Latest / Crime and Horror / US Marines witness PARANORMAL event in Afghanistan Observation Post Rock

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US Marines witness PARANORMAL event in Afghanistan Observation Post Rock · Crime and Horror

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Speaker 1: The paranormal does not really have a place in the military,
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Speaker 1: despite what anybody tells you.
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Speaker 2: It's just not something that gets discussed. Now.
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Speaker 1: I was a bit of an anomaly. I was in
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Speaker 1: the Navy for seven years. Five of those years were
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Speaker 1: spent on a seal team, and maybe because we were
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Speaker 1: in such small teams, people had to put up with
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Speaker 1: my weirdness and my interest in the strange happenings around
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Speaker 1: the world. But you know, really that was an anomaly,
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Speaker 1: and I think it comes from the culture inside the military,
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Speaker 1: where you have a group of people that has such
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Speaker 1: an intense job, that's so rooted on practical approaches to
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Speaker 1: problem solving. There is no time to be theorizing about
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Speaker 1: how demons and ghosts and things that are out of
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Speaker 1: this world are having an impact, because we need to
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Speaker 1: focus on what's happening right now in front of us.
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Speaker 1: There's no space for anything else. And so when you
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Speaker 1: do hear stories coming out of the military that are
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Speaker 1: paranormal in nature, it isn't that you should inherently believe them,
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Speaker 1: but rather you should understand that if they have come
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Speaker 1: to the conclusion that this is paranormal, they have ruled
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Speaker 1: out virtually everything else, And so today I'm going to
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Speaker 1: share a military paranormal story that happened in Afghanistan in
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Speaker 1: two thousand and nine when eight US Marines were stationed
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Speaker 1: at this very isolated observation post in the middle of
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Speaker 1: Helmand Province, and some very strange things happened out there
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Speaker 1: that the Marines that were there believe are still plaguing
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Speaker 1: them to this day. But before we get into today's story,
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1:32
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Speaker 1: All right, let's get into today's story. In June of
2:01
Speaker 1: two thousand and nine, US and NATO forces surged into Afghanistan.
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Speaker 2: Troop numbers escalated.
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Speaker 1: Dramatically in preparation for this massive offensive against the Taliban.
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Speaker 1: During this surge, a very small team of marines eight
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Speaker 1: marines were given a mission to go to an observation
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Speaker 1: post in Hellman Province, where a group of British soldiers
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Speaker 1: were stationed at the time. An observation post, or OP,
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Speaker 1: as it's called in the military, is any location where
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Speaker 1: you're able to observe, hence the name.
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Speaker 2: Most ops, if not all, ops.
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Speaker 1: Are located on high ground, because that provides you the
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Speaker 1: best view. Ops are very strategically valuable. You have the
2:42
Speaker 1: higher ground and you can see what's going on around you,
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Speaker 1: and so as a result, ops become prime targets for attack. Now,
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Speaker 1: the OP that these marines were going to op Rock
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Speaker 1: was a little bit unique. It was strategically very important,
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Speaker 1: but it didn't really have the higher ground. All around
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Speaker 1: it were other large pieces of terrain, which meant if
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Speaker 1: you poked your head up for too long you might
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Speaker 1: get shot from a sniper on the mountain, and so
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Speaker 1: op Rock was like a very dangerous and isolated place
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Speaker 1: to be, not to mention laughably small and had almost
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Speaker 1: no amenities. It was basically a couple of Hesco barriers,
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Speaker 1: those big brown squares that get filled with sand and
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Speaker 1: dirt to stop bullets, and.
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Speaker 2: Then you know, not even cots.
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Speaker 1: They slept literally on the ground on sleeping pads and
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Speaker 1: a couple of gilly tents overhead.
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Speaker 2: That was about it.
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Speaker 1: And so these marines were going to be there for
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Speaker 1: sixty days where they were not going to be able
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Speaker 1: to go anywhere. They were just isolated and stuck on
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Speaker 1: this tiny, little waste land in the middle of Afghanistan.
