Latest / Crime and Horror / They_followed_an_awful_smell_Campfire_Stories_with_MrBallen

Transcript

They_followed_an_awful_smell_Campfire_Stories_with_MrBallen · Crime and Horror

0:00
Speaker 1: So tonight, I have two stories to tell you, and
0:03
Speaker 1: they're great stories. But when I was thinking about how
0:06
Speaker 1: I would go about teasing the stories like I do
0:09
Speaker 1: at the top of these episodes, I couldn't quite think
0:12
Speaker 1: of sort of what the connective tissue was between them.
0:15
Speaker 1: But then I realized, really what makes these stories exceptional
0:19
Speaker 1: is that they're both just excellent stories. As I'm getting
0:22
Speaker 1: hit by the heat of this fire, to be told
0:26
Speaker 1: around a campfire. But before we get into those two stories,
0:30
Speaker 1: if you're a fan of the strange, dark, and mysterious
0:32
Speaker 1: delivered in story format, and you come to the right campfire.
0:35
Speaker 2: Because that's all we do, and we upload two three
0:38
Speaker 2: even four times every week.
0:40
Speaker 1: So if that's of interest to you, go ahead and
0:42
Speaker 1: invite the like button to come to your campfire and
0:45
Speaker 1: cook some smores with you, but give them the wrong
0:48
Speaker 1: date and location. Also, please subscribe to our channel and
0:51
Speaker 1: turn on all notifications so you don't miss any of
0:54
Speaker 1: our weekly uploads. Okay, let's get into tonight's stories. In
1:15
Speaker 1: the late nineteen nineties, in rural New York, there were
1:18
Speaker 1: these two teenage girls named Rachel and Molly, and they
1:21
Speaker 1: were both very good friends. They were part of a
1:24
Speaker 1: bigger group of friends in their high school that sort
1:26
Speaker 1: of spent a lot of time together, but Rachel and
1:28
Speaker 1: Molly oftentimes were together by themselves quite a bit. And
1:33
Speaker 1: the thing that sort of drew the two together and
1:35
Speaker 1: really sort of made them friends in the first place,
1:37
Speaker 1: and also drew them to that bigger group was their
1:40
Speaker 1: shared love of goth culture. So being goth, especially in
1:45
Speaker 1: the late nineties and early two thousands, if you were
1:48
Speaker 1: like a high school kid, basically meant you wore all
1:51
Speaker 1: black clothes, you had like black you know, nail polish,
1:53
Speaker 1: black lipstick, your hair's black. You sort of embraced all
1:57
Speaker 1: things dark and macabre. People were genuinely very into sort
2:02
Speaker 1: of like the idea of embracing the dark side of things.
2:05
Speaker 1: Other people just did it as like a fashion statement,
2:08
Speaker 1: but in the late nineteen nineties and early two thousands,
2:10
Speaker 1: it was. It was definitely a thing, certainly in America,
2:14
Speaker 1: and Rachel and Molly were both very committed goths and
2:17
Speaker 1: they just sort of loved that whole vibe. And one
2:21
Speaker 1: of the things that Rachel and Molly really liked to
2:23
Speaker 1: do as goth teenagers is they and their group of
2:28
Speaker 1: friends would go hang out in the local cemetery. Now,
2:32
Speaker 1: at first, the reason they did this was actually to
2:35
Speaker 1: sort of be ironic.
2:36
Speaker 2: You know.
2:36
Speaker 1: It's like they were known as the goth kids in
2:38
Speaker 1: their high school, and so the idea of them hanging
2:41
Speaker 1: out in the cemetery just seemed kind of too on
2:43
Speaker 1: the nose, and so they went out there almost like
2:46
Speaker 1: a joke, the whole.
2:47
Speaker 2: Group of them.
2:48
Speaker 1: But they found this the cemetery was kind of a
2:50
Speaker 1: cool hangout spot, and they began to really enjoy hanging
2:55
Speaker 1: out in the cemetery and it became sort of like
2:57
Speaker 1: their go to thing, especially on the weekends. Now, typically
3:02
Speaker 1: when Rachel, Molly and their friends would go hang out
3:05
Speaker 1: in the cemetery, they would do so at night to
3:08
Speaker 1: sort of maximize, you know, the darkness, you know, really
3:11
Speaker 1: really leaning into the whole goth side of things. But
3:15
Speaker 1: also they would always go as a group, like it
3:18
Speaker 1: was Rachel, Molly and several other people that would be
3:21
Speaker 1: in the cemetery hanging out at one time. Like Rachel
3:24
Speaker 1: and Molly did not go there just the two of them.
3:27
Speaker 1: It was always a group, and part of the reason
3:30
Speaker 1: was it was just more enjoyable that way. But also
3:33
Speaker 1: despite their their love of spending time in the cemetery.
3:37
Speaker 1: It was still a cemetery at night, and it was,
3:40
Speaker 1: you know, a little bit creepy, and so there was
3:42
Speaker 1: you know, strength and numbers, you know, and so they
3:44
Speaker 1: liked being there with a group.
3:45
Speaker 2: It felt safer. One Friday night, Rachel was home alone.
3:49
Speaker 1: When she got a call from Molly, and Molly asked her, Hey,
3:52
Speaker 1: do you want to you want to go hang out
3:54
Speaker 1: in the cemetery and Rachel's like, duh, like that's what
3:57
Speaker 1: we do on the weekends.
3:58
Speaker 2: I'd love to go, like come pick yeah, let's go.
4:01
Speaker 1: And so Rachel she gets already and you know, she's
4:03
Speaker 1: waiting outside and eventually Mollie shows up in her car,
4:07
Speaker 1: and the first thing Rachel notices is that Mollie's all
4:10
Speaker 1: alone in the car. She is not with the group
4:13
Speaker 1: that normally she would be with when they picked Rachel up.
4:16
Speaker 1: So Rachel she walks out to the car and she
4:19
Speaker 1: climbs in and she says to Molly like, hey, so
4:22
Speaker 1: are we now going to pick up the rest of
4:24
Speaker 1: our friends? Like where is everybody? And Mollie's like, actually, no,
4:28
Speaker 1: I tried getting in touch with everybody else, but everybody's
4:32
Speaker 1: either busy or working or hung over from last night.
4:35
Speaker 1: So it's just going to be us two at the cemetery,
4:38
Speaker 1: Like is that okay? And Rachel admittedly did not think
4:43
Speaker 1: this was okay because again, like this was not an
4:45
Speaker 1: activity that these girls did by themselves. Rachel was very
4:50
Speaker 1: close with Molly and vice versa, Like that was fine,
4:52
Speaker 1: it's just it's a little uncomfortable being in the cemetery
4:55
Speaker 1: without the big group.
4:56
Speaker 2: But you know, Rachel didn't want to be rude.
