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Download the Amazon Music app today. Today's story is about a group of friends who travel to this supposedly haunted, abandoned town up in the mountains in Spain.
And when they get there, the town totally lives up to the hype.
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On the afternoon of October 16th, 1991, a 36-year-old man named Enrique Martinez bent down, pulled out his pocket knife, and he carefully cut through the stem of a mushroom that was growing right next to a mossy log.
And then after freeing this mushroom, he put it inside of his wicker basket with the other mushrooms he had collected in the area.
And then Enrique stood up and just took a minute to take in the unbelievable view of this lush green valley right below him.
Enrique was out mushroom hunting along with his wife, Ana, and their two friends, Jorge and Sofia, who were dating.
And where they were mushroom hunting was near this old abandoned town called La Musara, which is located up in the mountains of northeastern Spain.
It had been Jorge's idea to come to this area and explore.
Jorge had heard all these crazy stories about La Musara, about how it was haunted, and there was all this creepy folklore surrounding this town.
As for Enrique, he didn't really care about the lore surrounding this town.
Frankly, the town was not that interesting to him.
What was interesting was the opportunity to come out here and collect mushrooms.
That was something he really liked to do.
Enrique and his wife Ana lived in this very busy port city in Spain called Tarragona.
And so their lives day to day were very hectic.
You know, Enrique, he worked at a bar as a bartender.
And so every night he was surrounded by hundreds of people coming in and out.
And so having a chance to come out here and be in nature at peace and collect these mushrooms just sounded too good to turn up.
Enrique stopped staring at the valley right in front of him, and he turned around and continued to scan the mountainside for a particular type of mushroom that grew in this area.
It was called the bloody milk cap, which was known to be great for grilling.
You know, it paired well with meat. And so Enrique's plan was to go out on this mushroom hunting trip.
And when they got back, he wanted to cook a feast using these mushrooms for his wife and his friends.
The group slowly made their way uphill until they finally saw the outskirts of the abandoned town, La Musara.
La Musara was more than 900 years old, and now it was just a collection of crumbling ruins, some dating back to prehistoric times.
La Musara had never been a big town. At its peak, it had about 300 residents.
But the last of the remaining residents of this town had finally fled 40 years earlier, and so now it was a ghost town. group made their way over to one of the buildings that was right on the outer perimeter of la musara it was basically just a foundation with three walls still standing there was no roof but the friends they went over to this building and from right next to it they were able to look straight down the main drag of la musara it was basically just a dirt road that went straight out and all along the road were other kind of ruined foundations of where buildings used to be And fairly far down this road, maybe 200 feet away from where all the friends were standing, was the center of La Musara, which was marked by this big church with a huge steeple.
And the church was actually in decent shape.
It had not totally crumbled onto itself like the rest of the buildings around it.
And then behind the church, somewhat visible from where the friends were standing, was this overgrown cemetery.
And then kind of off to the side of the church was this pond that was also very overgrown, and it was full of croaking frogs.
Enrique and his friends just stood there next to their dilapidated building, staring at La Musara in silence.
Now they knew this place was gonna be very creepy.
You know, people had said it was haunted and that was a big reason why Jorge wanted to come here.
But now seeing it in person, I mean, really the creep factor was much higher than they expected.
It really did look like a spooky place. And then adding to the spook factor was very clearly, as they were looking down this main road, the friends could see this mist kind of starting to envelop the town.
Jorge had told the friends when he was doing his research about La Musara that the mist was really a trademark of this town.
That at night, it basically got completely consumed in white mist.
But now the friends are looking down this road, it's the middle of the day, and already the mist is starting to come in.
Finally, Jorge broke the silence and said, hey, I want to show you guys something.
And he grabbed his girlfriend Sofia's hand and he began kind of jogging down the main road in the direction of the church.
And so Enrique and Ana followed behind. And after only walking maybe 10 or 20 feet, Enrique happened to turn around and look back where they had just been standing next to this dilapidated building.
And already he couldn't see that building because this fog had rolled in and totally obscured his view.
Enrique couldn't help but feel a little uneasy, again, because he thought the fog was supposed to come in at night, and it's broad daylight, and here we are, totally covered in fog.
But he shook it off, thinking, what's the big deal?