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Speaker 1: The eight Marines were led by Sergeant Green and his
3:40
Speaker 1: second in command was Corporal Lina. The other six junior
3:43
Speaker 1: Marines were Zolick, Hoyt, Wilson, Parker, Smith, and Gibbs. After
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Speaker 1: driving their uparmored vehicles all the way through the snaking pass,
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Speaker 1: they get to Op Rock and the British soldiers are
3:55
Speaker 1: there anxiously waiting for them. Normally, anytime you turn over
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Speaker 1: with any other unit you do something called turnover operations,
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Speaker 1: where because you're new to the area, you want to
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Speaker 1: go out and do like.
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Speaker 2: A presence patrol or something to get a feel for.
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Speaker 1: The area with the people who have been there, to
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Speaker 1: kind of give you a lay of the land and say, hey,
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Speaker 1: look out for this area. We think there's IEDs over there. Remember,
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Speaker 1: if you're over here, you're in plain sight of the enemy.
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Speaker 2: They can shoot you. But when they got.
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Speaker 1: There, the British were so anxious to leave they did
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Speaker 1: not do turnover ops. The British just looked totally weathered
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Speaker 1: and beaten down and ragged, like they'd been fighting at
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Speaker 1: op Rock for decades, but they'd only been there for
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Speaker 1: sixty days, the same amount of time that these Marines
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Speaker 1: are about to be there. And before they leave, one
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Speaker 1: of the British soldiers turns and says, hey, just so
4:43
Speaker 1: you know, if you dig anything up here, just put
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Speaker 1: it back. And the Marines look at him like, what
4:48
Speaker 1: are you talking about, and he doesn't elaborate.
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Speaker 2: He just says again, if you dig anything up just
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Speaker 2: put it back, trust me.
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Speaker 1: So that night the men have settled into their new
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Speaker 1: home for the next sixty days.
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Speaker 2: And the way it works on any base in the.
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Speaker 1: World, but certainly in a war zone, is there's always
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Speaker 1: someone manning a guard post, And so the first night
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Speaker 1: it happened to be Corporal Lina's turn to be on watch.
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Speaker 1: Corporal Lina is the second in command of these eight Marines,
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Speaker 1: and he was up in the guard tower and you
5:18
Speaker 1: got to put yourself in his mind. Okay, even if
5:21
Speaker 1: you've never been to Afghanistan, just imagine being out in
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Speaker 1: the middle of nowhere, like in the middle of a
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Speaker 1: mountainous desert with no village, no people know anything. But
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Speaker 1: at the same time you are hanging it out there,
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Speaker 1: you are totally exposed. There are people in the mountains
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Speaker 1: around you that want to kill you, for sure, And
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Speaker 1: it's you and seven other sleeping people, right and your
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Speaker 1: little tiny opie.
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Speaker 2: All you got is a radio where you.
5:48
Speaker 1: Can call back to your main base that's far enough
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Speaker 1: away that if something bad happened, you better hope that
5:54
Speaker 1: one you can get through to them, and two they
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Speaker 1: can get over here as quickly as they can.
5:57
Speaker 2: And the great fear when you're.
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Speaker 1: In these remote locations is that you're going to get ambushed.
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Speaker 1: There's so many stories about these complex attacks being launched
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Speaker 1: on these small little outposts where all of a sudden,
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Speaker 1: groups like these eight Marines just get totally overrun by
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Speaker 1: the Taliban. So it's a terrifying thing. When I was
6:17
Speaker 1: in Afghanistan, I didn't stand all that much guard duty,
6:19
Speaker 1: but when I did, you're up in the shack and
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Speaker 1: you're kind of looking out into this like vast expanse
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Speaker 1: of kind of nothingness, and you're wondering, like, are people
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Speaker 1: watching me right now, you know, someone taking aim at
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Speaker 1: me right now. I mean, you're protected and you're doing
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Speaker 1: all the things you're supposed to do. But nighttime in
6:36
Speaker 1: Afghanistan standing guard duty, it's very eerie. And so this
6:40
Speaker 1: first night Lena is up there, it's very quiet, and
6:43
Speaker 1: his radio that's right next to him, like imagine like
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Speaker 1: a big walkie talkie, right military grade radio, it starts crackling.