4:59
Speaker 1: She sort of felt like Molly had already clearly made
5:01
Speaker 1: peace with them being alone out there, and so Rachel's like, oh, yeah,
5:06
Speaker 1: that's fine, Like it'll be great just the two of us,
5:09
Speaker 1: Like let's go. And so even though she sort of
5:12
Speaker 1: didn't want to, you know, she gets in the car
5:13
Speaker 1: and they take off and they drive, you know, the
5:16
Speaker 1: half mile to the to the cemetery.
5:20
Speaker 2: Now, this cemetery was enormous.
5:23
Speaker 1: It was like this massive, very old cemetery, and when
5:27
Speaker 1: you pull up to it, as they did in their car,
5:29
Speaker 1: you would first see this this huge like medieval gate,
5:33
Speaker 1: like this archway that sort of goes across the entrance
5:36
Speaker 1: to the cemetery, and like the big wrought iron gates.
5:39
Speaker 1: They're sort of permanently open, but it's this very like
5:41
Speaker 1: sort of gothic looking, you know, archway that you drive through.
5:45
Speaker 1: And then once you're in the cemetery, the roads you're
5:47
Speaker 1: on basically cuts down the very middle of the cemetery
5:51
Speaker 1: all the way to the backside. It's a huge probably
5:54
Speaker 1: like over a mile from one side to the other,
5:56
Speaker 1: and it sort of split the cemetery into two big parts,
6:00
Speaker 1: the right and the left side as you go in,
6:02
Speaker 1: and where they Mollie Rachel and their friends loved to
6:05
Speaker 1: hang out was sort of as you're driving into the cemetery,
6:08
Speaker 1: like the back left corner. And the reason they liked
6:12
Speaker 1: that area is because on the left side of the cemetery,
6:16
Speaker 1: sort of on the left hand side, there was sort
6:18
Speaker 1: of like rolling hills that all the plots were in,
6:21
Speaker 1: and in particular, in the back left corner of the cemetery,
6:25
Speaker 1: there was like this one depression in the earth where
6:29
Speaker 1: there really weren't that many tombstones, and there was like
6:32
Speaker 1: a big boulder sitting at the bottom of the depression
6:34
Speaker 1: and a tree that was next to it, and so
6:37
Speaker 1: basically if you were scanning across the top of the
6:40
Speaker 1: cemetery just from the gate, looking out at the entire
6:43
Speaker 1: expanse of land. Anybody that was down in that sort
6:46
Speaker 1: of depressed area in the back left corner, you basically
6:50
Speaker 1: couldn't see them. They're sort of tucked away down there
6:52
Speaker 1: with the rock and the tree. And so for you know, teenagers,
6:56
Speaker 1: you know, for Rachel Molly and their friends, that was
6:58
Speaker 1: like a great place to hang out.
6:59
Speaker 2: And kind of be away from the prying eyes of
7:01
Speaker 2: the public.
7:02
Speaker 1: And so, you know, Rachel and Molly they drive through
7:05
Speaker 1: this gate and they make the familiar drive right down
7:08
Speaker 1: the middle of this road all the way to the
7:10
Speaker 1: very back of the cemetery. By this point, it is
7:14
Speaker 1: getting dark outside. It's not totally dark yet, but it's
7:17
Speaker 1: pretty dark. Nobody's out at the cemetery, no one really
7:20
Speaker 1: ever was occasionally on the other side of the cemetery,
7:25
Speaker 1: basically on the exact opposite side from where they would
7:27
Speaker 1: hang out. Sometimes the college kids that were in town
7:30
Speaker 1: there was a university in their town. They would sometimes
7:33
Speaker 1: hop the fence on the other side and there was
7:35
Speaker 1: like a little bonfire section like right up against the
7:38
Speaker 1: fence in the cemetery.
7:39
Speaker 2: Totally not allowed, but.
7:40
Speaker 1: They would sneak over and do that sometimes, but that
7:43
Speaker 1: was sort of rare. But other than those occasional college
7:46
Speaker 1: students over there, the cemetery was basically always vacant. And
7:50
Speaker 1: so they get to either side, they park their car,
7:52
Speaker 1: they get out, and they walk right from the road
7:55
Speaker 1: basically right down this you know, it's a gentle sloping hill,
7:58
Speaker 1: but down into this depression their their hangout spot. And
8:02
Speaker 1: once they get down there, there's that that big rock
8:04
Speaker 1: and the tree, and they each took up positions sitting
8:07
Speaker 1: on the rock, leaning against the tree, and then just
8:09
Speaker 1: began crushing cigarettes and just hanging out, because that's that's
8:13
Speaker 1: what you know, goth teenagers in rural New York in
8:16
Speaker 1: the nineteen nineties did. So. Rachel and Molly, they're just
8:19
Speaker 1: they're doing their thing. They're having a nice time. They're
8:22
Speaker 1: you know, swapping stories, they're talking about their their boyfriends,
8:24
Speaker 1: about drama at school.
8:26
Speaker 2: And eventually, you know, it gets.
8:29
Speaker 1: Fully dark outside and the girls are still just having
8:31
Speaker 1: a nice time, and Rachel's actually thinking to herself like,
8:34
Speaker 1: actually this is kind of nice, Like this isn't scary,
8:37
Speaker 1: this is it is kind of cool, Like I'm having
8:39
Speaker 1: you know, good one on one time with my buddy here.
8:42
Speaker 1: But eventually as they're they're down there, they start to
8:46
Speaker 1: smell smoke. Now, remember, periodically on the other side of
8:52
Speaker 1: the cemetery, like pretty far away was that bonfire area
8:57
Speaker 1: that college kids sometimes would you know, start bonfires over there.
9:00
Speaker 1: And you know, when Rachel and Molly had first come
9:02
Speaker 1: into the cemetery, they had looked over there and hadn't
9:05
Speaker 1: seen a fire. But they're thinking, you know, we've been
9:07
Speaker 1: hanging out here for quite a while. It's entirely possible
9:10
Speaker 1: that in the time we've been down here that those
9:12
Speaker 1: kids have hop defence started a fire, and that's what
9:15
Speaker 1: we're smelling now. The fire itself really had no bearing
9:19
Speaker 1: directly on whatever Molly and Rachel were going to do
9:21
Speaker 1: that night. I mean, they're on opposite sides of the cemetery,
9:25
Speaker 1: but Rachel and Molly knew that historically, whenever there was
9:29
Speaker 1: uponfire over there, eventually the police would always show up
9:33
Speaker 1: because you're not allowed to do that, and they would
9:35
Speaker 1: kick off, you know, the kids, they'd make them put
9:37
Speaker 1: their fire out, and then always the police would do,
9:40
Speaker 1: you know, a check of the entire cemetery and anybody
9:43
Speaker 1: that was hanging out in there, like Molly and Rachel
9:45
Speaker 1: were also got kicked out, even if they were not
9:48
Speaker 1: starting fires. And so Molly and Rachel they look at
9:51
Speaker 1: each other after smelling this fire, and they both sort
9:53
Speaker 1: of had the same thought, like, we should probably just leave,
9:56
Speaker 1: you know, before the police get here and make us leave.
