The Cemetery/Kandahar Giant | Campfire Stories with MrBallen

about how I would go about teasing the stories, like I do with the top of these episodes,

“I couldn't quite think of sort of what the connective tissue was between them.”

But then I realized really what makes these stories exceptional is that they're both just excellent stories as I'm getting hit by the heat of this fire to be told around a campfire. But before we get into those two stories, if you're a fan of the strange dark and mysterious delivered in story format, then you come to the right campfire, because that's all we do, and we upload two, three, even four times every week. So if that's of interest to you, go ahead and invite the

fall of button to come to your campfire to cook some s'mores with you. But give them the wrong date and location. 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 tonight's stories. In the late 1990s in rural New York, there were these two teenage girls named Rachel and Molly,

“and they were both very good friends. They were part of a bigger group of friends in their”

high school that sort of spent a lot of time together, but Rachel and Molly oftentimes were together by themselves quite a bit. And the the thing that sort of drew the two together

and really sort of made them friends in the first place and also drew them to that bigger group

was their shared love of goth culture. So being goth, especially in the late 90s and early 2000s, if you were a local high school kid, basically meant you wore all black clothes, you had like black, you know nail polish, black lipstick, your hair is black, you sort of embraced all things dark and macabre. Some people were genuinely very into sort of like the idea of embracing the dark side of things. Other people just did it as like a fashion statement, but in the late 1990s and early

2000s it was definitely a thing, certainly in America, and Rachel and Molly were both very committed goths and they just sort of loved that whole vibe. And one of the things that Rachel and Molly really liked to do as goth teenagers is they and their group of friends would go hang out in the local cemetery. Now at first the reason they did this was actually to sort of be ironic, you know it's like they were known as the goth kids in their high school and so the idea of them

hanging out in the cemetery just seemed to kind of two on the nose and so they went out there almost like a joke, the whole group of them, but they found this the cemetery was kind of a cool hang out spot and they began to really enjoy hanging out in the cemetery and it became sort of like their go-to thing, especially on the weekends. Now typically when Rachel and Molly and their friends would go hang out in the cemetery, they would do so at night to sort of maximize, you know, the

darkness, you know, really leaning into the whole goth side of things, but also they would always

go as a group like it was Rachel and Molly and several other people that would be in the cemetery hanging out at one time. Like Rachel and Molly did not go there just the two of them, it was always a group and part of the reason was it was just more enjoyable that way, but also despite their their love of spending time in the cemetery, it was still a cemetery at night and it was, you know, a little bit creepy and so there was, you know, strength and numbers, you know,

and so they liked being there with a group it felt safer. One Friday night, Rachel was home alone when she got a call from Molly and Molly asked her hey, do you want to go hang out in the cemetery?

“And Rachel's like, duh, like that's what we do in the weekends I'd love to go, like,”

come pick me up, let's go. And so Rachel, she gets already and, you know, she's waiting outside

and eventually Molly shows up in her car and the first thing Rachel notices is that

Molly's all alone in the car. She is not with the group that normally she would be with when they picked Rachel up. So Rachel, she walks out to the car and she climbs in and she says to Molly, like, hey, so are we are we now going to pick up the rest of our friends? Like, where is everybody? And Molly's like, actually, no, I tried getting in touch with everybody else, but everybody's either busy or working or hungover from last night. So it's just going to be us too

at the cemetery. Like, is that okay? And Rachel admittedly did not think this was okay, because again, like, this was not an activity that these girls did by themselves. Rachel was very close with Molly in vice versa. Like, that was fine. It's just it's a little uncomfortable being in the cemetery without the big group, but, you know, Rachel didn't want to be rude. She sort of felt like Molly had already clearly made peace with them

Just the two of us. Like, let's go. And so even though she sort of didn't want to, you know,

“she gets in the car and they take off and they drive, you know, the half mile to the cemetery.”

Now, this cemetery was enormous. It was like this massive, very old cemetery. And when you

pull up to it as they did in their car, you would first see this, this huge, like medieval gate,

like this archway that sort of goes across the entrance to the cemetery. And like the, the big rot iron gates, they're sort of permanently open, but it's this very, like, sort of gothic looking, you know, archway that you drive through. And then once you're in the cemetery, the, the road you're on, basically cuts down the very middle of the cemetery all the way to the backside. It's a huge, probably like, over a mile from one side to the other. And it sort of split the

cemetery into two big parts, the right and the left side as you go in. And where they, Molly Rachel and their friends love to hang out was sort of as you're driving into the cemetery, like the back left corner. And the reason they liked that area is because on the left side of the cemetery sort of on the left hand side, there were sort of like rolling hills that all the, the plots were in. And in particular, in the back left corner of the cemetery, there was like this

