one summer day A Man Named John Randolph was hiking through a remote forest in Colorado when he began to smell something terrible intrigued he followed the smell until it brought him to this clearing and in the clearing Jon saw what looked like an old campsite now John is out in the middle of nowhere and so the idea that somebody was camping out out here in what looked like a long-term settlement was pretty bizarre to John and so John walked into the clearing to see what was going on and when he turned the corner and saw
the ground in the middle of the campsite he saw something that at first he couldn't even process it was just so horrible it just looked fake but eventually he realized what he was looking at was real at which point Jon turned around sprinted out of there and began screaming for help but before we get into that story if you're a fan of the strange dark and mysterious delivered in story format then you come to the right place because that's all we do and we upload once a week so if that's of interest to you please
invite the like button to go out to lunch with you but once you get there spend the entire time chewing as loudly as possible with your mouth wide open also please subscribe to our Channel and turn on all notifications so you don't miss any of our weekly uploads okay let's get into today's [Music] story on the freezing cold night of February 8th 187 4 a 65-year-old man named Israel Swan sat around this roaring fire with a big group of men inside of this Valley in western Colorado the men around the fire including Israel were all
gold prospectors which meant they traveled the western United States looking for gold but over the past several weeks this group of Prospectors had been trapped in this Valley because of all the terrible winter storms they had these storms coming in that each time would dump up to 6 ft of snow but on this particular ular night as Israel Sat by the fire you know enjoying the flames and hearing people tell stories one of Israel's friends one of the other gold prospectors whose name was Alfred pecker he stood up and basically pitched the whole group as
to why they should come with him and leave the valley right now basically Alfred told the group that you know the weather is starting to turn a bit it's not as bad anymore you know the snow's starting to melt and Alfred said I know a pathway out of here that will take us out of this Valley in Just 2 weeks and and it'll bring us right to Breen Ridge Colorado which was an area that was known by Prospectors for having lots and lots of gold and so Alfred's basically telling them you know this is a
win-win we can get out of here sooner and we can get rich after Alfred made this pitch he sat back down and everybody just stayed quiet for a second and Israel he kind of looked around and watched to see if anybody would take Alfred up on his proposition now Israel knew unlike him most of the other Prospectors didn't like Alfred they said he was was lazy and difficult but Israel felt like that was really not the reason they did not like his friend he believed the reason other people did not like Alfred was because Alfred
had epilepsy which meant he periodically had seizures and because he had seizures it kind of made him a liability for Journeys like this where you know the whole group really needs to rely on everybody and everybody needs to pull their own weight and so they were kind of worried about a guy who at any moment could just become kind of useless because he was having a seizure but for Israel Alfred's epilepsy really didn't matter he didn't feel like Alfred was some huge liability he felt like Alfred was actually very smart and quite bold and so
for him to stand up and make this pitch just kind of felt like in keeping with who he was he was somebody that wanted to get things done and you know Israel liked that about him however just because Israel liked Alfred that didn't mean he was just going to naturally go with Alfred and do his big plan but he was at least thinking about it and as Israel was weighing out the pros and cons of you know whether or not he should go with Alfred he happened to look across the fire and he saw one
of the men this really big guy was sitting there looking really serious and just shaking his head slowly back and forth like no you guys can't be considering leaving early and then the big guy stood up and he held out his hand right in front of Alfred basically telling him like don't say another word and then this guy while still looking at Alfred he said if you leave right now all of your friends will die and then this big guy sat back down again and then everybody around the fire just sat there really tense for
a few seconds in total silence the big man who had just spoken was not a gold prospector he was actually very different than the rest of the people sitting around this fire his name was Ure and he was a Native American chief of the tabaat band of the Ute tribe and chief Ure had actually saved the lives of everybody Israel and Alfred included who was sitting around this fire because a few weeks earlier this whole group of gold prospectors had wound up lost in this Valley with which was the valley where Chief uray lived with
his tribe and he had found them stumbling around on the brink of death with all the snow coming down and so Chief uray and his people brought the Prospectors some food and water they helped them set up a campsite right near a river and then Chief Ur told them to stay put in this campsite and right out the winter and then in the springtime when the snow melts it'll be safe for you all to leave now at first the gold prospectors were only thankful and just totally psyched that Chief yur had found them and given
them this campsite I mean this was great and so they had no problem agreeing to you know wait until the spring to finally leave but now after several weeks of being kind of Trapped In This Camp the whole group was really starting to get Restless they were worried if they didn't leave soon there'd be no more gold for them to mine and for Israel specifically there was even more pressure on him to go out and find gold because he had told his family that this would be his last treasure hunting Adventure ever and so he
really couldn't go home empty handed he literally needed the gold in order to continue to survive and take care of his family so when Alfred stood up and broke the kind of tense silence and said to Chief uray you know thank you for your concern but I am going to leave early and I just hope others will come with me you know at that point Israel saw the conviction in Alfred and Israel really felt like he did need to leave now he needed to get that gold and so Israel said you know what I'll go