9:59
Speaker 1: And you know, after all, they'd been there for quite
10:00
Speaker 1: a while, they were about ready to leave anyhow, so
10:02
Speaker 1: this was like no big deal. So, you know, they
10:05
Speaker 1: put out their last cigarette, they got their stuff, and
10:07
Speaker 1: they turned and began walking back up the hill, back
10:10
Speaker 1: in the direction they had come down on, back in
10:12
Speaker 1: the direction of their car. And as they're walking up,
10:15
Speaker 1: they're expecting to crest the hill and you know, see
10:19
Speaker 1: their car and see the whole cemetery, and you know,
10:21
Speaker 1: maybe way off in the distance, you know, maybe they'll
10:24
Speaker 1: they'll see a flicker of the of the bonfire that
10:26
Speaker 1: they must be smelling. But as they walk up and
10:30
Speaker 1: they see their car and they look out across the cemetery,
10:34
Speaker 1: they don't see a fire over there. Instead, basically right
10:38
Speaker 1: over to their right, like, you know, one hundred meters
10:40
Speaker 1: away from them, was another sort of depression in the cemetery.
10:43
Speaker 1: Another rolling hill that sort of went down out of sight,
10:47
Speaker 1: and they could see basically the tops of a flickering
10:50
Speaker 1: fire like in the in the neighboring depression, like one
10:53
Speaker 1: hundred meters away. Now, when they showed up, they were
10:57
Speaker 1: definitely alone on this side of the cemetery. There was
11:00
Speaker 1: nobody else here, and so clearly someone has shown up
11:04
Speaker 1: and started a fire while they were here. And they've
11:08
Speaker 1: never seen any behavior like this. This is like completely unusual,
11:12
Speaker 1: like no one starts fires over here, Like what is that?
11:16
Speaker 1: So the two girls are they're curious, like did the
11:19
Speaker 1: college kids come over here to start a fire?
11:22
Speaker 2: Because again they can only see.
11:23
Speaker 1: The tops of the flames of this fire down in
11:27
Speaker 1: this neighboring depression. They can't see the person or people
11:29
Speaker 1: who are around it. But they're thinking, like the people
11:33
Speaker 1: over there have no idea that we are over here.
11:36
Speaker 1: And so the two girls are like, well, what if
11:37
Speaker 1: we kind of go back down to where we were
11:39
Speaker 1: and sneak up the far side of our sort of
11:42
Speaker 1: hild in area and poke our heads over and like
11:45
Speaker 1: see who's fire this is? You know, we'll see the
11:47
Speaker 1: college kids and see what they're doing. We can like
11:50
Speaker 1: spy on them or something, and the two.
11:52
Speaker 2: Girls are like, yeah, why not, We're already here.
11:54
Speaker 1: And so the two girls they turn around, they walk
11:56
Speaker 1: back down into the base of their depression where they're
12:00
Speaker 1: the big rock and the tree was that they were
12:01
Speaker 1: just sitting on for the past couple of hours, and
12:04
Speaker 1: they walked past it basically to the other side and
12:06
Speaker 1: begin walking up that hill. And as they're getting closer
12:10
Speaker 1: and closer to the top of this hill, when eventually,
12:12
Speaker 1: once they reached the top, they could peer over and
12:15
Speaker 1: see the fire and see whoever was there. Right as
12:18
Speaker 1: they got almost to the top, Rachel sort of unintentionally
12:22
Speaker 1: makes some noise, like the way she was walking and
12:24
Speaker 1: she sort of made a sound as she stepped on something.
12:26
Speaker 1: But she accidentally makes a fair amount of noise, and
12:29
Speaker 1: the only noise in the area was the sound of
12:32
Speaker 1: the fire, like they hadn't heard any voices yet, and
12:35
Speaker 1: so Rachel she just covers her mouth and looks over
12:37
Speaker 1: at Molly, and Molly kind of looked at her like
12:38
Speaker 1: what are you doing, Like we're sneaking up on these people,
12:41
Speaker 1: like why are you making noise? And the two girls
12:43
Speaker 1: they just freeze for a second, waiting to see if
12:45
Speaker 1: you know, whoever was over there heard them and sort
12:47
Speaker 1: of reacted to the noise Rachel made, but it was silent,
12:51
Speaker 1: sort of eerily silent.
12:53
Speaker 2: And at this point Rachel and Molly.
12:55
Speaker 1: It was like the mood just shifted, like they had
12:57
Speaker 1: not reached the top of the hill yet, they had
12:59
Speaker 1: not seen whoever was at this fire, but it was
13:03
Speaker 1: like something just felt wrong now. And the two girls
13:06
Speaker 1: looked at each other and they're like, maybe we should
13:09
Speaker 1: just turn around and leave. And they both were like, yeah,
13:11
Speaker 1: let's get out of here, like this doesn't feel right.
13:14
Speaker 1: And so right then and there, the two girls, as
13:16
Speaker 1: quietly as they could, turned and retreated back down to
13:19
Speaker 1: the center of the depression where the rock and the
13:21
Speaker 1: tree was, and they begin walking back up the original
13:24
Speaker 1: side of the hill in the direction of where their
13:26
Speaker 1: car is parked at the top. Then as they're walking up,
13:30
Speaker 1: Rachel just happens to turn back around where they had
13:33
Speaker 1: just been, just to look in the direction of where
13:35
Speaker 1: they had just been, and now she sees there is
13:38
Speaker 1: clearly a man standing on the ridge line with the
13:41
Speaker 1: fire behind him illuminating him, and he's just standing there
13:44
Speaker 1: sort of ominously staring in the direction of Rachel and Molly,
13:48
Speaker 1: and he's just not saying a word, he's just looking
13:51
Speaker 1: in their direction.
13:51
Speaker 2: Clearly he was the one over at the fire.
13:54
Speaker 1: He must have heard them. And Rachel she whips around
13:56
Speaker 1: and she's like, Molly, look, look, look, and Molly looks,
13:59
Speaker 1: and she's like, let's get out here. We don't know
14:00
Speaker 1: who that guy is, Like, we got to get out
14:01
Speaker 1: of here. And so Rachel and Molly they begin quickly
14:04
Speaker 1: walking up the hill and then a second later, Rachel
14:07
Speaker 1: turns back around and the man is no longer on
14:09
Speaker 1: the hill, but then she sees movement and she realizes
14:12
Speaker 1: he's running down the hill in their direction, and so
14:16
Speaker 1: the girls start screaming. They start running up the hill.
14:18
Speaker 1: Rachel's constantly looking around, and this guy's gaining on them.