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Speaker 1: Military radio is at least American military radios are from
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Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties and they have basically not changed.
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Speaker 2: They're very durable and they work, but.
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Speaker 1: It's not uncommon for them to and that's how we
7:00
Speaker 1: have people that specialize in just radios that can fix
7:04
Speaker 1: these things for us, because if you lose your line
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Speaker 1: of communication, you're screwed. And so he's sitting there and
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Speaker 1: he starts hearing crackling on the radio, and so he
7:12
Speaker 1: just he notices it, but he doesn't think much of it.
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Speaker 1: And the crackling stops, and he's looking out into the
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Speaker 1: mountain side and he's kind of looking around and just
7:20
Speaker 1: doing his typical guard duty. Then the crackling picks up
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Speaker 1: again and he thinks he can hear someone speaking in
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Speaker 1: the radio. It didn't sound like English, it didn't sound
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Speaker 1: like even words necessarily, but it was a little bit louder.
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Speaker 1: Now he's really paying attention to it. Because he was
7:35
Speaker 1: worried his radio might be going bad. He first took
7:37
Speaker 1: the battery off, looked at it, blew it off, reconnected
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Speaker 1: the battery, rebooted it, and put it back down, and
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Speaker 1: he's a little more keyed into his radio. And then
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Speaker 1: a couple of minutes later he hears this crackling and
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Speaker 1: now he can clearly hear someone's voice, and it sounds
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Speaker 1: like Russian. He thinks someone is speaking in Russian.
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Speaker 2: This is an encrypted radio.
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Speaker 1: You're not picking up random signals all over the place.
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Speaker 1: You only are picking up people that have your crypto.
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Speaker 1: And it doesn't make any sense to pick up somebody
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Speaker 1: else's voice. This has to be someone on your team.
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Speaker 1: And so he thinks, okay, I'll just I'll check in
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Speaker 1: with the main base, because my guys are all asleep
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Speaker 1: right here. They're all sleeping right there, seven of them.
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Speaker 1: There's no beds, they're laying on the ground right there.
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Speaker 1: I can count them. No one's on the radio. So
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Speaker 1: it picks up the radio and he calls into the
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Speaker 1: main base and he says, hey, is anybody pushing traffic
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Speaker 1: out this way to op Rock? And like right away
8:25
Speaker 1: they get a response from from the main base. It says, no,
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Speaker 1: we're not pushing or receiving traffic. Leane is not terrified
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Speaker 1: about this, but he's like, Okay, there's something going on.
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Speaker 2: With the radio.
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Speaker 1: The crackling and gurgling and weird sounds would persist throughout
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Speaker 1: the night, to the point where the next morning, when
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Speaker 1: the next guard came on duty, he said, Hey, I
8:43
Speaker 1: think there's something strange going on with the radio. You
8:45
Speaker 1: should probably go switch it out and get somebody else's
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Speaker 1: radio while you're up here. Lena is relieved of guard
8:50
Speaker 1: duty and he goes down to check on the other Marines,
8:52
Speaker 1: and at this point, everybody's awake, and you know, it's
