MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories

John Allen, better known as MrBallen, built a massive audience on YouTube with his gift for turning real-life strange events into gripping narrative stories. The podcast version carries that same direct, no-nonsense storytelling style across 444 episodes. Mondays bring new podcast-exclusive stories, while Thursdays feature curated content adapted from his YouTube channel. Each episode runs 25 to 42 minutes and covers a single case -- disappearances, bizarre deaths, unexplained encounters, survival stories gone wrong. Allen is a former Navy SEAL, and his delivery is focused and uncluttered. He does not pad episodes with lengthy tangents or banter. He just tells the story, and he tells it well. The show sits at a remarkable 4.9-star rating from nearly 28,000 reviews, making it one of the highest-rated podcasts in its category. It is distributed through SiriusXM Podcasts and offers a premium tier for ad-free listening and early access. The content is clean-rated despite covering dark subject matter, which means Allen relies on the weight of the facts rather than graphic descriptions. His ability to build tension and maintain pacing throughout an episode is honestly what makes the show work. You will find yourself finishing episodes and immediately starting the next one.