one depression in the earth where there really weren't that many tombstones. And there was like a big boulder sitting at the bottom of the depression and a tree that was next to it. And so, basically, if you were scanning across the, the top of the cemetery, just from the gate looking out at the entire expansive land, anybody that was down in that sort of depressed area in the back left corner, you basically couldn't see them. They're sort of tucked away down there with a rock

and the tree. And so, for, you know, teenagers, you know, for Rachel Molly and their friends, that was like a great place to hang out and kind of be away from the prying eyes of the public. And so, you know, Rachel and Molly, they, they drive through this gate and they make the familiar drive right down the middle of this road all the way to the very back of the cemetery. By this point, it is getting dark outside. It's not totally dark yet, but it's, it's pretty dark.

Nobody's out at the cemetery. No one really ever was. Occasionally, on the other side of the cemetery, basically, on the exact opposite side from where they would hang out, sometimes the college kids that were in town, there was a university in their town. They would sometimes hop the fence on the other side and there was like a little bonfire section, like right up against the fence in the cemetery, totally not allowed, but they would sneak over and do that sometimes.

But that was sort of rare. But other than those occasional college students over there,

the cemetery was basically always vacant. And so, they get to the other side, they park their car,

they get out, and they walk right from the road, basically right down this, you know, it's a gentle sloping hill, but down into this depression. They're, they're hang out spot. And once they get down there, there's that big rock in the tree, and they each took up positions, sitting on the rock, leaning against the tree, and then just began crushing cigarettes and just

“hanging out. Because that's what, you know, goth teenagers in rural New York in the 1990s did.”

So Rachel and Molly, they're just, they're doing their thing, they're having a nice time, they're, you know, swap in stories, they're talking about their, their boyfriends, about drama at school, and eventually, you know, it gets fully dark outside, and the girls are still just having a nice time, and Rachel's actually thinking to herself like, actually, this is kind of nice. Like, this isn't scary, this is, this is kind of cool. Like, I'm having, you know, good one on one time

with my buddy here, but eventually, as they're, they're down there, they start to smell smoke. Now, remember periodically on the other side of the cemetery, like pretty far away, was that bonfire area that college kids sometimes would, you know, start bonfires over there. And, you know, when Rachel and Molly had first come into the cemetery, they had looked over there and hadn't seen a fire, but they're thinking, you know, we've, we've been hanging out here for quite a while.

It's entirely possible that in the time we've been down here that those kids of hot defense

“started a fire, and that's what we're smelling. Now, the fire itself really had no bearing directly”

on whatever Molly and Rachel were going to do that night. I mean, they're on opposite sides of the cemetery, but Rachel and Molly knew that historically, whenever there was a bonfire over there,

eventually the police would always show up because you're not allowed to do that, and they would

kick off, you know, the kids, they'd make them put their fire out, and then always the police would do, you know, a check of the entire cemetery, and anybody that was hanging out in there, like Molly and Rachel were also got kicked out, even if they were not starting fires. And so Molly and Rachel, they look at each other after smelling this fire, and they both sort of had the same thought, like, we should probably just leave, you know, before the police get here

and make us leave. And, you know, after all, they'd been there for quite a while. They were about ready to leave anyhow, so this was like no big deal. So, you know, they put out their last cigarette,

they'd come down on, back in the direction of their car. And as they're walking up, they're expecting

“to crest the hill and, you know, see their car and see the whole cemetery and, you know, maybe”

way off in the distance, you know, maybe they'll see a flicker of the bonfire that they must be smelling. But as they walk up and they see their car and they look out across the cemetery, they don't see a fire over there. Instead, basically right over to their right, like, you know, 100 meters away from them was another sort of depression in the cemetery, another rolling hill that sort of went down at a site, and they could see basically the tops of a flickering fire, like in the neighboring

depression, like 100 meters away. Now, when they showed up, they were definitely alone on this side of the cemetery. There was nobody else here. And so, clearly, someone has shown up and started a fire

while they were here, and they've never seen any behavior like this. This is like completely unusual,

like, no one starts fires over here, like, what is that? So, the two girls are, they're curious, like, did the college kids come over here to start a fire? Because again, they can only see the

“the tops of the flames of the fire down in this neighboring depression. They can't see the person”

or people who are around it. But they're thinking, like, the people over there have no idea that we are over here. And so, the two girls are like, well, what if we kind of go back down to where we were and sneak up the far side of our sort of hilled in area and poke our heads over and, like, see who's fire this is? You know, we'll see the college kids and see what they're doing. We can, like, spy on them or something. And the two girls are like, yeah, why not? We're already here.

