Top 3 stories that sound fake but are 100% real | Part 3

sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction and today we're gonna look at three stories that demonstrate that but before we get into those stories if you're a fan of the strange dark and mysterious delivered in story format then you come to the right channel because that's all we do and we upload three four even five times every week so if that's of interest to you please ask the like button if they'd like to play mario kart with you on your n64 when they say yes have them come over and then force them to use the broken mad cat's controller also please subscribe to our channel and turn on all notifications so you don't miss any of our weekly uploads alright let's get into today's stories in october of 2002 mark and his wife kathy were on their way to a baby shower in baltimore maryland that was being held for them by kathy's family it would be a seven hour drive from their home in ohio so mark and kathy tried to get out the door as early as possible but one thing led to another and they got a pretty late start by midnight they were only about an hour away from their final destination but they both desperately needed a bathroom break and so they pulled into a rest stop in frederick county maryland which is about an hour outside of washington dc the rest area parking lot was completely vacant except for one car which was a dark blue late model four-door sedan that was parked head in right in front of the bathroom mark and kathy pulled into a spot there was a few over from the sedan they got out they walked up to the restroom mark was done first so he waited outside of the women's restroom for his wife as he waited he turned around to face the sedan that initially when he first pulled in the lot he believed was empty but now as he's looking at it he can clearly see there are two people in the front two seats a middle-aged man who's sitting behind the steering wheel looking directly at mark and then next to this guy is a sleeping teenager and immediately mark felt really creeped out by these two guys i mean they are in this random rest stop in the middle of the night they're the only ones there and this guy is just staring menacingly at mark and so mark's doing his best not to be intimidated and to stand his ground and not act phased by what's happening right in front of him but in the back of his mind he is just praying his wife comes out of that bathroom as soon as possible so they can get the heck out of here and away from these two creepy guys finally his wife did come out he grabbed her by the hand and without any explanation rushed them back to their car hopped in locked the doors turned it on and began backing out and as he did he looked over at the sedan and he saw the guy behind the steering wheel the middle-aged guy was looking over at mark with that same menacing look on his face mark also noticed there was something odd about the sedan's trunk there was a fist-sized hole right above the license plate where you would normally put the key inside of so the whole scene was just totally bizarre and after mark and kathy sped out and were back on the highway mark explained to kathy that there were actually two people inside of that sedan and they really creeped him out and that's why he had grabbed her and rushed them back into the car and so she agreed that was pretty creepy but by the time the couple got to the baby shower in baltimore they had completely forgotten about their experience at the rest stop the baby shower went well and before long mark and kathy were back home in ohio about a week later the couple was watching tv in their home when a breaking news bulletin came across and it showed a reporter who was standing at the exact same rest stop that they had stopped in on the way to baltimore in frederick county maryland and behind them was the same late model sedan that they had seen parked at that rest stop when they had pulled in the headline of this special news bulletin was dc snipers caught it would turn out that middle-aged man sitting in the driver's seat of the sedan staring at mark was none other than john allen muhammad and the guy next to him the teenager who was sleeping was lee boyd malvo these were the two men that were responsible for the highly coordinated three-week long attack that left 10 people dead in the washington dc area the fist-sized hole that mark saw on the back of their trunk was what they used to shoot through because it allowed them to stay concealed in the trunk while they were shooting mohammed and malvo had been using that particular rest stop in frederick county as a place to hide out in between their killings when mark and cathy pulled in next to them they were only halfway through their killing spree mark believes the only reason he and his wife were not targeted is because the killers most likely were trying to keep this rest stop off the radar because it was their hiding spot and so they wouldn't have risked an attack there although ironically they would ultimately be caught in that rest stop muhammad was executed by lethal injection in 2009 and malvo is serving a life sentence [Music] in 1988 35 year old ivan mcguire was an experienced skydiving instructor with over 700 jumps to his name on april 5th of that year he was working in north carolina and he was tasked with filming other instructors and their students after they jumped out of the plane the way this worked is ivan would go up in the plane with the instructor and their student and ivan would be the first to leap out of the plane he would roll onto his back and he would film upward towards the plane and he would capture the student and instructor jumping out and ivan would continue to film them until they pulled their shoots at which point he would pull his now being 1988 the filming equipment that ivan was using was much larger and more cumbersome than something you would use today he had a voice activated camera attached to his