And so Enrique turned back around, and he and Ana hustled to catch up with Jorge and Sofia, who by this point had stopped a little farther down the road, off to the side, where there was this strange rectangular rock that was maybe two feet tall, just kind of jutting up out of the ground.
And when Enrique and Ana made it to Jorge and Sofia, Jorge placed his hand on the top of this strange rock, and looking very satisfied with himself, he would tell his friends, this is the Cis Stone, and people say it contains dark powers.
The Sistone was actually one of the oldest things in all of La Musara.
Back in the day, Muslim armies used to march through La Musara, which actually got its name from this.
La Musara means the place to march. And so these armies, as they would pass through La Musara, making their way to the valley down below, they would always stop at the Sistone because they believed it had magical powers that could help them defeat their enemies in their upcoming battles.
Now, the Muslim armies were long gone by this point, but the sys stone was still there, and people still said that it contained that kind of magical power, that there were dark forces at work inside of the stone, and so to touch it was very risky.
In fact, some people said, if you touch the sys stone, you could be sucked into this parallel world full of all these demonic entities.
And so as Jorge told the group about all this history surrounding the cistone and how no one should touch it, remember, he's got his hands squarely on the cistone the whole time.
And so when he finishes telling the story, he looks at the others and said, come on, somebody else touch it.
Jorge's girlfriend, Sofia, said, absolutely not.
I'm not about to tempt evil spirits here.
But Enrique's wife, Ana, said, you know what?
I'll touch it. And so Jorge smiled, he pulled his hand off the cist stone, and Ana, she walked forward, she took a deep breath, and then she placed her hand on the stone.
And for a second, the whole group just held their breath, like something was going to reach out and grab Anna and pull her into the stone.
But nothing happened. And a minute later, Anna had pulled her hand off and the whole group was laughing.
But just a couple of seconds later, Enrique, who had been laughing along with the group, suddenly noticed that the frogs in the pond near the church, a little farther down the road from where they were, were suddenly so much louder.
It was almost like when they touched the stone, it had maximized the volume of these frogs.
And so Enrique, he turned his whole body and began staring down the road through the mist and fog at this pond, and he could kind of barely make it out.
You know, he was trying to see if there was something obvious causing these frogs to kind of go crazy.
But as he stared at this pond, which again, he could barely see, right behind it was the church.
But there was lots of fog kind of blocking the church.
And for a second, the fog kind of parted and Enrique got a full shot of one of the windows of this abandoned church.
And in the window was this dark figure just standing there staring at Enrique and his friends.
And Enrique, he sees this thing in the window and in a second it was gone.
And then the fog rolled back in, covered up the window, and Enrique couldn't see anything anymore.
And so Enrique just stood there in stunned silence, having no idea if what he just saw had really just happened or if it was in his imagination or something.
But before he could even try to process what had just happened, he heard his name being called.
And so he kind of snapped out of it and he turned back to the group and it was Anna who was now jokingly saying, come on Enrique, touch the stone too.
Enrique quickly scanned Anna, Sofia and Jorge's face and they were all smiling and laughing still.
And so clearly none of them had seen this figure in the window.
And so Enrique, he kind of just looked at all of his friends and then he looked back in the direction of the church in this window, which again, he couldn't see because the fog was blocking it out.
And so Enrique just tells himself, okay, there's no way that I just saw some dark figure moving around this abandoned church.
You know, that must have been my imagination.
I'm totally fine. And so he turned back to his friends and he could tell they were not going to let it go until he touched the stone.
And so he said, fine. And he walked up and he touched the stone.
And immediately, as soon as his hand made contact with that stone, everything seemed to change.
The air around Enrique got cooler and the stone itself started to warm up.
And as this happened, Enrique, whose hand was still on the stone, began to think, wow, I could do this for hours.
I could just stay here and leave my hand on the stone.
I mean, this is amazing. But then somewhere buried deep in his mind, Enrique began telling himself, get away from the stone.
Take your hand away. Get away right now.
And so finally, Enrique did yank his hand away.
And right away, all those feelings he was having as he touched the stone disappeared.
The air went back to normal. He did not feel compelled to touch the stone.
And he just kind of was left thinking, what just happened?
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And so Enrique's wife, Ana, along with Jorge, they were both grinning at Enrique, waiting for him to tell them about what it was like to touch the cist stone.