And so, the two girls, they turn around, they walk back down into the base of their depression, where the big rock and the tree was that they were just sitting on for the past couple of hours,

and they walked past it, basically, to the other side and begin walking up that hill. And as they're

getting closer and closer to the top of this hill, when eventually, once they reached the top, they could peer over and see the fire and see whoever was there.

“Right as they got almost to the top, Rachel sort of unintentionally makes some noise. Like,”

the way she was walking and she sort of made a sound as she stepped on something. But she accidentally makes a fair amount of noise. And the only noise in the area was the sound of the fire. Like, they hadn't heard any voices yet. And so, Rachel, she discovers her mouth and looks over at Molly and Molly kind of looked at her like, what are you doing? Like, we're sneaking up on these people. Like, why are you making noise? And the two girls, they just freeze for a second,

waiting to see if, you know, whoever was over there, heard them and sort of reacted to the noise Rachel made. But it was silent. Sort of eerily silent. And at this point, Rachel and Molly, it was like the mood just shifted. Like, they had not reached the top of the hill yet. They had not seen whoever was at this fire. But it was like something just felt wrong now. And the two girls looked at each other and they're like, maybe we should just turn around and leave. And they both

were like, yeah, let's get out of here. Like, this doesn't feel right. And so right then in there, the two girls as quietly as they could turned and retreated back down to the center of the depression where the rock and the tree was. And they begin walking back up the original side of the hill in the direction of where their car is parked at the top. And then as they're walking up, Rachel just happens to turn back around where they had just been. Just to look in the direction

of where they had just been. And now she sees there as clearly a man standing on the ridge line with the fire behind him, illuminating him. And he's just standing there sort of ominously staring in the direction of Rachel and Molly. And he's just not saying a word. He's just looking in their direction. Clearly, he was the one over at the fire. He must have heard them. And Rachel, she whips around and she's like, Molly, look, look, look. Molly looks and she's like, let's

get out of here. We don't know who that guy is. Like, we got to get out of here. And so Rachel and Molly, they begin quickly walking up the hill. And then a second later, Rachel turns back around and the man is no longer on the hill. But then she sees movement. And she realizes he's running down the hill in their direction. Mr. Girl starts screaming. They start running up the hill. Rachel's constantly looking around. And this guy's gaining on them. They get to the top of the

hill. They charge over to Molly's car. They jump inside. They lock the doors. They fired up and they drive off. And as they're driving, Rachel's looking out the back window. And she sees this man basically looking. He's reached the road. Like, he almost got to them. And he was looking in their direction. And as they drove off, he just slowly turned and walked back down the hill at a site. And so Rachel and Molly, they're like totally shaken up by this. Like, clearly,

that wasn't a college kid. Like, that was a 40-something-year-old man who they had never seen before.

Like, the whole situation just felt totally just creepy and spooky. And they really didn't know to make of it. They sort of felt like, like, what could have happened if he reached us? Like, what was he, what was he trying to do? Like, what just happened? But ultimately, when they got home

huh? You know, they kind of like chalked it up as like just a crazy night. You know, like, oh boy,

we better, you know, stay out of there alone at night, you know? Like, it was just sort of a joke by the time they were done for the night. And so Rachel, you know, she goes into her house, doesn't even tell her mom, she just, you know, puts her stuff down, goes to her room and Molly she went to her house. And she, too, didn't even tell anyone. She went to bed as well. The next morning, Rachel woke up and she went downstairs into the kitchen and her mom was in there.

And her mom was just kind of doing her morning routine. And when she saw Rachel come in, she said to Rachel, like, hey, how was your night last night? And Rachel was like, oh, you know, it's fine. Me and Molly went out and it's fine. No big deal. And her mom was like, oh,

“did you hear what happened last night? And Rachel's like, no, what do you mean, what happened?”

And her mom was like, well, a woman in our town got kidnapped. And she actually, she got kidnapped from the very parking garage where, where I park. Like, she worked in the same building as me. She got kidnapped. And Rachel's like, oh my god, like, what happened to her? Like, did they find her? And Rachel's mom is like, no, unfortunately it was too late. When they found her, she was dead. And in fact, whoever kidnapped and then killed her,

brought her body last night to the local cemetery and burned her in this huge bonfire. And whoever did it still hasn't been caught. And when Rachel heard this, it was like her whole world came crashing down because suddenly she understood what had happened the night before. That fire was no ordinary fire. That was the killer that chased them down the hill. That fire, very likely, contained the woman who had been killed. They were right next to this person,

this killer, and this horrible thing happening. And even more creepy is like, they were there very likely when the killer arrived, set up shop and began burning this body, you know, no more than 100 meters away from them. And what would have happened if that man who chased them? What would have happened if he caught them? And so Rachel, she, she pours her heart out to her mom and tells her everything that happened the night before. And her mom is like,