8:55
Speaker 1: the start of their first full day at op Rock,
8:58
Speaker 1: and because thing else to do besides defend it, they
9:02
Speaker 1: start taking stock of how well fortified is it. What
9:06
Speaker 1: are some ways that we can improve this place? And
9:08
Speaker 1: they notice that there's a trench dug around the inside
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Speaker 1: of of op Rock, basically right up against the hescoes
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Speaker 1: that allows anyone to stand and not be jutting out
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Speaker 1: of the op and run the risk of getting shot
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Speaker 1: by a sniper. And they're looking at it and they're
9:23
Speaker 1: thinking to themselves, it's not deep enough. It's maybe a
9:26
Speaker 1: couple feet down. You're certainly not gonna be able to
9:28
Speaker 1: stand on this trench. You'll totally be exposed. And they thought,
9:33
Speaker 1: why didn't the British, who were here for sixty days,
9:36
Speaker 1: why didn't they dig a deeper trench? And so Lina
9:39
Speaker 1: and the rest of the Marines decide they're going to
9:41
Speaker 1: spend that day digging the trench a little bit deeper
9:44
Speaker 1: and a little bit wider. As they're digging, Lina hits
9:47
Speaker 1: something metal in the trench and he pulls it out
9:50
Speaker 1: and it's like this metal steak, like an engineering stake,
9:53
Speaker 1: and he brushes off the dirt on the stake and
9:56
Speaker 1: he's looking at it and he can see some foreign
9:58
Speaker 1: writing and it looks like Russian, right, And he's thinking
10:00
Speaker 1: to himself, Oh, that's not that weird. Back in the eighties,
10:03
Speaker 1: the Russians were here, and it's totally possible that they
10:06
Speaker 1: may have left some of their gear here and it
10:07
Speaker 1: got buried. About ten meters away from Lena is one
10:10
Speaker 1: of the younger marines named Wilson, who's digging, and at
10:13
Speaker 1: some point he hits the ground and like a pocket
10:16
Speaker 1: in the soil opens up and he sees there's some
10:19
Speaker 1: pottery and some pieces of what look like ceramics that
10:22
Speaker 1: are inside of this hole, and after pulling out some
10:25
Speaker 1: of the plates and pots, they pull out.
10:27
Speaker 2: A huge human bone, a femur, your leg bone.
10:30
Speaker 1: They ultimately decide to tuck the leg bone back into
10:33
Speaker 1: where it was and they stop digging in that area,
10:36
Speaker 1: and they continue to dig in the other sections of
10:38
Speaker 1: the trench, but they couldn't dig more than a couple
10:41
Speaker 1: of inches before running into more human remains. And by
10:45
Speaker 1: the end of the day they had unearthed dozens of
10:47
Speaker 1: skeletons inside of this trench, and so they realized that
10:51
Speaker 1: this is probably what the British meant when they said,
10:53
Speaker 1: if you dig something up, put it back. A couple
10:56
Speaker 1: of weeks go by, and the Marines at this point
10:58
Speaker 1: have accepted that they live in a very creepy place.
11:01
Speaker 1: And on day thirteen of being at Opie Rock Hoyt,
11:05
Speaker 1: who had just turned twenty years old, is up on
11:08
Speaker 1: guard duty. As he's sitting there, he starts getting this
11:10
Speaker 1: really uncomfortable feeling that someone is right behind him, and
11:14
Speaker 1: so at one point he turns around to look at
11:17
Speaker 1: what's behind him, basically looking back into the camp itself
11:20
Speaker 1: and now coming from outside the wire where he had
11:23
Speaker 1: just been looking, he hears this horrible, blood curdling scream.
11:28
Speaker 1: He turns around and he's looking out. He's got his
11:30
Speaker 1: night vision goggles on, he's looking around for anything, and
11:32
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, a couple hundred meters away, he
11:35
Speaker 1: sees a man running between one bush to another bush. Now,
11:38
Speaker 1: they know that at any time they could get attacked,
11:41
Speaker 1: so they're not thinking that this could be anything other
11:43
Speaker 1: than the Taliban coming to attack them. And so the
11:46
Speaker 1: other Marines have jumped up because they heard the scream,
11:48
Speaker 1: and they're looking to Hoyt to be like, what's going on.
11:51
Speaker 1: Hoyt is saying to them, I got a guy who's
11:53
Speaker 1: about two hundred meters away. I just saw him running
11:55
Speaker 1: right to left. Lena runs over to the edge of
11:58
Speaker 1: the hesco and he raises his rifle with a thermal
12:00
Speaker 1: imager on it, and he's looking out and there's no.
12:03
Speaker 2: Heat signature out there. It's totally cold.
12:05
Speaker 1: There's no animals, there's no people, certainly there's nothing, And
12:08
Speaker 1: Lena is yelling to Hoyt, where is he? Where do
12:10
Speaker 1: I need to look? And Hoyt's saying, he's right there.
