I Think Was Featured On An Unaired Episode Of ‘Unsolved Mysteries’

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Like the title says, I’m pretty sure I saw myself on an old episode of the original version of ‘Unsolved Mysteries’. So, I know I’m not the only who spends countless hours browsing YouTube. At this time YouTube had become essentially my only, favorite hobby. Anyway, one afternoon I was navigating YouTube for some rabbit hole to go down, or a video essay on some anime I was interested in. What I found was definitely not that, it was terrifying to say the least. Fun fact, did you know that, there’s a channel on YouTube that has the entire run of the old episodes of ‘Unsolved Mysteries’. The ones hosted by Robert Stack. You guys remember his voice, the scariest voice in a kid’s early life. Between that man’s voice and the unsettling eerie music, always gave me the chills.

Hoping this would give me some nostalgic feeling, seeing that I grew up in the early ‘90s. I made my way through the first season and deep into the second season. I would usually binge a few episodes per day while I ate, or had nothing else to do. After a week or so of making my way through the series, I clicked on the next episode in the queue and started it up. The video glitched out and only played for a second or so. Perplexed, I refreshed the page, only for the same thing to happen. There was only one other thing to do. I hardly ever do this, but I felt like I had to, I clicked down and skimmed through the description of the video. I dunno about you guys, but in most cases, the description section of a YouTube video is often boring, and just begging for a sub and a like, while using a ton of hashtags for exposure. You get the idea right? Well, this one was not like that. It had a brief summary of that episode, but at the bottom there was a link that said, “for more info go to this link,” and it provided a URL of complete gibberish.

The room was silent outside of the gentle hum of the laptop’s internal cooling fan. The web link was very odd looking, not following any of the usual HTML rules. It had a combination of letters and unidentifiable symbols, with some seemingly random numbers at the end. Confused after seeing that, I went back to visit the description section of previous videos, and there were no links, or anything outside of the same brief summary of that particular episode. Shrugging, I remember saying to myself, “Well I was looking for a rabbit hole to go down.” With that, I clicked the link. My heart rate started to race with anticipation, the tiny rotating circle working to load. The sparse page stared back at me.

The site took a painstakingly long amount of time to load. It was as if each line had to load individually. Unexpectedly, the CMD prompt automatically opened on my laptop, and some scripts I couldn’t read in time loaded, then the CMD box closed just as quickly, all on its own. There was a black background, with some text reading, “This is the uncensored, original edit of this program - S2E31. Please do not share this video or any info of it’s contents. If you agree, click here.” So, like any other ELUA boxes, I clicked the check mark to proceed without even giving it a second thought. Before anyone comes at me, chill out, it’s not like we all haven’t made or used burned CDs or DVDs, I really didn’t think it was a big deal.

Right from the start, something was off, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Think about every piece of ancient media from that era, the audio at the beginning was very distorted, like the tape inside the cassette was stretching out. At first glance you could tell this wasn’t digitalized, it was more like viewing an old, worn out VHS tape on a CRT TV. The picture was grainy as all hell, and the colors hurt my eyes, so over saturated, and very bright. Slight wavy lines ran through the picture, and a low, barely auditory buzz sat just below the other sounds. The low hum was so off-putting, it kinda made my head hurt, like a drill slowly poking its way into your skull, y’know? But even more than the picture and sound, something else didn’t feel right. You all know that feeling, I can’t describe it, but you know. I promise, I’m in my right mind, but I kept having such intrusive thoughts, stressing myself out over a show that I put on for my entertainment.

After doing a little research, I found out that the second season of ‘Unsolved Mysteries’ began in September ’89. This individual episode was numbered S2E31 and it would have to been aired on September 19th 1990. I wanted a more throughout breakdown of this particular episode. While looking through the notes for the show that I found, there actually wasn’t a 31st episode. According to the Wikipedia page, season 2 ended the week earlier on September 12th. Was this the real unaired finale episode for the second season? The episode started like any other, creepy music and a preview of each story. The first segment was about a bank robbery in Oakland, CA. The suspects were masked and were determined to be recent escaped convicts of the local detention center. The escapees were being added to the FBI top 10 list. They were assumed to be armed and dangerous, with ties to several locations in Mexico. Nothing unusual here, after the story there was a phone number requesting tips.