helmet and then from there there was a cord going to this big heavy vhs deck that he kept in a backpack but despite the nuisance of the equipment ivan went up with the first student and instructor and successfully filmed their jump when he got back on the ground ivan went over to the riggers and he gave them his parachutes they could pack it for him and then ivan went over to a bench and began fiddling with his camera equipment it was clear he was frustrated with the way it was set up and he was making all sorts of adjustments when it was time for ivan's second jump of the day with a new instructor and new student he was so preoccupied with fiddling with his camera that he forgot to grab his parachute and so he ran over to the plane and he's about to get on and they say hey ivan you're not wearing a parachute and he goes oh my goodness you're right he runs back over he gets his parachute he loads back in the plane he goes up to altitude and then he jumps out he films the instructor and student it all goes great he makes it to the ground and his second jump is a success and just like after the first jump of the day ivan takes off his parachute he gives it to the riggers and then he goes and sits down on a bench and continues to fidget and fiddle around with his camera equipment when it was time for ivan's third jump of the day with yet another new instructor and student this time he grabbed his parachute put all of his gear on ran over to the plane hopped on board and he took off once they got up to their jumping altitude which was 10 500 feet ivan turned on his camera and the footage shows the instructor and the student kind of getting their gear together sitting across from him in the plane the jump master towards the front of the plane slides open the side door ivan who's going to be the first one out makes his way to the edge he turns himself upside down so he's sitting basically with his back outside of the plane he makes sure the instructor and student are right on top of him ready to jump out right afterwards once they're ready ivan falls out backwards and continues to film you see the instructor and student jump out right afterwards ivan continues to film them as they go down they're in free fall for a few seconds and then you see the instructor and student pull their parachutes at which time ivan reaches back to pull his own but he can't find it for a few seconds he flails and you can see his hands coming out in front of the camera and he's trying to reach for his rip cord and then he realizes what's happened that parachute he grabbed before he loaded up in the plane was not a parachute he grabbed his heavy backpack that had that big vhs deck in it and when he put it on he mistook it for the parachute and so now falling at terminal velocity with no way to stop himself he begins yelling out oh no oh god no and he keeps reaching back as if he's just gonna find this cord but there's nothing there and after a few agonizing seconds you see the ground getting closer and closer and closer and then it cuts out ivan's body was later found about a mile and a half outside of the drop zone in the woods his camera and videotape were severely damaged but they were able to splice it together and that's why we know what happened in his final moments an investigation into his death showed the pilot made the same mistake ivan did when he saw ivan with that backpack on he assumed it was a parachute and so ultimately ivan's death was ruled an accident fair warning if you look into this case you will almost certainly come across the actual footage of ivan's final jump [Music] in 1980 bobby shafran 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 he got the wrong person i i don't know you and she laughed and she just ran away and so bobby's totally bewildered by this because he doesn't know anybody but everybody seems to know him and so he walks up the steps and he goes inside the dorm building and as he's walking down the hall people are high-fiving him and patting him on the back and then right as he's about to turn the corner towards his actual dorm room someone down the hall behind him yells out hey eddie what's going on man and bobby knew whoever it was was yelling at him because this whole situation had been so weird he felt like this had to be a case of mistaken identity and so bobby turned around and he saw at the other end of the hall another student who he didn't know clearly waving at him and yelling out hey eddie come here what's going on man and so bobby walks up to him and says hey i'm not eddie i don't know what's going on but everybody thinks i'm somebody that i'm not but i'm not eddie who's eddie and the guy said yeah okay eddie it's good to have you back here man and then walked off and so bobby's like what is going on here and so bobby turns and he goes back up to his dorm room and he goes inside and he shuts the door and he's thinking i just wanna be left alone for a second because this is just this is not right this is not how a freshman who doesn't know anyone gets welcomed at any school or any place in the world this is totally unusual in just a couple of minutes after being inside of his dorm room he hears a knock on the door and bobby's like oh great who is it now who is it that thinks i'm someone i'm not so he opens the door and there's another student who he doesn't know who's standing there and this guy his face just drains of color and he starts shaking when he sees bobby and they're both looking at each other like what's going on here and the student says to bobby were you adopted and bobby said yeah and then the student said is your birthday july 12th and bobby said yeah and so the student goes okay my name is michael and i am best friends with a guy named eddie galland and you are his clone you have got to be his identical twin at this point to bobby this almost made sense but it was so crazy to imagine having some identical twin he didn't know about and so bobby asked michael if he