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Speaker 1: I just Saw'll go behind that bush. But Lena is
12:15
Speaker 1: looking out and he can't see anything un thermal and
12:17
Speaker 1: he's like, I don't see anything, there's no one out there.
12:20
Speaker 1: The Marines also had a dog that they inherited from
12:22
Speaker 1: the British soldiers that had been there.
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Speaker 2: Her name was Ugly Betty. They loved Ugly Betty.
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Speaker 1: They took care of her, and she was apparently really
12:29
Speaker 1: good at identifying when people were coming towards the ope,
12:33
Speaker 1: so she was a great watchdog.
12:34
Speaker 2: And this whole time, she had.
12:36
Speaker 1: Been looking in the same direction that Hoyt had seen
12:39
Speaker 1: this figure. And she is barking like a maniac. And
12:42
Speaker 1: even after they're looking the thermal and they can't see
12:44
Speaker 1: anyone out there, if they can't get Betty to calm down,
12:47
Speaker 1: she's completely transfixed on the area where Hoyd had seen
12:51
Speaker 1: this figure. So for the rest of the night, the
12:53
Speaker 1: Marines are totally on guard, anticipating at any moment that
12:56
Speaker 1: they're gonna get attacked. Someone's gonna take a shot, they're
12:58
Speaker 1: gonna throw a grenade in because we lost this guy
13:01
Speaker 1: who was right there in front of us.
13:03
Speaker 2: So eventually, the next day, when.
13:05
Speaker 1: They didn't get attacked, they just kind of said okay, and.
13:08
Speaker 2: They moved on and just figured it was an anomaly.
13:10
Speaker 1: Another couple of weeks later, on Day twenty six, Zolik,
13:14
Speaker 1: who's another one of the younger marines, was on guard
13:16
Speaker 1: duty and it was really hot. He remembers even taking
13:19
Speaker 1: his helmet off because he was sweating so bad. And
13:21
Speaker 1: then at some point, while he's just looking out into
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Speaker 1: the vast, open nothingness, he said that the temperature dropped
13:27
Speaker 1: inside of the shack dramatically.
13:30
Speaker 2: So much so that he actually felt cold.
13:32
Speaker 1: There was no breeze, there was no reason for it
13:35
Speaker 1: to be getting cold, and as he's thinking to himself,
13:37
Speaker 1: like is there a.
13:38
Speaker 2: Storm coming in or a cold front coming in, he.
13:41
Speaker 1: Starts feeling like someone's standing behind him, and he keeps
13:43
Speaker 1: looking over his.
13:44
Speaker 2: Shoulder and no one's there.
13:45
Speaker 1: He's in this tiny little shack, and he just he's
13:48
Speaker 1: feeling creeped out, and all of a sudden, he starts
13:50
Speaker 1: hearing whispering from behind him, not on the radio, but
13:54
Speaker 1: like in the shack with him, and he.
13:56
Speaker 2: Keeps turning around, and he keeps thinking, like, am I
13:57
Speaker 2: hearing things? I'm losing my mind.
13:59
Speaker 1: He starts hearing footsteps on the roof of his shack,
14:02
Speaker 1: and that's what he thinks, Oh, Smith, who was the
14:04
Speaker 1: kind of class clown of the group, is playing a
14:06
Speaker 1: joke on it.
14:07
Speaker 2: He must be whispering outside and that he climbed up
14:09
Speaker 2: on top and he's screwing with me.