14:21
Speaker 1: They get to the top of the hill, they charge
14:23
Speaker 1: over to Molly's car. They jump inside, they lock the doors,
14:26
Speaker 1: they fire it up, and they drive off and as
14:28
Speaker 1: they're driving, Rachel's looking out the back window and she
14:31
Speaker 1: sees this man basically looking he's reached the road, like
14:34
Speaker 1: he almost got to them, and he was looking in
14:36
Speaker 1: their direction, and as they drove off, he just slowly
14:40
Speaker 1: turned and walked back down the hill out of sight,
14:44
Speaker 1: and so Rachel and Molly they're like totally shaken up
14:47
Speaker 1: by this, Like clearly that wasn't a college kid, like
14:50
Speaker 1: that was a forty something year old man who they
14:52
Speaker 1: had never seen before. Like the whole situation just felt
14:56
Speaker 1: totally just creepy and spooky, and they really didn't.
14:59
Speaker 2: Know what to me of it.
15:00
Speaker 1: They sort of felt like what could have happened if
15:02
Speaker 1: he reached us, Like was what was he trying to do?
15:04
Speaker 2: Like what just happened?
15:07
Speaker 1: But ultimately when they got home, or when Mollie dropped
15:09
Speaker 1: Rachel off at her house, the two girls were sort of.
15:12
Speaker 2: Like, man, that was that was crazy? Huh. You know.
15:14
Speaker 1: They kind of like chalked it up as like just
15:16
Speaker 1: a crazy night, you know, like, oh boy, we better
15:18
Speaker 1: you know, stay out of there alone at night, you know,
15:20
Speaker 1: Like it was just sort of a joke by the
15:22
Speaker 1: time they were done for the night. And so Rachel,
15:25
Speaker 1: you know, she goes into her house, doesn't even tell
15:27
Speaker 1: her mom. She just you know, puts her stuff down,
15:29
Speaker 1: goes to a room. And Molly she went to her
15:31
Speaker 1: house and she too, didn't even tell anyone. She went
15:33
Speaker 1: to bed as well. The next morning, Rachel woke up
15:36
Speaker 1: and she went downstairs into the kitchen and her mom
15:39
Speaker 1: was in there, and her mom was just kind of
15:41
Speaker 1: doing her morning routine, and when she saw Rachel come in,
15:44
Speaker 1: she said to Rachel, like, hey, how was your night
15:46
Speaker 1: last night? And Rachel was like, oh, you know, it's fine.
15:49
Speaker 1: Me and me and Molly went out. It was fine,
15:51
Speaker 1: no big deal. And her mom was like, oh, did
15:54
Speaker 1: you hear what happened last night? And Rachel's like, no,
15:57
Speaker 1: what do you mean what happened? And her mom was like, well,
16:01
Speaker 1: a woman in her town got kidnapped, and she actually
16:03
Speaker 1: she got kidnapped from the very parking garage where I park,
16:08
Speaker 1: like she worked in the same building as me. She
16:10
Speaker 1: got kidnapped. And Rachel's like, oh my god, what happened
16:14
Speaker 1: to her? Like did they find her? And Rachel's mom
16:18
Speaker 1: was like no, Unfortunately it was too late. When they
16:22
Speaker 1: found her, she was dead. And in fact, whoever kidnapped
16:25
Speaker 1: and then killed her brought her body last night to
16:29
Speaker 1: the local cemetery and burned her in this huge bonfire,
16:34
Speaker 1: and whoever did it still hasn't been caught. And when
16:38
Speaker 1: Rachel heard this, it was like her whole world came
16:41
Speaker 1: crashing down because suddenly she understood what had happened the
16:44
Speaker 1: night before. That fire was no ordinary fire. That was
16:49
Speaker 1: the killer that chased them down the hill. That fire
16:51
Speaker 1: very likely contained the woman who had been killed. They
16:54
Speaker 1: were right next to this person, this killer, and this
16:58
Speaker 1: horrible thing happening. And even more or creepy is like
17:01
Speaker 1: they were there very likely when the killer arrived, set
17:05
Speaker 1: up shop and began burning this body, you know, no
17:07
Speaker 1: more than one hundred meters away from them. And what
17:10
Speaker 1: would have happened if that man who chased them, what
17:13
Speaker 1: would have happened if he caught them? And so Rachel
17:15
Speaker 1: she pours her heart out to her mom and tells
17:18
Speaker 1: her everything that happened the night before, and her mom
17:20
Speaker 1: is like, oh my god.
17:21
Speaker 2: I can't believe this happened.
17:23
Speaker 1: You have to tell the police because they haven't caught
17:25
Speaker 1: this guy, like you have a description of him, like
17:27
Speaker 1: go talk to the police. And so, sure enough, Rachel
17:31
Speaker 1: she gets in touch with Molly and you know, tells
17:33
Speaker 1: Mollie what happened, and Molly's totally in hysterics.
17:35
Speaker 2: They can't believe what a close call this was. And
17:37
Speaker 2: they do go to the police.
17:39
Speaker 1: They tell them, you know, to the best of their
17:41
Speaker 1: ability what they remember about this guy, which unfortunately was
17:44
Speaker 1: not much. It was like he was average height, you know,
17:47
Speaker 1: he looked to be maybe in his forties.
17:48
Speaker 2: Like, there wasn't much to their description.
17:51
Speaker 1: But fortunately, just forty eight hours later, the police were
17:54
Speaker 1: able to catch this guy and he would make a
17:57
Speaker 1: full confession. Luckily, two days days later, not really because
18:01
Speaker 1: of the girl's description at all, but just sort of
18:04
Speaker 1: by luck alone, the police happened to see the victim's
18:08
Speaker 1: car in town. Somebody was driving the victim's car around,
18:11
Speaker 1: and so they pulled this person over that wound up
18:13
Speaker 1: being the killer, who, after being arrested, did make a
18:16
Speaker 1: full confession. And so, needless to say, Rachel and Molly,
18:20
Speaker 1: when they think about what happened that night in the cemetery,
18:23
Speaker 1: they feel very fortunate that Rachel sort of inadvertently made
18:27
Speaker 1: noise on their approach to go spy on the fire,
18:30
Speaker 1: which ultimately caused them both to sort of rethink their
18:32
Speaker 1: decisions and turn around and leave and very likely saved
18:35
Speaker 1: their life, because if that hadn't happened, and they had
18:38
Speaker 1: gone over the hill and had been confronted by the killer,
18:41
Speaker 1: it's entirely possible that both those girls could have wound
18:44
Speaker 1: up in the bonfire as well. So, before I became
19:00
Speaker 1: mister Balin, and you know, told stories on the internet,
19:03
Speaker 1: you know, strange.
19:04
Speaker 2: Dark and mysterious stories. I was in the military.