“oh my god, I can't believe this happened. You have to tell the police because they haven't caught”

this guy. Like, you have a description of him. Like, go talk to the police. And so sure enough, Rachel, she gets in touch with Molly and, you know, tells Molly what happened and Molly's totally in hysterics. They can't believe what a close call this was and they do go to the police. They tell them, you know, to the best of their ability, what they remember about this guy, which unfortunately was was not much. It was like he was average high. You know, he looked

to be maybe in his 40s. Like, there wasn't much to their description. But fortunately, just 48 hours later, the police were able to catch this guy and he would make a full confession. Luckily, two days later, not really because of the girl's description at all, but just sort of by luck alone, the police happened to see the victims' car in town. Somebody was driving the victims' car around and so they pulled this person over that wound up being the killer who

after being arrested did make a full confession. And so needless to say, Rachel and Molly, when they think about what happened that night in the cemetery, they feel very fortunate that

Rachel sort of inadvertently made noise on their approach to go spy on the fire, which ultimately

caused them both to sort of rethink their decisions and turn around and leave and very likely saved their life. Because if that hadn't happened and they had gone over the hill and had been confronted by the killer, it's entirely possible that both those girls could have wound up in the bonfire as well. So before I became Mr. Ballon and you know, told stories on the internet, you know, strange dark and mysterious stories, I was in the military, I was an AV seal for seven years.

And there was a time where I believed that was going to be my calling in life, but I ultimately got hurt and honestly it wasn't really a fit. So I wound up departing and then obviously the rest of history, I became Mr. Ballon. But, you know, I have lots of stories about my time when I was in the military, I've lots of really funny stories about training and scary stories,

you know, about my actual service overseas. But one story that has always stood out to me

was actually what it was like to deploy for the very first time to Afghanistan.

“And this is not really a war story and that's why this story sort of stands out to me.”

So, you know, I spend years, literally almost three years training and becoming an ABC oil and then it's like, okay, I get to my seal team on the East Coast in Virginia and, you know, it's a seal team too is where it was and we start training for our deployment and we find out it's going to be to Afghanistan and, you know, this is back in 2013 and so, you know, going to

happening and for Navy seals and for any like, you know, direct combat unit, you do want to go to war,

“not because you are like a warm-unger but because that's what you train for and so it's like,”

okay, like I'm getting ready for combat and then the day comes and the way you deploy is, this is not unique to Navy seals but like they don't send you out to wherever you're going in one group because it's sort of risky, you know, what if a plane crashes and your whole platoon gets wiped out, right? So, you get sent out in like little batches, like sometimes on civilian

flights, like I flew to first to South America with like a couple other seals where all dressed as civilians

and then we hitched a military transit flight actually into Afghanistan but again like my mentality as I'm getting ready for this deployment is like, okay, like this is the thing I've trained for like, here we go, like combat and I remember I was on this this military plane, this is the last leg, actually getting into Afghanistan and when we actually flew into Afghani airspace which is

“an active war zone at the time, the pilots, the military pilots, they turn the lights inside of the”

aircraft from the white overhead like, you know, daytime lights to red and they told all of us to stay away from the windows and the reason was like we're now entering, you know, the part of this trip where we're going to land and in theory, you know, the plane could get shot at, you don't want to get shot at through the window and I mean, if you think about it, if you're getting blasted by like an RPG, it's not gonna matter that like you're near a window or not but it's,

it was sort of the stark reminder that it's like okay, here we go like we're about to enter a

war zone and then the way these planes with land is they needed to basically cut down the amount of

time they were within small arms range so the lower you get the more, you know, sort of expose the plane is and so the way they'd land is they would take these really steep descents and basically like flies straight down and then land really abruptly it was like sort of gnarly and so we're coming in for this crazy landing the red lights are on everyone's tucked away from the windows and I'm like okay we're getting ready for Afghanistan and we touched down and you know it's a successful landing and

“now we're in this like pretty well fortified base of shank is what it was called and I remember”

the the back of the plane opened up after, you know, we sort of had stop taxing, you know, we came to a stop and the back of the plane opened up and remember my mentality is like okay we're going to war right and I grabbed my pack the rest of my stuff had been packed on pallets and sent, you know, weeks prior so all I have is a backpack and me and a buddy of mine another guy on my team we we walk out the back the runway and we basically see Afghanistan really for the first time

because I really hit the the windows on the airplane by the way we're like these little port holes

you really never got a good look not to mention we had to avoid the windows so

this is like my first view of Afghanistan and I remember just like looking around and it was just unbelievably beautiful like Afghanistan is shockingly beautiful it's in every direction 360 degrees these just enormous like massive snow covered mountains and just beautiful fields it's like untouched land and like we're in the middle of this like jagged scar across the earth which is this like NATO base where war is sort of launched out of but it's like you're looking around at just