14:11
Speaker 1: So he jumps out of the shack and looks up,
14:12
Speaker 1: expecting to see Smith standing on the roof of the
14:15
Speaker 1: guard shack, but no one's on the guard shack. At
14:18
Speaker 1: this point, Zolok's pretty spooked. He does a quick search
14:21
Speaker 1: on either side of the guard shack, thinking maybe Smith
14:23
Speaker 1: is there, but no one's there. And then he turns
14:25
Speaker 1: around and of course sees that the other seven marines
14:28
Speaker 1: are all asleep. So it wasn't Smith, it wasn't any
14:31
Speaker 1: of his teammates. At this point, he goes back in
14:33
Speaker 1: the shack and he raises his rifle and he's looking
14:35
Speaker 1: through his thermal scope. So any human would light up
14:37
Speaker 1: like a Christmas tree if you saw them on a
14:39
Speaker 1: thermal and he's scanning outside all around, thinking, did did
14:44
Speaker 1: I hears someone who's out there? Because they had that
14:46
Speaker 1: weird run in two weeks earlier with that random person
14:49
Speaker 1: that they could never find, he's thinking, maybe there's somebody
14:51
Speaker 1: else out here, and as he's scanning, he sees a
14:55
Speaker 1: man standing a couple hundred meters away with his fists
14:58
Speaker 1: raised like this. Zolick was so caught off guard from
15:01
Speaker 1: the way he was standing that he actually lowered his
15:03
Speaker 1: rifle to look because the moon was pretty bright, the
15:05
Speaker 1: illumination was pretty good, and he looked, you couldn't really
15:07
Speaker 1: see him again, so he brought his rifle back up,
15:09
Speaker 1: and now.
15:10
Speaker 2: Through his thermal the figure was gone.
15:12
Speaker 1: Zulig, in interviews, has admitted that he was really stressed
15:15
Speaker 1: out about being at Ope Rock. He was really down.
15:19
Speaker 1: I think of all the marines there, he was depressed.
15:21
Speaker 1: He did not want to be there. He felt like
15:23
Speaker 1: he was experiencing real combat fatigue, and he thought at
15:27
Speaker 1: this moment that he's losing his mind between the whispering
15:30
Speaker 1: and the footsteps on the roof and seeing this person
15:32
Speaker 1: with his fist raised, and so instead of telling people
15:35
Speaker 1: that he had potentially just seen this person out along
15:38
Speaker 1: the perimeter of their op. He started to convince himself
15:41
Speaker 1: that you're just losing your mind. You're stressed, and you're hallucinating.
15:46
Speaker 1: You just got to calm down. For the rest of
15:48
Speaker 1: the night, he would not see the figure on his
15:50
Speaker 1: thermal or anybody out there, but he would hear whispering
15:53
Speaker 1: behind him. He kept hearing footsteps on the roof, but
15:56
Speaker 1: he would go out and no one would be there.
15:58
Speaker 1: So by the time the sun came up, he really
15:59
Speaker 1: thought that he was kind of losing his mind, and
16:02
Speaker 1: so he went to his leadership, Sergeant Green and Corporal Lina,
16:05
Speaker 1: and he told them about what had happened the night before,
16:08
Speaker 1: about seeing the figure that had disappeared and hearing these
16:11
Speaker 1: whispers and the footsteps.
16:13
Speaker 2: I mean, he really thought.
16:13
Speaker 1: That he was losing it, and he requested to be
16:15
Speaker 1: transferred and they granted it to him. And the other
16:19
Speaker 1: seven marines were really upset about that. They felt like
16:21
Speaker 1: he was kind of abandoning them, and they were really
16:24
Speaker 1: critical of the reason for him leaving. They're like, oh,
16:26
Speaker 1: you're just playing the crazy card. You're just making that
16:29
Speaker 1: up so you can leave this crappy place that we
16:31
Speaker 1: don't want to be here either, so they were not
16:34
Speaker 1: taking seriously what he claimed happened.
16:36
Speaker 2: They just believed he was using the crazy card to
16:39
Speaker 2: get out of being at op Rock. Just a couple of.
16:41
Speaker 1: Days after Zolik's departure, Lena is on guard duty in
16:45
Speaker 1: that guard shack and as he's looking out, Ugly Betty
16:48
Speaker 1: starts barking really aggressively towards the area that Lena is
16:52
Speaker 1: looking at, and so he raises his night vision goggles
16:54
Speaker 1: and he's scanning the mountain side looking for any sign
16:56
Speaker 1: of people that perhaps Ugly Betty has sensed, and he
17:00
Speaker 1: stops when he sees what he believes is a Taliban
17:02
Speaker 1: scout standing on the mountain side who's pretty far away,
17:05
Speaker 1: a few hundred meters away, and he switches to his
17:08
Speaker 1: thermal scope to confirm that it's a person before he engages.