with you as well and then after Israel said he would go four other gold Prospectors also volunteered to leave early with Alfred Chief Ur could tell he was not going to change any of these guys minds and so even though he felt like this was a terrible idea he shifted his Focus from trying to stop them to just trying to give them as much information as he could about the area they were going to go into and so he called all the volunteers who'd be leaving early over to him and then Chief Ur drew a
map in the dirt on the ground and he told Alfred and Israel and the other four volunteers that you have to follow the river out of here it'll bring you to this mountain range called the San Juan mountain range and you cannot attempt to go over those mountains you will not make it you got to follow that River and go around the mountain range and then once you do on the other side there will be an outpost where you can stop get supplies rest and then continue the rest of the way towards Breen Ridge and
then after chief Ur had explained all this he made sure to mark an x on his dirt map exactly where the Outpost would be and then Chief Ur just turned around and walked over to his horse and rode away and then shortly after that Alfred Israel and the rest of the gold prospectors also turned in for the night the next morning Israel Alfred and the other four volunteers who were going to be going on this journey they got up early and began packing up their stuff and as they did one of the other gold prospectors
who had not volunteered to go with them who would be staying in the valley until the springtime he actually came forward and said he would help them carry their supplies as far as he could go you know using his horse but at some point he would need to stop drop off their stuff and then they would be on their own and so the men were very thankful about this and so shortly after eating breakfast they were all ready to go and they hit the trail as Israel and the rest of the Prospectors began to hike
their way up and out of the valley they began to see off in the distance the huge Jagged Mountains of the San Juan mountain range but they were careful to kind of Veer closer to the North to stay along that River path because they knew they were not supposed to go up and over the mountains and as Israel trudged through the snow in a line of men he held on to a coffee pot a metal coffee pot that he kept hot coals inside of this not only kept his hands warm but also if he ran
out of matches he could easily start a fire using the coals it was an old trick he had learned and so as he's clutching This Magnificent warm coffee pot in the freezing cold weather Israel heard someone walking up behind him and so he turned around and he saw it was Alfred and he looked totally miserable way more miserable than Israel was and so without even thinking about it Israel just handed off his warm coffee pot to Alfred and Alfred took it and clutched it and was obviously so thankful now none of these gold prospectors had
struck at Rich they were all basically poor but of all these gold prospectors Alfred really had the least of all of them and as a result Israel kind of felt protective of Alfred and also Alfred was half the age of Israel Alfred was 30 years old and so Israel kind of viewed Alfred as like a lost kid trying to find his way Alfred had also conf fighted in Israel that when the Civil War broke out in the United States Alfred had attempted to join the Union Army on two different occasions because he wanted to fight
the slaveholding Confederate Army but in both cases they kicked Alfred out for his epilepsy but that had not stopped Alfred from tattooing on his arm his Battalion information and his name and unfortunately because Alfred could not read or write he misspelled his name when he gave it to the tattoo artist and so when he got the tattoo it did not say Alfred for his first name it said Alfred a LF e r d and from that point on that was his name nobody called him Alfred they called him Alfred and so this was kind of
embarrassing for him and then after getting rejected from the military Alfred had kind of bounced around from one job to the next never really putting his roots down and never starting a family and so again you know Israel just felt like this was a guy who needed some help and so after Alfred very happily accepted that coffee pot from Israel he in turn reached into his jacket and pulled out a flask with some alcohol in it and he handed it to Israel almost like a thank you for giving me this warm coffee pot and then
the two friends walked side by side for a while you know passing back and forth the flask and the coffee pot and then by late afternoon that day when the snow was really starting to come down the prospector who had volunteered to use his horse to help move some of their supplies he had finally reached a point where he said you know my horse can't go any farther the weather's too bad and so he dropped all their supplies and then he turned and headed back down the trail and very likely as these men watched him
disappear down the trail they all had the same thought I just got to suck it up for 2 weeks to get through this treacherous journey and I will get to Breen Ridge and I will become [Music] rich thank you to better help for sponsoring today's video taking care of our mental health is no longer ConEd considered a taboo subject however actually asking for help when you are the one who's struggling feels just as taboo as ever there's this fear that you'll be viewed as weak if you ask for help and show a side of you
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Juan mountains that was going to be their first official stop before they continued the rest of the way to Breen Ridge and then another two weeks went by and still they did not show up at the Outpost and they didn't show up at any of the other camps in the surrounding areas now Alfred's big plan for this group was really dependent on the weather holding up when they left it was true that the weather was improving it was snowing less but within a couple of days of this group setting off on the trip those winter
storms came back with a vengeance and just dumped snow all over the valley and all across the trail this group would have been on in their attempt to leave but the only people who knew that these men had embarked on this perilous Journey was the men themselves and then also Chief uray and the other gold prospectors who had decided to stay in the valley until spring but even if Chief uray and those other Prospectors knew that Alfred Israel and the others were in trouble you know they would have no way of helping them or getting