But behind them, Sofia, Jorge's girlfriend, she was not happy.
She was the only one who had not touched the cist stone.
And so she spoke up and said, guys, let's get away from the cist stone.
I don't want to continue to tempt evil spirits, okay?
Let's just go. And so Jorge threw his arm around Sofia and told her to lighten up and then said, come on, let's do some more exploring.
And so Jorge took Sofia's hand and he continued walking down the main road in the direction of the church.
And Enrique's wife, Ana, she quickly followed right after them, kind of running to keep up like she was a kid who was excited about what they were doing.
But Enrique, he just stayed put for an extra second.
Because even though he had told himself that, you know, whatever he saw in the window was nothing, he could not help the fact that as soon as he touched that cistern, he felt different.
There was something off about the stone.
And really, there seemed to be something off about this whole village, which by this point was now completely enveloped in fog.
They were totally covered. Now Enrique at this point did just want to leave La Musara.
He didn't want to be there anymore. The place was totally creeping him out, but he didn't want to be a party pooper.
And so he turned and continued walking down the main road after his friends and his wife.
And after he walked a little ways, the fog parted enough that he could see the pond full of these very loud croaking frogs, as well as the church and that window where he had seen or supposedly seen this dark figure, but the window was empty.
And Enrique was relieved to see that his friends clearly had not stopped at the church.
They had not tried to go in. They had gone behind the church into the cemetery.
Enrique did not want to go inside of the church because even though, again, he had told himself that, you know, that figure wasn't real, it wasn't really in the window, still there was a part of him that wanted to stay far away from this building.
But after Enrique walked past the pond and began sideskirting the church to get to the cemetery, he just stopped and turned and actually faced the window, kind of like involuntarily.
He was looking at the window where this dark figure had been.
And again, it's empty, you know, there's nothing there, but Enrique felt like something was pulling him towards this window.
And so without saying anything to his friends, who weren't really paying attention to Enrique, they're kind of just walking around the cemetery, Enrique walked right up to this window.
He's right in front of it, he's looking inside, and now he can see into the actual church.
And it's totally ruined inside, but he can see where the pews used to be on the ground, and he could also see where the pulpit used to be, where the priest would give mass.
And as Enrique stood there staring into the church, he kept leaning closer and closer and closer into the church until finally he felt like he really wanted to move away and get away from the church, but it was like he couldn't.
He just kept getting pulled into this opening.
And then as this was happening, the sound of the frogs got louder and louder until Enrique felt like he was totally consumed by these frogs.
Meanwhile, just around the corner of the church and back in the cemetery, Anna, Jorge, and Sofia were kind of laughing and walking around the cemetery, reading the different headstones, when at some point, Anna, Enrique's wife, just happened to look up when she realized Enrique was not there with them.
And so Anna, she walked over to the gate of the cemetery and she looked up along the side of the church and there was Enrique kind of leaning forward into this window looking into the church.
And so Anna, she yelled out to him a couple of times, but Enrique did not even notice her or acknowledge her.
He just continued leaning forward looking in this window.
And finally, Anna got right up next to Enrique and she actually shook his shoulder.
And when she did that, Enrique kind of snapped out of it and turned and looked at her, but didn't say anything.
He just had this totally confused look on his face.
And Anna, she looks up at her husband and she's like, come on, come into the cemetery.
That's where everyone is. Come on. And then Anna turned and skipped towards the cemetery.
And once Anna was back in the cemetery, she just got right back to walking around and looking at all the different headstones.
And at some point, as she was looking at one particular headstone, she took a few steps back to get a better look at it, and she accidentally bumped into another headstone, a big cross that had a line drawn across it, and it fell to the ground and it broke.
Jorge and Sofia heard the sound of the stone breaking in half and they turned and looked at Ana and they kind of quickly understood what had happened.
And Jorge, he just started laughing at her and he said, oh boy, now you've upset the evil spirits in this town.
You better put that back together. Now, Anna was trying to make light of this, but she was totally panicking and did not like the fact that she had just desecrated a gravesite in a potentially haunted town, and so she began picking up the headstone and trying to put the stone back on top, but it was no use.