this unbelievably beautiful place and it was like in such contrast to to what I believed I was coming here for or what I was there for like to fight in a war and it just like didn't compute like this is too beautiful a place to be having a war fought but I mean very quickly after sort of seeing this environment and me like oh my gosh you know we were quickly ushered over to this like holding area we had to grab our stuff and then before long we had jumped into these these very up armored

military vehicles called RGs which are like like 50,000 ton anti-ID vehicles basically but detonates underneath you and theory you'll survive and and out we go you know from the the base we were on out to this like very forward operating base that was sort of out in the sticks and it was like sort of a vulnerable spot and it was where we were going to be operating from for the next six months you know our mission was pretty pretty vulnerable you know we were out sort of actually

actively fighting the war but that first night we we get to our our actual base this very stripped down like very vulnerable spot out in the middle of nowhere and when we got there there were the previous team was still there they were wrapping up their deployment and there were interpreters who are a central part of the warfighting effort you know from our side and a lot of these interpreters were pretty young like in their twenties like they've been they've been out there

working with various units that have come through those bases for years and because they're working

the Taliban and and other sort of militant groups because you know they're working for NATO

“their traders you know and so the great promise for these interpreters is that um by working with”

NATO eventually they'll be given the opportunity to leave Afghanistan and come to the United States and for some people that's true not true for everybody but these interpreters are like hardest nails they've been in so many gun fights like these people have seen some crazy stuff and I my role was to work with these interpreters I was going to be someone that worked with our partner force and so I get to this little outstation it's late at night and it's sort of overwhelming this whole

thing you know the team that was already there still team eight they were like so like cowboy by

this point they'd been in combat now till last six months they're all just like jacked and huge

beards like they could care less about anything and I'm like super green and I went and I met with one of our interpreters to like sort of give me a lay at the land of what to expect over the

“next couple of days and so we we talked about some operations we'd likely do and sort of you know”

got to know each other a little bit but at some point one of these interpreters the guy I was talking to who maybe was like 25 26 and I was in my 20s too he said to me he goes bro bro and they all talk and like western slang like their English is like rugged like American military slang because they're around like 18 year old Marines 24/7 they's like bro have you heard the story of what was in the cave in Kandahar now we were in a different part of Afghanistan but he was referencing

Kandahar Afghanistan and what I would come to find out is there was this the story about a giant like a creature some huge creature that lived in a cave out in the mountains of Kandahar and like Afghanistan again is this huge just like mountains everywhere and there are all these cave systems up in these mountains some of which are like untouched by humanity and this this

“term was like bro I'm telling you it's real like there was there was a giant up in the caves in”

Kandahar like have you heard about this like I want to know more the interpreter did and so you know we didn't really talk much more than that but it it was planted in my mind that there was like this real belief by this interpreter that there was like some truth to this what sounded like sort of a folklore this crazy story about a giant in the cave and so it's stuck with me you know it's stuck with me that I had heard that story fast forward you know years later I'm out

of the military and I've become Mr. Ballon you know I've begun telling strange dark and mysterious stories on the internet and I was thinking about what stories I wanted to tell this was like in the very early days of of having the channel and I suddenly remembered like the Kandahar giant now I was like man I want to look into that and see if there's any truth to what my interpreter was getting at and sure enough I found like this treasure trove of testimony from this special

operation group the the green berets that apparently did like this one particular group of green berets that that apparently came in touch with something otherworldly up in the caves of Kandahar and in particular there was one soldier who just went by Mr. K because he was worried about his name getting out there who gave just like shocking testimony about what they saw and so I felt like I needed to do the story justice I wanted to sort of compile the notes and put together a story

that you know sort of picked up where my interpreter had began and I and I told the story years and years ago and tonight I'm going to tell you that story again so in 2002 there was this army infantry unit that was out doing a patrol in the Kandahar mountain range and again you got a picture just massive snow-covered mountains I mean this is a huge area and you know a lot of times in 2002 these patrols you know you'd be sort of looking potentially for cave systems where