to them or even communicating to the outside world they were completely stuck in the valley and basically couldn't do anything and so in short it appeared that Alfred Israel and the other four men were totally lost somewhere out in the wild but nobody knew but that would all change on April 16th 1874 roughly 2 months after Israel Alfred and the others had begun what was supposed to be a two- week long journey that morning a group of officials who manned The Outpost that Israel and Alfred and the others were supposed to go to they were
having breakfast in one of the Outpost little log cabins and as they're eating and talking to each other sudden suddenly from behind them the door to the cabin flies open and these officials they turn around and they see standing in the doorway is this totally disheveled looking guy with long hair that's sticking up in the air and a huge bushy beard and in one hand he's got a rifle and in the other hand he's got a metal coffee pot and his eyes were darting like crazy side to side and he was clearly in shock and
he was trying to speak but he just couldn't this man was Alfred and it was obvious to the officials that this man is in D need of help and so without even asking him any questions they whisked him inside shut the door got him some food got him some water and immediately Alfred's wolfing down the food as fast as he can until he began vomiting at which point he apologized profusely and said you know I've been starving out in the wild for weeks and you know it must have done something to my intestinal tract you
know it's probably damaged but frankly the officials did not care about the fact that he threw up all over the ground they were worried this guy was going to die right then and there and so the officials helped Alfred get cleaned up and put in warm clothes and then Alfred asked them you know do you have any whiskey I want to kind of warm my body up and they said no problem they handed him some whiskey and so Alfred threw a couple of shots back and then after that it was pretty obvious that Alfred had
kind of relaxed a little bit and then at that point one of the officials asked Alfred what happened to you as soon as Alfred was asked this question he shut his eyes and kind of grimaced like even the thought of what had happened to him was just too painful to think about but after a moment of silence Alfred with his eyes still closed told the officials that he had been with five men and they were trying to hike their way out of the valley to get to Breen Ridge Colorado to look for gold but as
they were hiking this Trail this huge storm came in and made it really hard to navigate the trail they were on and so the group decided they would actually cut through the San Juan mountain range the thing Chief uray said don't do that do not go over the mountains they decided to do that but as they were traversing these treacherous mountains it was clear that Alfred was just not keeping up with the group and so unfortunately they made the decision to leave Alfred behind to die and he knew he was being abandoned to die and
so he had to watch as his five friends you know disappeared into the snow but amazingly Alfred did not die instead he would spend the next nearly 2 months stumbling through the snowy Forest having no idea where he was going eating roots and flowers and looking for shelter any chance he got but the thing that really allowed him to survive out in the wild was when he was abandoned by the five others he was in possession of that coffee pot that had the coals inside of it and so at night he was able to start
fires and then also at one point he was so hungry that he cooked his leather shoes in the fire and ate them because again this guy is starving and so really he was on the brink of death when he randomly stumbled into this Outpost and found this cabin after Alfred finished telling his story the officials were just totally shocked and silent and Alfred eventually would ask them a question he would say have any of my men come through here did anybody else survive and they would say no it's only you we have not seen anybody
else now the officials did not send out a search party right away mostly because it seemed kind of obvious that Alfred's men were likely dead by this point it's been 2 months since they started that Journey you know the chances are just not good that they have survived but even if these other men were not dead yet the officials had no idea where to begin their search they knew that if they actually wanted to go looking for these guys they would need Alfred to lead the search because he's the only one who knows where they
could be but Alfred was not healthy enough to go out in the wild and lead a search and so for several weeks Alfred just stayed in The Outpost resting and recovering and then finally when he was healthy enough he would go out and lead a search party to go find the missing men but unfortunately he couldn't find anything and so it wasn't until that summer when all the snow had finally melted that the mystery was finally solved about what happened to those other men on August 20th 1874 a traveling artist named John Randolph was hiking
through a forest in western Colorado roughly in the area where those other Prospectors would have been walking on their attempt to leave the valley and as John Randolph was walking through that area he began smelling this horrible smell and so John followed the smell until it brought him to this clearing and then in the clearing was what looked like an old beat up campsite and so being curious John walked into the clearing to see who was in this campsite but when he turned the corner and saw what was on the ground in the middle of
this campsite he froze because on the ground in the middle of this campsite were five dead men all lying perfectly in a row they were the source of the terrible smell and right away even though JN was in shock from what he's seeing he could tell that these five men did not die from something natural one guy was missing his head altogether and the other four had obvious signs of something being smashed really hard probably repeatedly into their heads but that wasn't all the other thing John immediately noticed is that the five bodies were in