17:11
Speaker 2: And when he raises his thermal scope, there's nobody there.
17:14
Speaker 1: There's no heat signature anywhere, but Ugly Betty is still
17:16
Speaker 1: barking like a maniac in the direction of where this
17:19
Speaker 1: potential scout was standing, and so Lena goes back to
17:22
Speaker 1: his night vision goggles like a second later, and he's
17:24
Speaker 1: looking and he sees the same scout now about one
17:28
Speaker 1: hundred meters closer to him, way closer to him, like
17:31
Speaker 1: impossible to cover that distance in that amount of time.
17:34
Speaker 1: He practically falls over when he sees it. He switches
17:37
Speaker 1: to his thermal and he's getting ready to engage, but
17:39
Speaker 1: there's nothing there. And this is all happening in a
17:41
Speaker 1: matter of seconds. He goes back to his MBGS and
17:44
Speaker 1: he's looking and there's nothing there. And as he's about
17:46
Speaker 1: to go to his thermal for one last look, he
17:48
Speaker 1: feels a tap on his shoulder, which he believes is
17:50
Speaker 1: going to be one of the other marines that must
17:52
Speaker 1: have heard.
17:52
Speaker 2: Him frantically moving around in the guard shack. And when
17:55
Speaker 2: he turns, there's no one there.
17:57
Speaker 1: There's no one anywhere near the shack, all seven or
17:59
Speaker 1: asleep in the middle of the camp. At this point,
18:01
Speaker 1: Lena felt bad because he was critical of Zolick, who
18:04
Speaker 1: had left because he had heard voices and seen apparitions
18:08
Speaker 1: in the distance. And here's Lena, the second in command
18:11
Speaker 1: of the group, having the exact same experience. But over
18:14
Speaker 1: the next ten days, Hoyt, Smith, and Wilson would all
18:18
Speaker 1: have very similar experiences in that guard shack, and after
18:21
Speaker 1: a while, they all began sharing their stories, and they
18:24
Speaker 1: all realized that Zolick probably wasn't lying, and we were
18:27
Speaker 1: unfair to.
18:28
Speaker 2: Be critical of him because we've all experienced this now.
18:31
Speaker 1: Then on day fifty nine, the day before their schedule
18:34
Speaker 1: to leave, all of their radios go dead, all of them.
18:37
Speaker 2: And Lena goes over.
18:39
Speaker 1: To Gibbs, who is their coms guy, and he's like,
18:41
Speaker 1: what's going on? And Gibbs was like, I've been working
18:44
Speaker 1: on the radios this whole time we're here. I've changed nothing.
18:46
Speaker 1: They've always worked.
18:47
Speaker 2: Now.
18:47
Speaker 1: They did have a satellite phone, but it was an
18:50
Speaker 1: unreliable way to get in touch with reinforcements if you
18:53
Speaker 1: really needed it. They're pretty much isolated at this point,
18:56
Speaker 1: and they're all just sitting there just hoping they can
18:58
Speaker 1: get through one more night with any problems.
19:01
Speaker 2: Wilson is the.
19:01
Speaker 1: One actually in the guard shack, and then all of
19:04
Speaker 1: a sudden, machine gun fire opens up right outside of
19:08
Speaker 1: their race, and Wilson is totally caught off guard. He
19:11
Speaker 1: has no idea where it's coming from. He's trying to
19:13
Speaker 1: call it out to the guys where they're getting shot from,
19:15
Speaker 1: and all of the Marines are scrambling to the walls.
19:17
Speaker 1: They're taking cover behind the hes goes and as they're
19:20
Speaker 1: laying there, Lena runs up into the guard shack with Wilson.
19:24
Speaker 1: He's like grabs him and he's like, where are they
19:26
Speaker 1: shooting us from? And Wilson's like, I have no idea,
19:29
Speaker 1: And it's like it's so loud. There's all this gunfire
19:32
Speaker 1: coming in at them. And as Lena and Wilson are
19:34
Speaker 1: trying to figure out where this is coming from, they
19:37
Speaker 1: hear the distinctive sound of.