The second story was about a family looking for their long-lost grandpa. More typical ‘Unsolved Mysteries’, nothing that exciting. The third segment was a short one about a military fighter jet that somehow mysteriously disappeared over an open warzone during Operation Desert Storm. The final story was about a kid, who was either switched at birth, or believed to be stolen from its family. From here the video becomes more scratchy, that ‘90s quality TV signal really showing its age. The audio went into mono, then came back to stereo only more quiet in volume and a low constant hum underneath.

The narration began by describing the town I was born in, the very hospital I was born in. Pictures and videos of places I recognize, then an old, weathered picture of a newborn being held by a guy in dark red nursing scrubs with a black symbol on the right chest. “Have you seen this baby?” Robert Stack asked. “The parents believe he was abducted at birth.” He continued, “Was this child, Dresden Draven (which isn’t my name now) taken from his parents? The doctor told them that he died directly after birth.” So, how do I know this baby is me, I’ll get to that, but I need to explain everything else first. Next, the show’s theme music hit as it went out for a commercial break. The show fades black and then cuts back to the program, the ad break had been edited out.

The scene cuts to the ‘parents’ (which aren’t my parents) who are talking about the birth and the strange events surrounding the baby being stillborn. The mom, ‘Lilly’ described her pregnancy as a miracle, she was told as a teenager that she’d never have kids. The Father, ‘Dominic’ reminisced about how excited they were to get the news of ‘Lilly’s’ pregnancy. The screen slowly faded out, becoming completely filled with static, making the picture all electric snow, heavily glitching. The picture came back into focus, albeit still very static and scratchy, it displayed a dark, dimly lit room with a ritualistic alter in the center. The low hum became much more prominent and off-putting. The doctor in the red scrubs walks into the frame carrying the baby, laying him on the alter. Next several hooded figures then enter the scene and surround the oddly quiet baby. They all kneel as a figure wearing a black robe and a goat skull mask complete with horns enter the frame.

The figure spoke in an undistinguishable language, his words becoming more sing-songy and chanting like. His voice kinda matched the frequency of the low rumbling hum that was buried in background. The crowd of shadowed figures repeat the last line of the masked one’s song. The masked one then produced a long branding prod, the tip was red hot, smoking and sizzling. He slowly and deliberately stuck it to the newborn’s chest. If there was any question about the life status of the kid, it was certainly confirmed he was alive after that. The baby’s little screams were blood-chilling. You could hear the skin being burned, it grotesquely whistled as the brand mashed into the skin, as the little baby wailed at the top of his lungs. The uncomfortable sounds echoing, the masked figure slowly pulls the brand back. The circular design on the branding iron was the same as the one of the doctor’s scrub shirt.

At this point, I started shaking, uncontrollably scared. I paused the video and while trembling, I lifted my shirt. I had a raised circular birthmark on my chest. I sat there rubbing my birthmark while trying to calm myself, allowing the revelation to sit there, haunting me. The air felt colder than before, each new intake of breath burned my lungs. Eventually, maybe a minute or so later, I went back and clicked play to finish the video. After the branding, the one in the mask called to two of the ones kneeling, instructing those two to stand. They did as told, and the masked one handed the baby to one of the figures. Everyone then bowed their heads and the masked one led them in what could only be assumed to be a prayer. The video began to fade again causing more glitches and multicolored static.

The scratchy, distorted, over-used VHS quality video slowly returned to the slightly better quality TV broadcast, of the episode. The interview with ‘my parents’ continued. ‘Lilly’ was describing how she knew the baby wasn’t stillborn, she saw him breathe and heard his first cry after being born. The dad then agreed and added that the doctor rushed the baby into a separate room to preform an evaluation, before coming back later revealing that the baby had been stillborn. ‘Lilly’ explained, “I was still very out of it from the pain meds and epidural to help with the birth, but I know what I saw, and what I heard.” She broke into tears, “They took my baby, I just know he’s still out there. Somewhere.” They cut back to the dad, but you could still hear the woman sobbing uncontrollably, nearly hysterical.