very different states of Decay two of the bodies were basically skeletons but the other three were not they were basically intact their chests had been cut and FL open but they all looked like they had died somewhat recently in fact one of the men looked so Lively that it seemed like he was just sleeping despite the gaping wound in his chest and his head that clearly indicated he was dead now JN wanted to turn and run away but he had this morbid curiosity he wanted to know what he was even looking at you know what
happened to these guys and so kind of against his better judgment he walked a little bit closer to the bodies and when he got close enough he noticed something else that was totally off about the scene when he was looking down at these men he could tell that the wounds they had sustained especially in their chest looked surgical like whoever had wounded them whoever had cut them had done so with an incredible amount of precision this was not random hacks that got these guys killed this was like a butcher carving up meat and then johon
happened to look up from these five bodies and he noticed just a little ways away was the remains of a burned out fire pit and then there was a trail that kind of LED off into the woods behind the fire and so again you know John he wants to run but he can't help but be really curious and so he walked past the bodies he went to the fire pit and he followed that trail kind of back into the woods and he found this ramshackle shelter kind of tucked away in the woods that was abandoned
no one was in there but it had all the signs of someone living here for a pretty long period of time and then suddenly it was like all these pieces came together and John realized what he had just stumbled on clearly those five men had been murdered and the person who murdered them very likely lived in this camp and over the course of what looks like weeks or months this person was butchering these men and then cooking their body parts over that fire and eating them this is like a cannibal camp and John you know
he's thinking is this guy going to come back you know whoever lives here are they coming back soon he didn't know and so kind of in a panic he pulled out a SketchBook he sketched the area and then he turned and sprinted out of there to go find help it would turn out John the illustrator was totally correct about what he thought was happening at that camp after Alfred was left behind to die those five other men carried on into the night up into the mountains and then somebody attacked them began killing them and eating
them and that person was Alfred that was why Alfred had survived for so long it wasn't just that he was able to make Fires at night it was that he was able to make Fires at night and eat his friends now no one has ever been able to actually determine how Alfred went about killing these five men or even when he killed these five men all we know is that based on the investigation four of his victims appeared to have been asleep when they were murdered but the fifth victim who actually was Israel the one
guy who really liked Alfred and looked out for him and was kind of like a father figure to him he was the only one who showed signs of a big struggle before he was murdered while Alfred denied killing all five of the men he said that he basically only killed one of them and it was self-defense and somebody else killed the other four you know it was kind of confusing you know despite those claims he had the one thing Alford never denied was the cannibalism in fact Alfred straight up told authorities that he grew to
really like the taste of human meat in fact when they searched that campsite that John Randall found they would find the the remains of a dead deer that was right near the campsite but despite it being right there Alfred never attempted to carve it up and eat it he just kept going back to his stockpile of human meat and eating that in the end Alfred was convicted of murder and he was sentenced to 40 years in prison but in 1901 when he was 92 years old he was granted parole and right away Alfred became a
vegetarian and then died a few years later from the 1800s all the way through the 1900s bodman St Lawrence hospital was one of the largest running asylums in all of England but in 2002 it was permanently shut down due to so many accusations of patient mistreatment now after it was shut down the property kind of fell into disrepair it was basically abandoned and so when it became totally overgrown it began attracting vandals and urban explorers and so the owners of the property finally just put up a fence all the way around the hospital and they
hired security guards to patrol the property at night to keep vandals out and so these security guards began doing that and very quickly they began reporting that they were seeing and hearing things they couldn't explain on this property they'd hear things like footsteps on Floors that they knew were vacant or they'd hear doors slamming and at least one guard claimed to have seen a gurnie roll into the hallway from a room but then when he checked the room there was nobody in there but but perhaps the scariest account came from a security guard who when
he showed up for work that night he was feeling kind of sick and so when he was out walking the property he found somewhere to lay down in one of the smaller Hospital buildings and as he was laying there with his eyes closed he began hearing a tapping sound coming from outside and so he stood up and he walked over to the window and he looked out into the night but he couldn't see anything out there that would cause this tapping sound and so he Shrugged and turned back around to go lay down again but
when he turned around standing in this room with him was this skinny woman wearing a white hospital gown and she had this grimy black hair that was covering her face and so the security guard is just staring at her totally terrified and before he could do anything this woman just turns and walks into a wall and vanishes to hear the full terrifying story check out the latest episode on our newest Ballin Studios podcast called bedtime stories this episode is called night shift and if you want more episodes like this bedtime stories releases new episodes every
Wednesday and they're available on all podcast platforms so that's going to do it if you got something out of today's story be sure to check out our podcast called the Mr Ballin podcast where we have hundreds of stories a lot like this one but many of them are only available on the podcast again it's called the Mr Ballin podcast and it's available on Amazon music wait don't go anywhere if you're looking for more strange dark and mysterious videos click here