19:38
Speaker 2: A dumpg fired at them just to walk up the
19:41
Speaker 2: telve grenade.
19:42
Speaker 1: It's like a whistling sound, and they know it's going
19:44
Speaker 1: to hit them at any moment. The two of them
19:46
Speaker 1: brace for impact and they hear the sound of this
19:48
Speaker 1: rpg smashes in the side of the orop and the
19:51
Speaker 1: machine gun fire is just continuing. It's a non stop
19:54
Speaker 1: and so a couple of the other younger marines basically
19:57
Speaker 1: low crawled their way into the trench where they were
19:59
Speaker 1: protected from the grounds and they're thinking, like, we got
20:02
Speaker 1: to make sure no one's in the trenches, and so
20:03
Speaker 1: they start clearing the trenches, but no one's in the
20:05
Speaker 1: trench and it's just this constant barrage of gunfire.
20:08
Speaker 2: They have no idea where it's coming from.
20:10
Speaker 1: And then just as suddenly as it started, the gunfire
20:13
Speaker 1: stops and it's silent. As soon as the shooting stopped,
20:17
Speaker 1: the Marines did not just poke their head up and
20:19
Speaker 1: say everything's fine now. If you're being shot at, you
20:22
Speaker 1: assume that even if there's a break in the gunfire,
20:24
Speaker 1: they're going to start shooting at you again. And so
20:26
Speaker 1: for hours they're just like waiting for the next round
20:29
Speaker 1: of fire to start, but they don't even know where
20:30
Speaker 1: it's coming from, and they're kind of isolated and exposed,
20:34
Speaker 1: so they're all just hunkered down against the hescoes, waiting
20:37
Speaker 1: to respond to the next volley of fire. But it
20:39
Speaker 1: never comes. And when the sun comes up, they're able
20:42
Speaker 1: to take stock of the damage to their ope from
20:44
Speaker 1: all the machine gun fire and from the rocket propelled grenade,
20:47
Speaker 1: but there's no damage. No one had ever been shooting
20:50
Speaker 1: at the OP. There was no damage. So they had
20:53
Speaker 1: no explanation for it. So when reinforcements arrived, they just
20:57
Speaker 1: wanted to pack their stuff up and get the heck
20:59
Speaker 1: out of there, and they did.
21:00
Speaker 2: After leaving Op Rock.
21:01
Speaker 1: Very shortly after Smith, Parker, and Diggs, three of the
21:06
Speaker 1: eight Marines that were there, were all killed in Afghanistan
21:09
Speaker 1: in separate instances, and then Sergeant Green, who was their leader,
21:12
Speaker 1: was very badly injured in an ied blast.
21:16
Speaker 2: Lena believes that when they were digging.
21:17
Speaker 1: Out those trenches and finding all those bones, that they
21:21
Speaker 1: unleashed something. It turned out a lot of people had
21:23
Speaker 1: lost their lives on that little strip of rock. When
21:27
Speaker 1: the Russians invaded Afghanistan, they captured Op Rock and killed
21:32
Speaker 1: all of the Mujahdeen that were located at op Rock.
21:35
Speaker 1: Then the Taliban came in and they took back op
21:38
Speaker 1: Rock from the Russians and killed all the Russians that
21:41
Speaker 1: were at op Rock.
21:43
Speaker 2: Then Americans came in and took back op Rock from
21:46
Speaker 2: the Taliban, killing all the Taliban that were there.
21:49
Speaker 1: So you have all these people, probably dozens and dozens
21:52
Speaker 1: of people that at one point had been holding op
21:55
Speaker 1: Rock that had all been killed at op Rock.
21:57
Speaker 2: And so Lena believes that it's only a.
21:59
Speaker 1: Matter of time before or this curse that they unleashed
22:02
Speaker 1: comes back to get him. So I'd love to get
22:04
Speaker 1: your reaction. What do you think happened at op Rock?
22:07
Speaker 1: Is this paranormal or is there a rational explanation for this?
22:10
Speaker 1: Let me know in the comments, and I'll do my
22:12
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22:14
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22:32
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22:36
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22:55
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