Up to this moment, none of this made sense to me, but I can’t say much not knowing how a regular hospital birthing is supposed to go, this is where the details get a little messy and difficult to understand. The typical ending to the segment was Stack asking if anyone knew anything, please contact so-and-so at this number to give your tips. This entire segment was nowhere near normal the way it was pasted together. Just then, as the ending credits started to roll, the screen froze but you still could still hear the theme song in the background. The ‘Unsolved Mysteries’ theme fades, and blends in to a local news broadcast. The voice over narrated, “Action News 7, Omaha’s number one place for news and weather.” The screen unfreezes and joins the newscast audio with the visual transmission.

“Good afternoon everyone, this is your 5’clock news break. I’m Leslie Trainor, with your chief meteorologist Danny Torrance. Starting off with today’s top story, even more of the alleged names of the suspects, records, other documents, and victim identities have leaked regarding the Franklin Community Federal Credit Union scandal. That story originally broke yesterday after an audit of the credit union showed some missing money, and sketchy tax write-offs. Amidst the added allegations of child trafficking, and prostitution rings. We’ll have the latest updates on the late news tonight at 11.” Leslie continued, “Stay tuned with us, here on Action News 7. After the break, we have sports and the weather. We’ll be right back!”

This news report was straight out of the late ‘80s or early ‘90s. Leslie had the biggest, teased-out blonde hair, dangling earrings, and oversized shoulder pads on her hideous, baby-blue turtle-necked sweater. Now, I’m not sure if this news broadcast was just the next scheduled program on that channel, or if it was edited to appear that way. It’s safe to say that certain parts of the ‘Unsolved Mysteries’ episode was edited after seeing the incredibly poor video quality only happened when the ritual scenes occurred. In that scene alone, based on the camera angle and single microphone audio, the footage cuts, jittery camera work, and transitions to the terrible picture quality with the added sound issues really came across as homemade or filmed by an amateur to say the least. It also felt that the aspect ratio was changed during that part.

After the news story fades out the video seemed to pause. Then slowly rotating pictures of documents, name lists, photos and other still images start flashing across in equally timed intervals. When the video ended, the CMD prompt appeared again, and a script ran that automatically saved two URLs to my favorites tab. As you can probably guess, I’m am beyond terrified. If I’m being honest here, I felt overwhelmed. It was getting late so I went to sleep, I don’t even remember closing my laptop. I thought that I needed to take a few days away for me to chill out enough to even think about what was presented to me. Sadly, my break away from this only lasted around twelve hours. When I got up that next morning, I had an email from [----Redacted----] so no doubt, immediately I freaked out a little. Pushing back a mini panic attack, I took a deep breath or two, trying to calm myself.

I hadn’t even gone to those URLs that were added to my favorites list, yet. Now this email! I’m wondering what is going on here, and who is doing this to me? Am I being pranked, or is this real, and I’m being warned? Warned about what, am I some kinda infant escapee from a satanic cult? Are they looking to get me back? What kind of trouble might I be in? Right so, it was at this point that I decided that even if I took a break, this would be front and center in my mind, regardless. So I ended up opening the email, it said, “Don’t stop, you need to keep looking. And don’t forget D24.” Now, I’m confused, dumbfounded? Intrigued? Scared? I’ve been racking my mind ever since, D24, for the life of me, I can’t remember? Anyway, a day or so later, I had what I’d call an epiphany, “That’s probably not even you. Not even your name. When has anything interesting happened to you? Besides, you’ve never even been to Nebraska. You live in shitty, old, South Carolina.” I told myself.

With that, it brings me here, with you there, today. I’ll leave it up to you, the readers. Should I keep going? What could this be? Is this interesting? Should I visit those URLs, I mean I don’t want it to corrupt my laptop. So far there are no viruses that can be detected. What could even be posted there? What the hell is D24?

For clarity, I was born in 1984. As far as I know, I’ve never been to Nebraska. None of my family says they know anything. I think I’ve reached my limit.