It was totally broken. And so as Anna continued to fumble with this headstone and as Jorge continued to laugh and harass her about all the evil spirits that were going to attack her because of what she did, Jorge's girlfriend, Sofia, who was right next to him, she started getting on edge and she said, hey, Jorge, Jorge, is it true that this place is haunted?
I mean, really, is this actually a haunted town?
I mean, what's the deal? And Jorge, at this point, he stops laughing at Anna and he turns to Sofia and he goes, yeah, I think this place really is haunted.
And then he would tell them the story of how La Musara came to be known as a haunted town.
Back in October of 1873, there was a civil war happening in this part of Spain.
And one of the rival armies was using the caves in the mountainside kind of near La Musara as sort of makeshift field hospitals for their wounded.
And one night, a very famous general named Cercos was wounded in battle.
He was brought into one of these caves and that was where he died.
Now, Serkos was a beloved leader, and so the people inside of this cave really wanted to give him a proper burial, but they knew they had to keep his death a secret, because if it got out to the rest of the men that their leader had died, it would be totally demoralizing, and it would really give their enemies a victory.
And so the six people inside of this cave, they built a coffin and placed Serkos inside of it.
And then early the next morning when it was still dark out, these six carried the coffin with Serkos inside of it up into La Musara and they buried him secretly in the cemetery behind the church.
Weeks later, five armed rival soldiers climbed up the mountain into La Musara to look for General Serkos.
They didn't know that he had died in that battle.
In fact, really besides those six people that saw him die and secretly buried him, nobody knew he was dead.
And so these soldiers actually thought Cercos was hiding out in La Musara.
And so these soldiers began busting into all the civilians' homes in La Musara and ripping them apart, looking for this general, and they'd send the people out into the streets and tell them they're gonna kill them unless they give up information about where this general is.
And finally, after about an hour of this, an elderly man who lived in La Musara had just had enough, and he stepped forward and he told the rival soldiers that General Sercos was dead, that he was buried in the cemetery behind their church.
But the rival soldiers didn't believe the man.
They said, okay, show us proof. But the elderly man said, well, I don't know exactly where he was buried in the cemetery.
I just heard that's where he was buried.
And so the soldier said, okay, get everybody over to the cemetery right now.
And so all the townspeople made their way over to the cemetery and the soldiers followed them.
And then once they were there, the soldiers demanded that the townspeople begin basically digging up all the graves to find Sercos.
And as the townspeople began to dig, the sound of the frogs in the nearby pond began to get louder and louder and louder until finally the leader of these rival soldiers actually stepped away from all the chaos happening in the cemetery and walked over to the pond and began firing his gun into the water to get the frogs to stop.
But they wouldn't. They actually only got louder and louder.
And so the leader of these rival soldiers finally just gives up on trying to quiet down these frogs, and he turns around and walks back into the cemetery, and he finds all the townspeople have stopped digging.
They've basically dug up every grave, and they haven't found Cercos, and they're just kind of waiting to see what happens next.
But the leader, as he looked across this graveyard, he noticed there was one grave that very conspicuously had not been touched.
Everything around it had been dug up, but not this.
No one had touched that grave. And so the leader said, go dig that one up.
But immediately the townspeople kind of took a step back and acted like, no way, we're not going near that grave.
And so finally, a townsperson actually stepped forward and said to the leader of these rival soldiers that that grave contained this old woman who had died recently, who everyone suspected of being a witch.
And so it was dangerous to try to dig her up.
But the rival soldiers did not care at all about this.
They just raised their guns and demanded the townspeople dig that grave up immediately.
And so they would. They would go over, they would unearth this coffin, and then the rival soldiers would pop open the lid.
And as soon as it was open, everybody went silent.
Because this woman, who had died weeks earlier, looked totally preserved.
She was laying on her back and her skin was very pale, but it had not begun to rot yet.
Even her cheeks still had a kind of pinkish hue to them and her lips were open partway as if she had been buried mid-sentence.
But what really had startled the group into silence was this woman's eyes were wide open when they opened up this coffin.
It looked like she was looking directly at all of them.
And so after a couple of seconds of the silence from seeing this woman for the first time, the townspeople began to cry and scream and back up away from this coffin.
And the rival soldiers, they were startled too by this woman's appearance, but they were more angry than anything else because by finding this woman in this grave, it meant they had not found the general.