could go meet eddie because he's got to be a student here and michael said well actually eddie decided not to come back to school this year which is probably why everyone you talked to was so excited to see you because they love eddie and they thought you were him and so they're psyched to have you back after talking for a couple of minutes michael tells bobby that they have to go call eddie and they have to set up a meeting so that bobby can meet eddie and vice versa and so michael and bobby run outside to a payphone booth they hop inside they're crammed in there and they dial up eddie and as soon as eddie answers bobby grabs the phone and just says hey eddie my name's bobby and everybody thinks i'm you and then eddie says yeah i've been getting a lot of calls about that too and bobby would later say that when he first heard eddie's voice he said it sounded like his own voice coming through the phone and so ultimately eddie invited bobby and michael to come to his house so that eddie and bobby could see if it really was true that they were twins and so michael and bobby hopped in bobby's car and they sped two hours to eddie's house and when they got there it was the middle of the night and eddie's house is the only house in this quiet suburb that has all the lights on and so michael and bobby walk up the path towards the front door of eddie's house and right as bobby is about to knock on the door it flies open and standing in front of bobby is his exact clone it's eddie and eddie's looking back at bobby and he can't believe what he's looking at they are definitely identical twins and they both immediately saw that 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 yup 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 kellman 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 kellman i was born july 12 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 david's family members that witnessed this first interaction said it was the most incredible thing they had ever seen that it was just so wonderful to see these long-lost siblings finally reconnected after all these years shortly after david realized he was the third missing twin newsday did another story talking about how there was actually three missing twins that had all been reconnected and once again it was just this incredible cinderella story and now this story went all over the world they were on the cover of every magazine every newspaper they were on every talk show and everybody had the same question what similarities did they discover and they would say well we all wrestled in junior high school in high school we all smoked the same cigarettes we like the same food we have the same taste in women and on talk shows when they would answer these questions it was immediately clear that they all shared the same mannerisms and on the show they would routinely interrupt each other and finish each other's sentences it really was like they were the exact same person despite having been raised completely separate from one another the boys loved the attention they were getting they had become international rock stars overnight and all three of them were immediately so close they were best friends right away they moved into an apartment together they went out partying they met madonna it was just this incredible time in their lives and so they weren't asking questions about why they had been separated in the first place but their parents were asking a lot of questions because they had not been told by the adoption agency that the boy they were adopting actually had two identical siblings they had no idea so the boy's adoptive parents reached out to the adoption agency which was louise wise services it's based in new york very prestigious basically the most powerful and wealthy people in new york use this adoption agency if they're going to adopt and so the parents reached out to them and asked for a meeting so they could get some answers as to why their kids have been separated and so the parents go to new york they go into this meeting room with the top brass of louise wise services and they say you know did you separate our sons at birth on purpose and one of the executives said yes we did because it's really hard to place three children into one home at which point david's adoptive father lashed out and said that's absolute bs if you had told me he had two identical siblings i would have taken all three but the agency stood by their decision and said that's the only reason it happened and so sorry that's all we can tell you and so the parents were very frustrated and felt like there was much more to the story and in fact they felt like the agency was actually lying to them about why they had separated their sons in the first place but they couldn't get any more information so they left the agency and right when they got outside bobby's father realized he had left his umbrella inside of the meeting room and so he turned around went back inside walked down the hall quietly so we didn't want to disturb anyone and he opened the door to the meeting room and he reached in to get his umbrella and he looked inside and he saw the people he had just met with from louise wise services had just opened a bottle of champagne and they were laughing and smiling and they were clearly toasting each other on a job well done and even though bobby's father did not go in there and confront them about what they were celebrating he got the sense that they were celebrating having dodged a bullet that they clearly had just lied to the families of these three triplets and they'd gotten away with it and so between the parents general sense that the agency was clearly hiding something and then bobby discovering this champagne toast as soon as they left the parents decided they needed to get in touch with some lawyers to help them get to the bottom of why their sons have been separated and so initially a number of really prestigious law firms in new york were excited to take