Taliban fighters would be camping out or you know sometimes there'd be fighters that were down in the valleys below but these patrols were fairly routine for for NATO in 2002 and so this this unit they're out on patrol and generally the way it works really independent of what branch of the military you're in in the U.S. military you know when you're out on patrol

you you basically update some level of higher command as you're doing the operation and also by

the way virtually no operations no matter how routine or mundane like no operations aren't planned out like everything is planned like what time you get there how long you're going to be there what you're trying to do when you're going to leave you know what platform you're going to use to leave like everything is really coordinated and so this unit they went out you know for the you know umpteenth time to do this patrol and at some point in the middle of this this patrol the higher command lost

totally unusual for for group to to lose comms I mean you're trying to communicate across huge mountain ranges you know using you know these radios that are really a lot of times not that great and so losing comms is not that unusual but generally speaking like a lot of times if you lose comms you get it back pretty quickly and so there had been a pretty long period of time where no one could get in touch with this unit and then on top of that as you know higher command was beginning to

figure out like what we should do here should we send out a quick reaction for us to go find them should we send you know air assets overhead to go try to look for them that way as they're thinking about that somebody realized that not only had they suddenly gone silent this you know huge infantry unit but also they had not called in a tick before they went silent so a tick or troops in contact

is the acronym for basically being in a gunfight and the reason this is important is you know

when you're in a in a combat zone your higher command doesn't automatically know if you're

“getting shot at or if you're in an active gunfight you need to call it in and the reason you call”

it in is because you may need huge help you might want air assets to to come in and save the day you need you might need a meta-vac you might need reinforcements and so basically the instant you start getting shot at commanders on the ground or whoever's on the ground could be someone super junior they'll call in to higher command and say troops in contact you know tick tick tick tick tick and the reason they do that is basically to have help on standby now they're like okay

we know something's going down we're ready to support and in fact you know what but we saw when we were in Afghanistan is if anything we were like too quick to call in a tick because it's sort of like a cheat code right like oh I think I heard gunfire way over there call in a tick and then immediately you got like war more hogs overhead and crazy assets everywhere like you're totally protected we sort of took advantage of it and a lot of people did like it's rare for the reverse

“to happen like people are not conservative calling this in and so for an entire unit to suddenly go”

like silent having not called in a tick it's either a huge like radio problem but that usually gets resolved relatively quickly or it's something else something that is just harder to define because it just doesn't really happen very much and so after a certain amount of time it passed when still no one could get in touch with this unit ultimately the army decided this was you know a big enough deal you know there was enough people in that unit that were now on a counted for

that they decided to send in an elite military unit to try to find them and so they tapped this green beret unit so the the army's top special forces team the green berets they grabbed a group of those guys and said you go out into the mountains of candy hard to their last known location and figure out what happened to them and one of the people that was in this

detachment of green berets was Mr. K one of the people that gave pretty incredible testimony that

“I'm about to relate to you right now so Mr. K in the rest of his small in a small group of green berets”

they they hop on helicopters and they fly out to the section of candy hard where you know this this infantry unit was last and they touched down and you got to understand that this is like rural as rural can be there is you know no people like there's no cities no nothing there's like mud huts periodically but it's just like mountains you know you kind of feel like sometimes when you're in Afghanistan that you're like almost on a different planet and so they touched down

and they look around and and they see nobody like there there's no locals there's certainly no you know American military or NATO it's just like a wasteland in all directions and they know that the area they're searching is is pretty sizable and it's very mountainous so it's going to be

like a very rough several days of basically hiking through the mountains trying to find any sign

in this unit and so they touched down and they all have like extremely heavy packs on I mean you got all your ammo your equipment like this is a rugged thing they're doing and they start hiking through the mountains based on the brief that that unit had given before they stepped out for this mission they sort of had a rough idea of Mr. Kay and his unit of the direction of travel and so they're sort of following that direction but as they're hiking through the mountains I mean

the the unit that Mr. Kay was a part of they they didn't find anybody and for several days I mean they're out there in the mountains just hiking all day you know they they came into contact a couple of times with the enemy but there wasn't even any text or anything it was just like at a distance like all there's some fighters over there but they're on a mission to find these these missing soldiers so they're not trying to engage with anybody else like they're just hiking and looking for any

sign of this unit but again for a few days they they couldn't find anything

team they're you know walking along the mountain range and they decide to take this this

“goat trail that they can see right ahead of them it's sort of goes up and over the top of this”

mountain they decide okay we're just going to take that goat trail and see what's on the other side you know there wasn't any clear agenda for why this goat trail was an interest but they're like oh you know everywhere else we're walking is just rugged and awful at least this this goat trail a literal trail made by goats running along this area is easier to walk on so let's take that we'll follow it to the other side and we'll we'll see what's up there you know and also we'll be

up higher and we can maybe get a view down into the valley on the other side and maybe we'll see something and so Mr. Kay and the rest of the green berets begin making their way up the goat trail which sort of you know meandered its way up and then eventually onto the other side and as they're walking up they start to notice these little bits of plastic and metal

sort of strewn about on the trail and at first as they're walking they they don't actually know what they