And so out of frustration, the rival soldiers grabbed this old woman's body, this witch's body, and they pulled her out of her grave, they strung her up to a tree, and they just sat there shooting at her constantly until her body had basically been obliterated by all the bullets.
And then finally, when the soldiers stopped shooting, they realized everything had gone quiet.
Just a second earlier, the cacophony of these frogs croaking in the pond that had been so loud it was like totally overwhelming had now completely ceased.
And it was like the town had gone absolutely still.
And this stillness and quietness was so unsettling for these soldiers that they actually just turned and fled right there without saying a word to the townspeople.
And then once the soldiers were all gone, the townspeople got to work reburying their dead.
And at some point, one of the townspeople jumped into the grave where the witch had been, and when they landed in the dirt at the bottom, their foot actually sunk down an extra foot.
They had landed on something hollow and crashed into it.
And what it was, was another coffin. There was another coffin buried below this woman's that the soldiers had not seen.
And this secret coffin belonged to General Sercos.
When those six people had secretly buried General Sarkoz, they had just placed his coffin at the bottom of an open grave that was about to be filled with somebody else's coffin.
They put it in, they covered up his coffin with enough dirt that no one could see it, and then the next day, the townspeople lowered the witch in her coffin into that grave without realizing General Serkos was below it, and then they filled it in, and then they placed a headstone on her grave, but because they thought she was a witch, they decided not to write her name on the headstone.
Instead, they just etched a horizontal line across her headstone.
And so after this incident with the rival soldiers desecrating this woman's grave and her body, La Musara was never the same. people in the town began dying left and right, and their soil went bad, so they couldn't plant any crops.
And then all these insects came through the town, and then all these plagues of illnesses and diseases came through.
And so it wasn't long before La Musara had developed this reputation of being cursed.
And by the 1950s, that curse apparently had driven the last few people out, officially making it a ghost town.
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After Jorge wrapped up the story, Anna was just horrified looking straight down at the ground.
Because it would turn out, the gravestone that she had accidentally knocked over and broken, well, it had a horizontal line etched across the middle of it.
It was the witch's headstone. That was the one she had broken.
And so suddenly feeling totally spooked, Anna was about to yell to Jorge and Sofia that she wants to leave now when she happened to glance over at the base of one of the cemetery walls and she saw the perfect bloody milk cap mushroom, the exact type she knew her husband was looking for.
And so Anna walked over, she picked this mushroom, and she turned around to show it to Enrique, but Enrique was not in the cemetery.
And so right away, Anna thought, wait, did my husband ever actually follow me back down into the cemetery after I saw him by the church?
She couldn't remember. She thought he followed her, but she wasn't sure.
And so Ana yelled out for Enrique, but he never called back.
And so she turned and looked over at Sofia and Jorge, who she could barely see through the fog.
And she asked them, hey, have you seen my husband?
Is he in here? Did you see where he went?
And they both said, no, we have no idea.
And so Ana, who at this point was now really starting to panic because this whole situation in La Musara was getting pretty spooky for her.
And so she just dropped the mushroom and took off running out of the cemetery.
Now, Sophia and Jorge did not really know what was going on.
They didn't understand the urgency that Anna was feeling to find Enrique.
And so they saw her take off to go find Enrique, and they just kind of casually walked on after her.
And when they turned the corner and they exited the cemetery and began walking basically alongside the church, now again, the visibility is terrible from all this fog, as they moved along, they couldn't see Anna or Enrique, but they could hear Anna calling out for Enrique over and over again.
And as they moved, Sophia and Jorge, they would see these shadows moving around in the fog.
And they would think it was Enrique or Anna, but as they got up to where these shadows were, there'd be nothing there.
And so Sophia, she began grabbing tighter and tighter onto Jorge's arm.
And Jorge, who had been kind of joking about how this place was evil, was also now starting to feel a little bit spooked about what was going on.
And so they began walking a little bit faster and faster in the direction of Anna's voice.
And as Sophia and Jorge got closer and closer to Anna, the sound of the frogs in that pond began to get louder and louder and louder until Jorge and Sophia could barely hear Anna over the sound of these frogs.
And then just like that, the frogs stopped, and all Sophia and Jorge could hear was the sound now of Anna crying.