19:07
Speaker 1: I was in Navy Seal for seven years, and there
19:11
Speaker 1: was a time where I believe that was going to
19:12
Speaker 1: be my calling in life. But I ultimately got hurt
19:16
Speaker 1: and honestly, it wasn't really a fit. So I wound
19:18
Speaker 1: up departing, and then obviously the rest is history.
19:21
Speaker 2: I became mister Balin.
19:23
Speaker 1: But you know, I have lots of stories about my
19:26
Speaker 1: time when I was in the military. I have lots
19:29
Speaker 1: of really funny stories about training and scary stories.
19:33
Speaker 2: You know, about my actual service overseas.
19:35
Speaker 1: But one story that has always stood out to me
19:40
Speaker 1: was actually what it was like to deploy for the
19:43
Speaker 1: very first time to Afghanistan. And this is not really
19:48
Speaker 1: a war story, and that's why this story sort of
19:49
Speaker 1: stands out to me. So, you know, I spend you know, years,
19:53
Speaker 1: literally almost three years training and becoming a Navy Seal
19:57
Speaker 1: and then it's like, okay, I get to my seal
19:59
Speaker 1: team on on the East Coast, in Virginia, and you know,
20:02
Speaker 1: so Seal Team Too is where I was, and we
20:04
Speaker 1: start training for our deployment and we find out it's
20:07
Speaker 1: going to be to Afghanistan. And you know, this is
20:09
Speaker 1: back in twenty thirteen, and so you know, going to
20:12
Speaker 1: Afghanistan likely meant combat. In that time, there was still
20:16
Speaker 1: definitely active combat operations happening, and for Navy Seals and
20:20
Speaker 1: for any like you know, direct combat unit, you do
20:24
Speaker 1: want to go to war, not because you are like
20:26
Speaker 1: a warmonger, but because that's what you train for. And
20:28
Speaker 1: so it's like okay, like I'm getting ready for combat,
20:32
Speaker 1: and then the day comes and the way you deploy
20:35
Speaker 1: is this is not unique to Navy Seals, but like
20:37
Speaker 1: they don't send you out to wherever you're going in
20:41
Speaker 1: one group because it's sort of risky. You know what
20:43
Speaker 1: if a plane crash is and your whole platoon gets
20:45
Speaker 1: wiped out, right, So you get sent out in like
20:48
Speaker 1: little batches, like sometimes on civilian flights, Like I flew
20:51
Speaker 1: to first to South America with like a couple other
20:54
Speaker 1: seals were all dressed as civilians, and then we hitched
20:56
Speaker 1: a military transit flight actually into Afghanistan. But again like
21:01
Speaker 1: my mentality as I'm getting ready for this deployment is like, okay,
21:04
Speaker 1: like this is the thing I've trained for, Like, here
21:06
Speaker 1: we go like combat. And I remember I was on
21:10
Speaker 1: this this military plane. This is the last leg actually
21:13
Speaker 1: getting into Afghanistan. And when we actually flew into Afghani airspace,
21:20
Speaker 1: which is an active war zone at the time, the pilots,
21:23
Speaker 1: the military pilots, they turned the lights inside of the
21:27
Speaker 1: aircraft from the white overhead like you know, daytime lights,
21:31
Speaker 1: to red and they told all of us to stay
21:34
Speaker 1: away from the windows. And the reason was, like we're
21:37
Speaker 1: now entering, you know, the part of this trip where
21:39
Speaker 1: we're going to land, and in theory, you know, the
21:41
Speaker 1: plane could get shot at. You don't want to get
21:43
Speaker 1: shot at through the window. And I mean, if you
21:45
Speaker 1: think about it, if you're getting blasted by like an RPG,
21:48
Speaker 1: it's not going to matter that like you're near a
21:49
Speaker 1: window or not. But it's it was sort of this
21:51
Speaker 1: stark reminder that it's like, okay, here we go, like
21:54
Speaker 1: we're about to enter a war zone. And then the
21:57
Speaker 1: way these planes would land is they needed to basically
22:00
Speaker 1: cut down the amount of time they were within small
22:03
Speaker 1: arms range so the lower you get, the more you know,
22:06
Speaker 1: sort of exposed the plane is.
22:08
Speaker 2: And so the way they'd land is they.
22:10
Speaker 1: Would take these really steep descents and basically like fly
22:14
Speaker 1: straight down and then land really abruptly.
22:17
Speaker 2: It was like sort of gnarly. And so we're coming
22:19
Speaker 2: in for this crazy landing. The red lights are on.
22:21
Speaker 2: Everyone's tucked away from the windows, and I'm like, okay,
22:24
Speaker 2: we're getting ready for Afghanistan.
22:26
Speaker 1: And we touched down, and you know, it's a successful landing,
22:29
Speaker 1: and now we're in this like pretty well fortified base.
22:34
Speaker 2: Shank is what it was called.
22:36
Speaker 1: And I remember the back of the plane opened up
22:39
Speaker 1: after you know, we sort of had stopped taxiing, you know,
22:42
Speaker 1: we came to a stop and the back of the
22:43
Speaker 1: plane opened up. And remember my mentality is like, okay,
22:47
Speaker 1: we're going to war, right, And I grabbed my pack.
22:49
Speaker 1: The rest of my stuff had been packed on pallets
22:51
Speaker 1: and sent, you know know, weeks prior, so all I
22:54
Speaker 1: have as a backpack and me and a buddy of mine,
22:56
Speaker 1: another guy on my team, we walk out the back
23:00
Speaker 1: the runway and we basically see Afghanistan really for the
23:03
Speaker 1: first time because I really had the windows on the airplane,
23:06
Speaker 1: by the way, were like these little portholes. You really
23:09
Speaker 1: never got a good look, not to mention we had
23:10
Speaker 1: to avoid the windows. So this is like my first
23:12
Speaker 1: view of Afghanistan, and I remember just like looking around
23:18
Speaker 1: and it was just unbelievably beautiful, Like Afghanistan is shockingly beautiful.
23:25
Speaker 1: It's in every direction three hundred and sixty degrees. These
23:28
Speaker 1: just enormous like massive snow covered mountains and just beautiful fields.
23:33
Speaker 1: It's like untouched land, and like we're in the middle
23:36
Speaker 1: of this like jagged scar across the earth, which is
23:39
Speaker 1: this like NATO base where.
23:41
Speaker 2: War is sort of launched out of.
