MrBallen's Medical Mysteries podcast has a clever premise, creates a creepy, strange world, and has a host who could scare people at campfires by telling lurid ghost stories.
In effect, modern medicine has few if any answers for the phenomena detailed in the episodes of the podcast.
Consider the TV show The Resident. Through the Spring, I watched all six seasons of that medical drama based at Chastain Park Hospital in Atlanta. Almost every episode had a scene where resident Dr. Conrad Hawkins would be treating a patient with some illness impossible for any other physician to diagnose. Then Hawkins would say to the patient, "Were you ever in Borneo and stung by a greenish blue bug?"
The patient was astonished by this question and replies, "Yes, but how could you know that?"
Dr. Hawkins, trying his best not to gloat, would answer: "I think you were bitten by the pernicious vengeful boll weevil and need antibiotics."
Case solved, and almost every episode had a main or minor narrative about a patient with a condition so rare that the odds were greater than Donald Trump admitting that ingesting bleach could not cure COVID.
Fast-forward to MrBallen's Medical Mysteries, where no doctor can explain the medical mysteries that are featured every episode. I don't know if Dr. Hawkins from The Resident has refused to consult on these cases for fear of admitting, "I dunno," but the cases themselves are baffling.
A young woman comes home from studying in Ghana, ready to enjoy a relaxing summer. But soon, she starts experiencing horrifying nightmares – and finds herself on the verge of death. Seemingly out of nowhere, an otherwise healthy man’s body starts filling with a thick, lemon meringue-like liquid that is slowly drowning him in his own fluids. His family is terrified, both for him, and for themselves – because this mysterious disease might come for them too.
You get the idea. In some episodes, "a startling discovery" is made, and in others the mystery remains unsolved.
After listening to ten episodes, I checked my health insurance policy to see if I was covered for "unexplainable health conditions where the doctors have no friggin' idea what's wrong with me."
Here is Wondery's marketing pitch: "The human body is a miracle. But when it’s not working, it can be the stuff of nightmares. On this new series from master storyteller MrBallen, we’re sharing medical horror stories and diagnostic mysteries that are surgically calibrated to make your blood run cold."
During his service, he was deployed to Afghanistan and later South America. In 2014, his team was attacked in Afghanistan and a grenade hit Allen, with shrapnel impacting his hips, and legs. He recovered, and in 2017, Allen medically retired from the Navy, earning a Purple Heart.
In 2022, Allen and his nonprofit organization, MrBallen Foundation, were nominated for the creator for Social Good Award.
Then, Wondery and Ballen Studios, Allen’s content company, struck a major first-look and distribution deal with Amazon Music last year. Taking on a similar fascination for mysterious circumstances as the original MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark and Mysterious, which moved over to Amazon Music last November and has topped the company’s podcast charts, MrBallen's Medical Mysteries show began, diving into stories of unexplainable deaths, unknown diseases and miraculous recoveries, with about 50 episodes recorded and released.
Mr. Allen's entrepreneurial spirit, solid business sense, excellent hosting skills, and creativity have made MrBallen's Medical Mysteries a certified podcast hit. For listeners who enjoy these mysteries and unexplained phenomena, this show is candy for a sugar snacker.
People have always enjoyed this genre of show. Remember Beyond Belief: Fact Or Fiction with Jonathan Frakes as host. The show ran for seven years, and was revived in Germany three years ago, with Frakes still as narrator.
Like Frakes and Robert Stack from Unsolved Mysteries, Mr. Allen is adept at amping up the mystery, creepiness factor, and darkness, building a strange, abnormal world that can captivate listeners.
The true master at this genre, however, is Aaron Mahnke of the Lore podcast. What makes Mahnke so good as the host of Lore is that he doesn't try too hard, mugging for the podcast mic. He doesn't try to sound extra creepy, with false intonations or tonal changes in his voice. Instead, Mahnke allows the excellent script, creepy, plaintive piano background music, and the listeners' own imagination do the work. There's studied patience to his voice that never betrays an urge to "get to the good stuff." No, instead, Mahnke prefers to construct his mood carefully, cautiously, and completely.
So Aaron Mahnke doesn't have one of those voices that alone can scare the heck out of you. But he doesn't need to. Mahnke is a world builder by being a word builder. He uses all the tools to gradually draw you into his macabre world of sonic darkness. As a listener, you don't even know you're knee-deep in it until it's too late.
Check out MrBallen's Medical Mysteries. The show carves out a well-entrenched niche for itself in this genre. Josh Allen is an excellent host and these strange tales don't disappoint. The episodes are appropriately timed -- about 35 minutes -- and everything from the creepy background music to the narrative prowess makes the show ear-worthy.
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