Now, Jorge and Sophia could not actually see Anna because of the fog, but they walked in the direction of her voice, and they ultimately found Anna crouched down with her back to them right in the spot where Enrique had previously been standing staring in that church window.
And so Sofia and Jorge, they walked up to Ana and they reached down and they put their hands on her shoulder.
And when Ana turned around, she was clutching Enrique's wicker basket containing all of his mushrooms.
And with tears coming down Ana's eyes, she would say to her friends, he's gone.
Ana, Jorge, and Sofia would spend the next hour searching in vain for Enrique in La Musara.
Remember, there's no visibility from the fog, and now it's getting dark, and so it's really hard to conduct a search for someone.
And so after this hour was up, even though they had no idea where Enrique was or what happened to him, the friends decided that their best and really only move was to leave and go tell authorities.
And when they did that, a massive search was launched all around La Musara for the next week.
But despite this huge effort, nobody ever found any trace of Enrique.
He just vanished, leaving behind that wicker basket that Anna had found.
And so after this week of searching, the authorities finally called it off and told Anna that, you know, most likely her husband must have wandered off and died somewhere.
And at some point, hikers will likely discover his body.
But Anna could not accept this conclusion.
And so she continued to go back to La Musara to look for Enrique.
And in January of 1992, so three months after Enrique had gone missing, Ana, Sofia, and Jorge returned to La Musara to do another one of these additional searches.
And during the search, the friends were walking past the church and they passed by that same window where Enrique had been standing looking inside and also where his basket had been found by Ana.
And the three friends, as they passed by, they happened to see into the church and down on the main floor where the pews used to be and where the pulpit used to be, there were these six dark figures wearing robes standing in a circle, not appearing to be doing anything but just standing there.
And immediately, Anna actually was really annoyed, because she figured this must be a group of ghost hunters that were out here looking for something paranormal, because after Enrique went missing, his story made the news largely because he went missing in a town that's long been regarded as being haunted.
And so because of his case, you had all these people coming to La Musara to go find ghosts or find whatever happened to Enrique.
And so Ana, who was deeply offended by all these people who were coming out to La Musara to look for ghosts, because for Ana, this is not a game.
Her husband really went missing here. So she goes right up to the window to tell these six people in robes off, get the hell out of here and have some respect.
But when she went to the window and was about to yell in, one of the robed figures suddenly turned and looked up at Anna.
And immediately Anna backed up because this clearly was not some ghost hunter. because the hooded figure had no face.
It was just a dark hole looking back up at Anna.
But even though there were no eyes, Anna could tell this thing, this entity, was staring right at her.
But before Ana, Sofia, or Jorge could react to what they were seeing inside of this church, from behind them, they suddenly heard this unbelievably loud galloping sound, like all these horses were charging towards them.
And at the same time, the sound of the frogs in the nearby pond began to get louder. louder and louder and louder.
And so Ana, Sofia, and Jorge turned around to see what was going on, kind of expecting to see, you know, a cavalry approaching or something.
But there was nothing. All they saw was the fog on the road.
And so the three friends turned back around to look back into the church.
And now these six hooded figures were gone.
And so suddenly thinking that these figures had left the church and they were coming to get them, the three friends did not wait any longer.
They turned and just sprinted out of La Musara.
Enrique was never found. His wife, his friends, the authorities, they still have no idea what happened to him.
There have also been several other people who have gone missing in La Musara, and they too have never been found.
A quick note about our stories, they are all based on true events, but we sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people involved and some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes.
Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin Podcast.
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Hey listeners, Mr. Ballin here. What if I told you that some of the strangest, darkest, and most mysterious stories happening right now are all connected to what might be the biggest crime of our generation?
You know I'm always on the hunt for the most chilling and perplexing tales out there.
Well, I've discovered a new podcast that uncovers real-world mysteries unfolding right now. much like how another Ballin' Studios podcast, redacted Declassified Mysteries, brings hidden government secrets to light.
And it's called Lawless Planet. Host Zach Goldbaum reveals how shocking tales of murder, cover-ups, and mysterious deaths are all part of something bigger. the systematic destruction of our planet.
From activists who vanish in the Amazon to whistleblowers uncovering billion-dollar environmental crimes, these aren't just stories about the environment.
They're real-life thrillers about people caught between powerful forces willing to kill to keep their secrets buried.
Follow Lawless Planet on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.
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