are but as they keep moving they start to realize that these are parts of military equipment like these are parts of radios and other stuff that would definitely belong to for example an infantry unit and so now like Mr. Kay and the others they got their rifles sort of ready to go they're they're walking up more apprehensively because they're thinking like this is this is obviously connected to what we're looking for like who knows we're gonna find once we cross the

top of this mountain like are we gonna find like a blood bath are we gonna find the the missing unit waiting for us like they don't know and so they continue walking up this trail and has they get higher and higher they find bigger and bigger pieces of military equipment on the ground like whole military backpacks like bigger chunks of radios and then also they began finding bits of uniform like military uniforms that even in some cases still had like name tags and patches on them

and they were able to see very clearly that those uniforms at least definitely belonged to

these specific unit they were looking for so they know like they've discovered their first

real lead here and it doesn't look good and so up the goat trail they go and they finally get to the very top and I say this you know I'm trying not to be biased because obviously I I wasn't

“an ABCl and I think very highly of US special operations and they're training but you know green”

arrays and navy seals they're very different and definitely do different jobs but in many ways they are peers certainly in terms of like the rigor of training and one of the things that is just absolutely true and I've seen it in combat is that when stuff gets wild like in a combat scenario and in a dangerous scenario these green braids would have absolutely fallen into their training like flawlessly this would not have been no matter how crazy or how insane whatever they saw

on the other side of the mountain whatever it was going to be they were ready for it and so they would have been like dialed in making their way up the mountain getting ready to to handle whatever's up there and so you know mr. K and in his team they make their way to the very top of the scot trail and when they crested the top what they saw was like this plateau so it wasn't like a peak it was like this flat section of the mountain and actually there was there was another section

of the mountain that sort of went up beyond the plateau and there were these huge like cave

entrances that sort of basically fed out these three cave entrances fed out onto this plateau

as if it was like the plateau was the front porch and the and the cave entrances are like the doors that lead into this upper section of the mountain and on this plateau scattered all over the place is not just you know more pieces of military equipment but also pretty obviously human bones or what appeared to be human bones like scattered about and there was you know no living people up here the missing unit was definitely not up here but it looked like if they were up here I mean

something horrible happened to them and so once they reached the plateau again you got to picture like this elite military unit they would have immediately taken up positions all around this plateau

“because they know these cave entrances have to be explored you have to see who's inside of”

there like is the missing unit and there are the remaining survivors taking shelter in there are their combatants in there and so Mr. K and his unit they sort of detailed taking up positions you know getting ready to engage if they had to and then once they were in position Mr. K in the guy he was next to is shooting buddy if you will were tapped to go up to the entrance of one of these caves and just look inside and so silently they got up and

they walked across this plateau while the rest of the team is sort of looking outward and also looking in there's 360 degrees security so Mr. K he walks up along with the shooting buddy and he said he looked into this entrance this huge massive entrance like could easily just walk into this opening but it's totally dark inside and so he goes into the cave and once he gets in there like it's very

little ways but you know he barely takes a couple of steps into the cave when he realizes like

“there's like this sheer cliff within the cave like you basically walk in and then it just”

it shoots straight down and you know Mr. K he caught himself and he looked down to see if they could see what was down sort of in this pit within the cave but it was just too dark he couldn't see anything and then like as he's standing back up again getting ready to sort of assess what he

should do next he sees like a flash of movement in the far backside of the cave basically beyond

this this crevasse that he can't cross and so Mr. K instinctively raises his gun like he's ready to engage whatever this is but before he can this enormous spear like a massive javolin comes soaring out of the cave and impales the shooting body his name was Dan the other green beret that was next to Mr. K who went up to explore the cave the spear impales him sends him flying back and this is in plain view of all the other green berets they all see this happen

and then like in the space of a few seconds this massive just enormous human creature this like

“12 foot tall thing comes bounding out of the cave clears the crevasse and charges out onto the”

plateau and it sort of looked like a huge person but again it's like 12 feet tall it's got six fingers on a chance six toes on each foot it's it's wearing various animal skins got this huge red hair red beard and it runs out to you know presumably attack the green berets but immediately they just start shooting it and in like seconds this massive creature falls to the ground dead and so at this point like after the the creature is down I mean nobody knows what to make of this but again

it's like they fall back into their training they immediately once they know the threat is down and there's nobody else coming out of the cave they run over to Dan to provide you know life saving care but Dan's dead I mean he was he was killed by this javolin and so now the team they they poked their head into the cave to make sure there wasn't anybody else but as far as they knew there wasn't and for sure this this this giant was dead and so like they hadn't found the the

“missing military unit but now they have a casualty and like they've this horrible thing that's happened”

and so one of the team leads for this green beret team they end up calling higher command and they say hey you got to come get us like we can't even tell you what just happened but we have a man down killed in action and we have this combatant this this creature we didn't even know what to call it but you got to get out here and you got to take this thing too we don't even know what it is and so not long after two helo showed up and one of them was to transport the green berets and to transport