this case but shortly after they all contacted the families to say well actually there's a conflict and we can't do it anymore and the parents believed this was because the adoption agency louise wise services and some of their more prominent and powerful clients were pressuring the lawyers not to dig into this that clearly there was some secret that they did not want uncovered and so unfortunately the parents hit a dead end and didn't know where else to turn to try to get more information and so over time they kind of just accepted that this is just the way it is and as for their sons they didn't really care that much because the way they looked at it at least they had each other now and so over the years the boys continued to stay really close they started families of their own and had lots of family get-togethers it was just a really happy time in all of their lives and at some point the boys actually went into business together and opened their own restaurant in new york called triplets and the first year it was extremely successful did over a million dollars in revenue but in the second year the brothers started to fight with each other about how to run the restaurant and in many ways this was their first major conflict they hadn't grown up together they had never really thought and so now they're fighting over money and how to run the business and it got really bad really quick and they just could not come to any sort of compromise and so at some point bobby left the business he said i don't want to do this with you guys anymore and apparently his departure just completely ruined the dynamic of the three brothers eddie was the most affected by this fracture in their relationships all he wanted was for his brothers to be really close and for their families to spend time together and now all of that was in jeopardy and so eddie started showing signs of severe depression and was ultimately hospitalized for three weeks and then shortly after getting out of the hospital he took his own life this was beyond devastating for the two brothers and the rest of their family around this time a journalist named lawrence wright who had always had a fascination with identical twins found an obscure scientific article called psychoanalytic study of the child it detailed a new york-based study about identical twins that were intentionally separated at birth and then given to different adoptive families to be studied although it wasn't clear what they were actually studying or why they needed identical twins to do this research in this article lawrence discovered all the babies that had been used in the study came from the same adoption agency the same one the triplets had come from the louise-wise services in new york and so lawrence called bobby and told him that based on this article it seems like he and his brothers were used in a scientific study bobby and david were totally furious they felt like they'd been treated like lab rats they also wondered if their being separated at birth had a negative impact on their mental health and that that might have contributed to eddie's depression and untimely death lawrence wound up writing an article about this twin study he had discovered and after he published it another set of twins found out they had been a part of the study and discovered themselves these two women were also struggling with depression furthering the idea that the study could have led to irreparable harm to their subject's mental well-being at this point david and robbie did not expect anybody to be held accountable for this study instead they just hoped to find out why it was done and what they were testing for and what the results were and so they began working with lawrence to try to get those answers they contacted louise wise services who did admit that yes actually this was part of a study but they didn't get any information about what the results were or why they did it and so they did some digging and they discovered the guy in charge of the actual scientific study was this doctor named peter neubauer who was this very well-known psychologist in new york and so lawrence managed to get an interview with this doctor but the doctor basically said i won't answer any of your questions and i won't give you any information about this study and he never published his findings right before the doctor died in 2008 he made sure the entire study was put under seal inside of the yale university archives so no one could access it until 2066 which has led many people to believe that the reason he said it so far out was to guarantee all of these subjects in this study would have died by the time it was made publicly available protecting his own legacy and the people that were involved in this study in the recent documentary called three identical strangers dr neubauer's personal assistant a woman by the name of natasha josefowicz she was interviewed and they asked her you know can you shed any light on why this study was done what they were testing for and what the results were and she would say that she was not actually part of the study she was born on the periphery but she was privy to what they were doing and she said the point of the study was to finally put to bed whether it was nature or nurture that made the person who they ultimately become basically are your surroundings the thing that ultimately makes you who you become or is it just your genetic makeup that you're predestined to become a particular person independent of how you were raised and she said the results were incredible that basically it has nothing to do with nurture it's all about your genetic makeup that we unconsciously trend towards specific behaviors and decisions but we believe it's free will we believe we're choosing to do certain things but in reality it's basically predetermined and specifically in the triplets case bobby was intentionally placed into a more affluent household where his father was a doctor and his mother was a lawyer