high speeds, you know, the body of the car basically remained intact. And so Seidman began going inside the car and looking all around it, you know, looking for bullet holes to see where this bullet came in and struck the driver. But he found none. Really, there was nothing in the car that gave any information away about what actually happened here. Also, adding to the mystery here is Seidman knew there had been that police lieutenant who just happened to be driving a few cars back from Nancy when she suddenly veered off the road and crashed.

14:59And he would say that he did not hear any gunshots. Although, admittedly, he wasn't really listening for gunshots, but he said everything was normal and then the car just veered and crashed. He couldn't understand it. Detective Seidman had briefly considered that, you know, maybe Nancy had been shot by somebody inside of her car. But because of the presence of that lieutenant, who immediately was on the scene and was basically looking at the car from the time it crashed all the way until the ambulance arrived, he said there was nobody else in the car and I did not witness anybody fleeing the scene.

15:30The whole situation was very bizarre, but Detective Seidman, thinking logically, thought, okay, well, you know, we know she's been shot. So even though nobody knows how that happened, well, there has to be a shell casing somewhere for the round that struck her. And so for the rest of the day, Seidman and his team canvassed that whole highway all around that area looking for a shell casing, or really any clue that a gun had been fired in the vicinity. But they found nothing. By the end of the day, Detective Seidman was beginning to feel pretty disappointed about how the investigation was going so far.

16:01But he thought to himself, okay, well, I know I haven't found anything promising yet. But remember, she was shot not in some secluded area. She was shot on a major highway in Brooklyn, New York, a city of over two and a half million people. I mean, someone somewhere must have seen or heard something. And so instead of continuing to look for a shell casing, Seidman abandoned that idea and decided to go find witnesses. Over the next five days, Detective Seidman and his team scoured Brooklyn and interviewed hundreds and hundreds of people looking for anybody who had any information about the shooting.

16:38They also put out a public plea for information and were fielding tips that way. But at the end of those five days, despite the huge number of interviews, they really hadn't gotten anywhere. As Seidman began to feel his frustration rising, because once again it just felt like they were hitting another dead end on this case, he told himself, like, they must have missed something. They've talked to a ton of people, but maybe they were too quick. Maybe they weren't asking the right questions. And so on July 12th, he gathered up his team, and he circled some spots on a map of Brooklyn and said, look guys, we're going to go back to these key areas that are sort of positioned in the best angles to have maybe heard or seen something with the shooting, and we're going to ask some more questions and just see if maybe these people have something we didn't catch.

17:20In one of those circled areas, the police discovered a gas station that was owned by a guy named Theodore DeLisi, and it was located only two blocks away from where Nancy had been shot. And on the morning of July 12th, when the police officers rolled up to this gas station, Theodore was working, and he saw the police coming towards him, and right away he knew this had to be about Nancy McEwen. So Theodore had been following this case really closely as it was developing for two reasons. One, Nancy had been shot really close to his gas station, so there's that proximity bias. And two, Theodore was actually friends with Nancy's father and had known Nancy growing up.

17:56And so this case really hit close to home. When the police walked inside the gas station, Theodore immediately asked them, are you here about Nancy, and they would say yes. And that's when he would tell them his connection to Nancy and how he was following this case really closely. But despite his proximity to where she had been shot, he said unfortunately he hadn't seen or heard anything. But then Theodore quickly followed that up and said that, well, you know, while he had been at the gas station in the morning for a little bit, he did take off at some point to go fishing out on the water in his boat, which was not too far away.

18:28But even from there too, he still said he didn't hear or see anything. But it was kind of noisy out on the water anyways, so he really wouldn't have heard anything out there anyhow. The police nodded and asked some simple follow-up questions to Theodore about, you know, still, you know, take us through what happened that morning. What'd you see? Were there other fishermen out there? You know, when you were at the gas station, did you see anything unusual? Just kind of seeing if there was anything that would jog his memory. And Theodore was answering every question as truthfully as he could. And at some point, he began to think really hard about what he actually saw when he was out on the water fishing, and suddenly it all clicked.

19:03Theodore knew who killed Nancy.

19:08It would turn out at 8.40 a.m. on July 7th, the exact moment Nancy was shot, veered off the road, and crashed, Theodore was in fact out in his boat fishing. Except at 8.40 a.m., he wasn't actually fishing. Instead, he had a can, and he threw that can into the water. Once he saw the can, he kind of kept staring at it, and then he raised his rifle and he fired a shot at the can. But he missed, and the bullet, by some fluke of physics, ricocheted off the surface of the water, went up into the highway right as Nancy had rolled her window down, struck her in the head, and killed her. Theodore knew he had been shooting his gun out on the water, but what he saw was the bullet hit the water.

19:54He didn't think for a second he could have fired up towards the highway. It was when police began asking questions that he thought, oh my goodness, it is possible a ricochet could have struck her in the head. Theodore was charged with homicide, but ultimately a grand jury chose not to indict him, citing that this truly was an accident. Theodore did not serve any jail time, but he was fined$100 for firing a rifle within city limits.

20:28The next and final story of today's episode is called Out With a Bang.

20:43On the morning of June 20th, 2005, a 40-year-old man named Wang Diang stood just inside the doorway of a little home in rural northeastern China. Outside, it was pouring rain with all this crazy thunder and lightning, and also there were these hailstones coming down the size of golf balls, smashing into everything. I mean, just the impact on the roof must have been so loud. And so as Wong was standing in the doorway, he was actually looking out in the direction of the storm because all these people were running towards him to come in the house. Wong was actually hosting a wake for a friend, and he was hosting this wake at this man's home.

21:16And all the people running up to him were all the mourners coming to pay their respects. Now, by this point, most of the mourners had already made it inside the house, and so Wong was basically just waiting for the last few stragglers to make their way inside. And so from his post at the door, Wong is watching the storm and all these people, and he also took stock of the fact that as he looked out to the big tobacco fields that kind of were all over the place in this town, that was the primary way people made money in this town, he noticed that, you know, there was nobody out there tending the crops.

21:46And even in rainstorms, people would tend these crops because this was their livelihood, but Wong understood why nobody was out there. Yes, it was the storm, but specifically, lately there had been these crazy lightning strikes in storms like this that struck the field. And so these workers that were normally out in the fields every single day, they weren't doing that anymore. Finally, the last couple arrived and Wong greeted them and brought them inside. And then he shut the door and then began making his rounds inside the home, making sure all the guests have what they needed. And also just kind of making sure the wake was, you know, overall a positive experience, all things considered.