Dan back to the base and then the other helo had this huge net that they basically wrapped around this

this dead huge giant and they strapped it up to the underside of the helo and then they flew off with this giant and you know Mr. K and in his unit they expected to be brought back to base and to basically debrief the mission which you know in layman's terms means you basically talk through what actually happened and you sort of put it down in your after action report like what happened you know what mistakes were made what did we do like you basically put it on the

record like what happened and then you do it typically like right afterwards even if you've had like a casualty you you immediately document what's happened and so they go back to base expecting not only to tell their story about seeing this this giant if you will but to maybe get some clarification about what the heck just happened like you know they wanted some more information but when they got back to base and they and they did their after action report which they sort of

did on their own nobody came to talk to them the unit was sort of pushed off to the side and told to just you know write down what you saw and just leave it at that after they wrote it all down and they included you know the truth everybody on the team saw what they saw they were told by higher command that they actually could not publish those details in their after action report and they had to change it like this is this we can't say

you thought a giant in a cave we can't say that like there's no way that's true you can't say it and so Mr. K and his team like despite knowing it wasn't true they went and they changed the report and they just said they came in contact with the enemy and the enemy you know through small arms fire killed Dan and then after they submitted this you know the erroneous report they were then told to sign all these non-disclosure agreements to basically say they would not

talk about what they actually saw in that cave and after that I mean Dan and the rest of his unit I mean they were basically told you can't talk about this this is too sensitive and they even went looking for more information about it and they found that all of the reporting in Afghanistan around

that time about that operation had been heavily redacted I mean Mr. K never even found out what

happened to the missing unit that they had gone out looking for like it was just this big mystery

anymore and he spoke to some other members of his team that were there and they too were just like

“really shaken up by what happened and just felt like it was wrong that nobody knew and so that's what”

ultimately prompted Mr. K to go public with the story and also when he went public what he also

discovered is that other people sort of in the the military hierarchy also had some level of exposure to this giant I mean what Mr. K would discover is that after the giant had been hoisted in that net by that he low and and flown off somewhere apparently it had been brought to an airfield in Afghanistan another NATO base and pilots that were going to be transporting this to another base remember seeing this 12 to 15 foot tall giant looking person with six fingers on each hand

and six toes on each foot in the net they remember seeing it and actually describing it and they are after action report and they would say they were told not to include those details and those

“details were redacted and made top secret and so basically Mr. K after coming forward quickly learned”

through the great mine that basically everybody affiliated with the giant was told not to talk about it

and the government basically shut it down redacted it and made a top secret now I don't really know what to make of this story you know there's a part of me that does want to believe that you know the testimony of Mr. K is totally legitimate but there's also a part of me that knows that you know this could all just be made up but a lot of people claim to have seen this thing and I remember so distinctly you know my own interpreter back in in 2013 being so convinced that there was

something in the caves in Kandahar and he really wanted to know more about it it's like

there's some level of truth to this I mean I was you know in Afghanistan and I was in the mountains

of Afghanistan not Kandahar I was in Lohar but I mean we used to walk by and look up and see these cave entrances and I got to tell you it's unsettling I mean who knows what's inside of those things it doesn't seem entirely impossible that a giant could be in there you know like this this is a landscape that's just it's different it's like a different planet out there but I mean really what you're left with here is you have an entire infantry unit that's still unaccounted for at least

publicly and you have an army green beret in Dan who was killed in front of his team and they want answers and you know it's like what you see is the government apparently went to great lengths to cover up what happened or to at least disguise the truth whether or not they're covering

“something up remains to be seen but I think there's more to this story that we simply don't know”

but I'd love to hear what you think in the comments so why don't you let me know in the comments and I'll get back to as many people as I can 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 the Mr. Ballenpodcast strange dark mysterious stories is hosted and executive produced by me

Mr. Ballen our head of writing is Evan Allen our head of production is Zach Levitt produced by Jeremy Bohn research and fact checking by Shelley Shew Samantha Van Hoos Evan Beamer Abigail Schumway and Camille Calhan research and fact checking supervision by Stephenier audio editing and post-produced by Whit LaCassio Jordan Stitham and Cole LaCassio mixed in mastered by Brendan Kane production coordination by Samantha Collins production support

by Antonio Manada and Delana Corley artwork by Jessica Klugst and Kiner theme song called something wicked by Ross Bogden thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballenpodcast if you enjoyed today's story and you want to hear more like it go ahead and check out our YouTube channel just called Mr. Ballen where we have hundreds more stories a lot like this one but most of them are not available on this podcast they are only available on that YouTube channel which again is just called

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