23:43
Speaker 1: But it's like you're looking around at just this unbelievably
23:47
Speaker 1: beautiful place, and it was like in such contrast to
23:51
Speaker 1: what I believed I was coming here for what I
23:53
Speaker 1: was there for, like to fight in a war, and
23:56
Speaker 1: it just like didn't compute, like this is too beautiful
23:59
Speaker 1: a place to be having a war fought. But I mean,
24:02
Speaker 1: very quickly after sort of seeing this environment and being
24:05
Speaker 1: like oh my gosh, you know, we were quickly ushered
24:07
Speaker 1: over to this like holding area and we had to
24:09
Speaker 1: grab our stuff and then before long we had jumped
24:12
Speaker 1: into these these very up armored military vehicles called rgs,
24:16
Speaker 1: which are like like fifty thousand ton anti ied vehicles
24:21
Speaker 1: basically but debtonates underneath you. In theory, you'll surarrive and
24:25
Speaker 1: out we go. You know, from the base we were
24:28
Speaker 1: on out to this like very forward operating base that
24:31
Speaker 1: was sort of out in the sticks, and it was
24:33
Speaker 1: like sort of a vulnerable spot and it was where
24:35
Speaker 1: we were going to be operating from for the next
24:37
Speaker 1: six months. You know, our mission was pretty pretty vulnerable.
24:40
Speaker 1: You know, we were out sort of actually actively fighting
24:43
Speaker 1: the war. But that first night we get to our
24:47
Speaker 1: actual base, this very stripped down, like very vulnerable spot
24:51
Speaker 1: out in the middle of nowhere, and when we got there,
24:54
Speaker 1: there were the previous team was still there. They were
24:57
Speaker 1: wrapping up their deployment, and there were interpreters who are
25:01
Speaker 1: a central part of the war fighting effort, you know,
25:04
Speaker 1: from our side, and a lot of these interpreters who
25:07
Speaker 1: are pretty young, like in their twenties, like they've been
25:10
Speaker 1: they've been out there working with various units that have
25:13
Speaker 1: come through those bases for years, and because they're working
25:16
Speaker 1: with NATO, they really they don't.
25:18
Speaker 2: Have a place outside of the base like they're.
25:20
Speaker 1: Targeted by the Taliban and other sort of militant groups
25:24
Speaker 1: because you know, they're working for NATO. They're traders, you know,
25:28
Speaker 1: And so the great promise for these interpreters is that
25:31
Speaker 1: by working with NATO, eventually they'll be given the opportunity
25:35
Speaker 1: to leave Afghanistan and come to the United States. And
25:37
Speaker 1: for some people that's true, not true for everybody. But
25:40
Speaker 1: these interpreters are like hard as nails. They've been in
25:44
Speaker 1: so many gunfights, Like these people have seen some crazy stuff.
25:48
Speaker 1: And I my role was to work with these interpreters.
25:51
Speaker 1: I was going to be someone that worked with our
25:52
Speaker 1: partner for us. And so I get to this little outstation.
25:56
Speaker 1: It's late at night, and it's sort of overwhelming, this
25:58
Speaker 1: whole thing.
26:00
Speaker 2: You know.
26:00
Speaker 1: The team that was already there, still Team eight, they
26:02
Speaker 1: were like so like Cowboy by this point, they'd been
26:05
Speaker 1: in combat now for the last six months. They're all
26:08
Speaker 1: just like jacked and huge beards, like they could care
26:11
Speaker 1: less about anything.
26:12
Speaker 2: And I'm like super green.
26:13
Speaker 1: And I went and I met with one of our
26:15
Speaker 1: interpreters to like sort of give me a lay of
26:16
Speaker 1: the land of what to expect over the next couple
26:18
Speaker 1: of days, and so we talked about some operations we'd
26:22
Speaker 1: likely do and sort of, you know, got to know
26:23
Speaker 1: each other a little bit. But at some point one
26:26
Speaker 1: of these interpreters, the guy I was talking to, who
26:29
Speaker 1: maybe was like twenty five twenty six and I was
26:31
Speaker 1: in my twenties two, he said to me, he goes bro, Bro,
26:34
Speaker 1: and they all talk in like Western slang, like their
26:37
Speaker 1: English is like rugged, like American military slang because they're
26:41
Speaker 1: around like eighteen year old marines twenty four to seven.
26:45
Speaker 1: He's like, Bro, have you heard the story of what
26:48
Speaker 1: was in the cave in Kandahar. Now we were in
26:51
Speaker 1: a different part of Afghanistan, but he was referencing Kandahar, Afghanistan.
26:56
Speaker 1: And what I would come to find out is there
26:57
Speaker 1: was this story about a giant, like a creature, some
27:02
Speaker 1: huge creature that lived in a cave out in the
27:06
Speaker 1: mountains of kandahart And like Afghanistan again, is this huge
27:09
Speaker 1: just like mountains everywhere, and there are all these cave
27:12
Speaker 1: systems up in these mountains, some of which are like
27:15
Speaker 1: untouched by humanity.
27:17
Speaker 2: And this this terp was.
27:18
Speaker 1: Like, Bro, I'm telling you, it's real, Like there was
27:22
Speaker 1: there was a giant up in the caves in kandahart like,
27:25
Speaker 1: have you heard about this? Like I want to know
27:26
Speaker 1: more than the interpreter did, and so, you know, we
27:29
Speaker 1: didn't really talk much more than that, but it was
27:31
Speaker 1: planted in my mind that there was like this real
27:33
Speaker 1: belief by this interpreter that there was like some truth
27:37
Speaker 1: to this what sounded like sort of a folklore, this
27:39
Speaker 1: crazy story about a giant in a cave. And so
27:42
Speaker 1: it stuck with me, you know, it stuck with me
27:44
Speaker 1: that I had heard that story. Fast forward, you know,
27:47
Speaker 1: years later, I'm out of the military and I've become
27:52
Speaker 1: mister Balin, you know, I've begun telling strange, dark and
27:55
Speaker 1: mysterious stories on the Internet, and I was thinking about
27:59
Speaker 1: what stories I want to tell. This is like in
28:00
Speaker 1: the very early days of having the channel, and I
28:04
Speaker 1: suddenly remembered like the Kandahar giant, and I was like, man,
28:08
Speaker 1: I want to look into that and see if there's
28:10
Speaker 1: any truth to what my interpreter was getting at. And
28:13
Speaker 1: sure enough, I found like this treasure trove of testimony
28:17
Speaker 1: from this special operations group, the Green Berets that apparently
28:21
Speaker 1: did like this one particular group of Green Berets that
28:25
Speaker 1: apparently came in touch with something otherworldly up in the
28:28
Speaker 1: caves of Kandahar, and in particular, there was one soldier
28:33
Speaker 1: who just went by mister K because he was worried
28:35
Speaker 1: about his name getting out there, who gave just like
28:38
Speaker 1: shocking testimony about what they saw. And so I felt
28:42
Speaker 1: like I needed to do this story justice. I wanted
28:45
Speaker 1: to sort of compile the notes and put together a
28:48
Speaker 1: story that you know, sort of picked up where my
28:50
Speaker 1: interpreter had began. And I told the story years and
28:54
Speaker 1: years ago, and tonight I'm going to.
28:56
Speaker 2: Tell you that story again.