and so they were very well educated and that was his upbringing eddie was placed into a more middle-class family with his father being a teacher and his mom being a stay-at-home mother and david was put into a low-income household where they were all immigrants english was a second language and they just had this very small shop that they owned and natasha said this study demonstrated that despite these boys being put into different socioeconomic levels it had almost no impact on who they ultimately became she said she doesn't know why the study wasn't published but she hopes someday it will be also in this documentary a doctor named lawrence pearlman who was actually one of the researchers in the study that would actually make house visits to each of the boys houses as they were growing up under the false pretext that they were there as part of routine follow-up for the adoption agency and he went on record and said that the study was not just about the effects of socioeconomic class it was really about the effects of different styles of parenting he said in the triplets case each of the boys have been placed into their respective households after that household had already adopted another child and that first child they adopted effectively became the guinea pig for this study where scientists would come in and they would study this child under the false pretext that they were there just following up for the adoption agency but really they were creating a baseline of how do these parents parent and then once that baseline was established then the triplets were sent into their respective homes with the researchers knowing full well how they were each going to be brought up with the adoptive father being the x factor bobby's father who was a doctor was rarely around but he was devoted and loving to his son david's father who was the shop owner was around all the time and adored his son and loved him unconditionally eddie's father was a teacher who was around a fair amount but when he was he was very strict and rough with eddie and quick to discipline him and rarely showed any affection for him and while dr perlman does not come out and say that eddie's relationship with his father probably had an effect on him becoming depressed and ultimately taking his life there are many other people close to this case that believe that's exactly what it was that david and bobby had a stable healthy upbringing and eddie did not and so when he was faced with the crisis of the brother separating eddie couldn't handle it these same people refute what natasha said about the findings of the study that were all genetically predisposed to become a particular person they say if that was the case then why haven't david and bobby taken their lives but ultimately because the study was never published we won't know for sure why it was done what they studied and what the conclusions were all we have is speculation and second and third hand information but what we do know for sure is these surviving triplets and their families are furious that this study was done they feel like it ruined their lives following the release of the documentary three identical strangers bobby and david were actually granted early access to the study that was sealed inside of yale university and when they looked at it they were expecting to be blown away with the results but it turned out it was over ten thousand pages of very technical information and much of it was heavily redacted so they couldn't even read most of it they were not able to deduce what the purpose of the study was in the first place or what it accomplished it was just all very ambiguous this study was ultimately shut down permanently in 1980 the same year the triplets discovered themselves as for the adoption agency louise wise services and all the scientists and researchers involved in the study none of them were held accountable for their role in this totally unethical study and so basically everything was swept under the rug and so bobby david and all of the family members of the triplets were just left with a whole bunch of questions and not a lot of answers so that's gonna do it guys if you found the secret in today's episode let us know in the comments what it is and where you found it so give us the time stamp and if you're the first to do that we'll pin you at the top of the comments section if you enjoyed today's video and you haven't done this already please ask the like button if they'd like to play mario kart with you on your n64 when they come over force them to use the broken mad cat's controller also please subscribe to our channel and turn on all notifications so you don't miss any of our weekly three four even five video uploads if you want to get in touch with me you can direct message me on instagram or on twitter my username for both platforms is the same it's johnballin416. i also have a ton of content over on tick tock where my username is mr paulin i also have a second youtube channel called mr ballin shorts where i post short videos if you have a story suggestion please submit it to our subreddit just called mr ballen it's linked in the description below so whether i see you on instagram twitter tick tock reddit youtube or some combination just know that i really appreciate your support and until next time that's gonna do it see ya

Channel: MrBallen

Views: 5,777,320

Keywords: scary, true, stranger than fiction, strange, dark, mysterious, mystery, unsolved mystery, solved mystery, dc snipers, sniper, beltway snipers, John Allen Muhammad, lee Boyd malvo, Washington DC, maryland, rest stop, highway rest stop, rest area, parachute, forgot parachute, skydive, skydiver, skydiving, skydiving accident, identical twins, twins, identical triplets, triplets, identical strangers, true story, crazy story, unbelievable, disturbing, horrifying, story time, scary story, wow, oof

Id: uIvIBKiQhVM

Length: 27min 45sec (1665 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 20 2021