28:58
Speaker 1: So in two thousand and two, there was this Army
29:00
Speaker 1: infantry unit that was out doing a patrol in the
29:03
Speaker 1: Kandahar Mountain range. Again, you get a picture just massive
29:07
Speaker 1: snow covered mountains. I mean, this is a huge area,
29:10
Speaker 1: and you know a lot of times in two thousand
29:12
Speaker 1: and two, these patrols, you know, you'd be sort of
29:14
Speaker 1: looking potentially for cave systems where Talban fighters would be
29:18
Speaker 1: camping out, or you know, sometimes there'd be fighters that
29:20
Speaker 1: were down in the valleys below. But these patrols were
29:23
Speaker 1: fairly routine for NATO in two thousand and two, and
29:27
Speaker 1: so this unit, they're out on patrol, and generally the
29:31
Speaker 1: way it works really independent of what branch of the
29:33
Speaker 1: military you're in. In the US military, you know, when
29:36
Speaker 1: you're out on patrol, you basically update some level of
29:41
Speaker 1: higher command as you're doing the operation. And also, by
29:44
Speaker 1: the way, virtually no operations, no matter how routine or mundane, like,
29:50
Speaker 1: no operations aren't planned out. Like everything is planned like
29:54
Speaker 1: what time you get there, how long you're going to
29:56
Speaker 1: be there, what you're trying to do, when you're going
29:58
Speaker 1: to leave, what platform you're going to use to leave,
30:00
Speaker 1: like everything is really coordinated.
30:02
Speaker 2: And so this unit they went.
30:04
Speaker 1: Out, you know, for the you know, umpteenth time to
30:06
Speaker 1: do this patrol, and at some point in the middle
30:09
Speaker 1: of this this patrol, the higher command lost contact with them.
30:14
Speaker 1: And the reason this immediately stood out as problematic is,
30:18
Speaker 1: you know, it wasn't totally unusual for a group to
30:22
Speaker 1: lose comms. I mean, you're trying to communicate across huge
30:25
Speaker 1: mountain ranges, you know, using you know, these radios that
30:28
Speaker 1: are really a lot of times not that great, and
30:30
Speaker 1: so losing comms is not that unusual. But generally speaking,
30:36
Speaker 1: like a lot of times, if you lose comms, you
30:38
Speaker 1: get it back pretty quickly, and so there had been
30:40
Speaker 1: a pretty long period of time where no one could
30:42
Speaker 1: get in touch with this unit. And then on top
30:45
Speaker 1: of that, as you know, higher command was beginning to
30:48
Speaker 1: figure out, like what we should do here. Should we
30:49
Speaker 1: send out a quick reaction for us to go find them,
30:52
Speaker 1: should we send you know.
30:53
Speaker 2: Air assets overhead to go try to look for them
30:55
Speaker 2: that way.
30:56
Speaker 1: As they're thinking about that, somebody realized that not only
31:00
Speaker 1: had they suddenly gone silent this you know, huge infantry unit,
31:04
Speaker 1: but also they had not called in a TICK before
31:08
Speaker 1: they went silent. So a TICK or troops in contact
31:12
Speaker 1: is the acronym for basically being.
31:14
Speaker 2: In a gunfight.
31:15
Speaker 1: And the reason this is important is you know, when
31:18
Speaker 1: you're in a in a combat zone, your higher command
31:22
Speaker 1: doesn't automatically know if you're getting shot at or if
31:25
Speaker 1: you're in an active gunfight.
31:27
Speaker 2: You need to call it in.
31:28
Speaker 1: And the reason you call it in is because you
31:31
Speaker 1: may need huge help.
31:32
Speaker 2: You might want air assets to.
31:34
Speaker 1: Come in and save the day, you might need a metavac,
31:37
Speaker 1: you might need reinforcements. And so basically, the instant you
31:40
Speaker 1: start getting shot at, commanders on the ground or whoever's
31:44
Speaker 1: on the ground could be someone super junior. They'll call
31:47
Speaker 1: into higher command and say troops in contact, you know,
31:49
Speaker 1: tick tick tick tick tick. And the reason they do
31:52
Speaker 1: that is basically to have help on standby. Now they're like, okay,
31:56
Speaker 1: we know something's going down, we're ready to support. And
31:59
Speaker 1: in fact, you know we saw when we were in
32:01
Speaker 1: Afghanistan is if anything, we were like too quick to
32:05
Speaker 1: call in a tick, because it's sort of like a
32:06
Speaker 1: cheat code, right like, oh, I think I heard gunfire
32:08
Speaker 1: our way over there, call in a tick, and then
32:10
Speaker 1: immediately you got like wart hogs overhead and crazy assets everywhere,
32:14
Speaker 1: like you're totally protected. We sort of took advantage of it,
32:17
Speaker 1: and a lot of people did, Like it's rare for
32:20
Speaker 1: the reverse to happen, Like people are not conservative calling
32:23
Speaker 1: this in, and so for an entire unit to suddenly
32:26
Speaker 1: go like silent having not called in a tick, it's
32:30
Speaker 1: either a huge like radio problem but that usually gets
32:35
Speaker 1: resolved relatively quickly, or it's something else, something that is
32:39
Speaker 1: just harder to define because it just doesn't.
32:40
Speaker 2: Really happen very much.
32:42
Speaker 1: And so after a certain amount of time had passed,
32:45
Speaker 1: when still no one could get in touch with this unit, Ultimately,
32:49
Speaker 1: the Army decided this was, you know, a big enough deal.
32:51
Speaker 1: You know, there was enough people in that unit that
32:53
Speaker 1: were now unaccounted for that they decided to send in
32:57
Speaker 1: an elite military unit to try to find them, and
32:59
Speaker 1: so they tapped.
33:01
Speaker 2: This Green Beret unit.
33:02
Speaker 1: So the army's top special forces team, the Green Berets,
33:06
Speaker 1: they grabbed a group of those guys and said, you
33:09
Speaker 1: go out into the mountains of Kandahar to their last
33:11
Speaker 1: known location and figure out what happened to them. And
33:14
Speaker 1: one of the people that was in this detachment of
33:17
Speaker 1: Green Bereys was mister K, one of the people that
33:20
Speaker 1: gave pretty incredible testimony that I'm about to relay to
33:23
Speaker 1: you right now. So mister K and the rest of
33:27
Speaker 1: his small, you know, small group of Green Berets they
33:30
Speaker 1: hop on helicopters and they fly out to this section
33:33
Speaker 1: of Kandahar where you know, this infantry unit was last
33:37
Speaker 1: and they touched down.
33:38
Speaker 2: And you've got to understand.
33:39
Speaker 1: That this is like rural as rural can be. There
33:43
Speaker 1: is you know, no people, like there's no cities, no nothing.
33:45
Speaker 1: There's like mud huts periodically, but it's just like mountains,
33:49
Speaker 1: you know, you kind of feel like sometimes when you're
33:50
Speaker 1: in Afghanistan that you're like almost on a different planet.
33:53
Speaker 2: And so they touched.
33:54
Speaker 1: Down and they look around and they see nobody, like
33:57
Speaker 1: there's no locals, there's certainly no you know, American military
34:01
Speaker 1: or NATO.
34:02
Speaker 2: It's just like a wasteland in all directions.
34:05
Speaker 1: And they know that the area they're searching it is
34:07
Speaker 1: pretty sizable and it's very mountainous, so it's going to
34:09
Speaker 1: be like a very rough several days of basically hiking
34:13
Speaker 1: through the mountains trying to find any sign in this unit.
34:16
Speaker 1: And so they touchdown and they all have like extremely
34:20
Speaker 1: heavy packs on. I mean, you got all your amo,
34:21
Speaker 1: your equipment, like this is a rugged thing they're doing.
34:25
Speaker 2: And they start hiking through the mountains.
34:27
Speaker 1: Based on the brief that that unit had given before
34:29
Speaker 1: they stepped out for this mission, they sort of had
34:31
Speaker 1: a rough idea of mister Ky and his unit of
34:34
Speaker 1: the direction of travel, and so they're.
34:36
Speaker 2: Sort of following that direction. But as they're hiking.
34:39
Speaker 1: Through the mountains, i mean the unit that mister k
34:42
Speaker 1: was a part of, they didn't find anybody and for
34:45
Speaker 1: several days, I mean they're out there in the mountains
34:47
Speaker 1: just hiking all day. You know, they came into contact
34:50
Speaker 1: a couple of times with the enemy, but there wasn't
34:52
Speaker 1: even any ticks or anything. It was just like at
34:53
Speaker 1: a distance, like, oh, there's some fighters over there. But
34:56
Speaker 1: they're on a mission to find these missing soldiers, so
34:58
Speaker 1: they're not trying to engage with anybody else, like they're
35:01
Speaker 1: just hiking and looking for any sign of this unit.
35:05
Speaker 1: But again, for a few days, they they couldn't find anything. Finally, though,
35:10
Speaker 1: on the fourth day of this rescue mission, so during
35:12
Speaker 1: the daytime, mister Kay and his team they're they're you know,
35:16
Speaker 1: walking along the mountain range and they decide to take
35:19
Speaker 1: this this goat trail that they can see right ahead
35:21
Speaker 1: of them. It's it sort of goes up and over
35:23
Speaker 1: the top of this mountain. They decide, okay, we're just
35:25
Speaker 1: gonna take that goat trail and see what's on the
35:28
Speaker 1: other side. You know, there wasn't any clear agenda for
35:31
Speaker 1: why this goat trail was of interest, but they're like,
35:34
Speaker 1: you know, everywhere else we're walking is just rugged and awful.
35:37
Speaker 1: At least this this goat trail, a literal trail made
35:40
Speaker 1: by goats running along this area is easier to walk on.
35:43
Speaker 1: So let's take that. We'll follow it to the other side,
35:45
Speaker 1: and we'll see what's up there, you know. And also
35:47
Speaker 1: we'll be up higher and we can maybe get a
35:49
Speaker 1: view down into the valley on the other side, and
35:51
Speaker 1: maybe we'll see something. And so mister Ka and the
35:54
Speaker 1: rest of the Green Berets begin making their way up
35:57
Speaker 1: this goat trail, which sort of you know, meandered its
35:59
Speaker 1: way up and then eventually on to the other side.
36:02
Speaker 1: And as they're walking up, they start to notice these
36:05
Speaker 1: little bits of plastic and metal sort of strewn about
36:08
Speaker 1: on the trail, And at first, as they're walking, they
36:11
Speaker 1: don't actually know what they are, but as they keep moving,
36:14
Speaker 1: they start to realize that these are parts of military equipment,
36:19
Speaker 1: like these are parts of radios and other stuff that
36:21
Speaker 1: would definitely belong to, for example, an infantry unit. And
36:26
Speaker 1: so now like mister Kay and the others, they got
36:27
Speaker 1: their rifles sort of ready to go, they're walking up
36:30
Speaker 1: more apprehensively because they're thinking like this is this is
36:33
Speaker 1: obviously connected to what we're looking for, Like who knows
36:36
Speaker 1: what we're gonna find once we cross the top of
36:38
Speaker 1: this mountain, Like are we gonna find like a bloodbath.
36:41
Speaker 1: Are we gonna find the missing unit waiting for us?
36:44
Speaker 2: Like they don't know? And so they continue walking.
36:46
Speaker 1: Up this trail, and as they get higher and higher,
36:48
Speaker 1: they find bigger and bigger pieces of military equipment on
36:52
Speaker 1: the ground, like whole military backpacks.
36:55
Speaker 2: Like bigger chunks of radios.
36:57
Speaker 1: And then also they began finding bits of uniform like
37:00
Speaker 1: military uniforms that even in some cases still had like
37:04
Speaker 1: name tags and patches on them, and they were able
37:07
Speaker 1: to see very clearly that those uniforms at least definitely
37:10
Speaker 1: belonged to the specific unit they were looking for. So
37:14
Speaker 1: they know, like they've discovered their first real lead here,
37:17
Speaker 1: and it doesn't look good, And so up the goat
37:20
Speaker 1: trail they go, and they finally get to the very top.
37:22
Speaker 1: And I say this, You know, I'm trying not to
37:24
Speaker 1: be biased, because obviously I was an AV Seal and
37:27
Speaker 1: I think very highly of US Special Operations and their training.
37:31
Speaker 1: But you know, Green Berets and Navy Seals, they're very
37:34
Speaker 1: different and definitely do different jobs, but in many ways
37:38
Speaker 1: they are peers, certainly in terms of like the rigor
37:40
Speaker 1: of training. And one of the things that it's just
37:43
Speaker 1: absolutely true and I've seen it in combat, is.
37:47
Speaker 2: That when stuff gets wild.
37:48
Speaker 1: Like a in a combat scenario and in a dangerous scenario,
37:53
Speaker 1: these green Berets would have absolutely fallen into their training
37:57
Speaker 1: like flawlessly. This would not have been no matter how
38:00
Speaker 1: crazy or how insane, whatever they saw on the other
38:03
Speaker 1: side of the mountain, whatever it was going to be,
38:05
Speaker 1: they were ready for it. And so they would have
38:06
Speaker 1: been like dialed in making their way up the mountain,
38:09
Speaker 1: getting ready to handle whatever's up there. And so you know,
38:13
Speaker 1: mister k And and his team they make their way
38:15
Speaker 1: to the very top of this goat trail, and when
38:18
Speaker 1: they crested the top, what they saw was like this
38:21
Speaker 1: this plateau. So it wasn't like a peak. It was
38:24
Speaker 1: like this flat section of the mountain. And actually there
38:27
Speaker 1: was there was another section of the mountain that sort
38:29
Speaker 1: of went up beyond the plateau, and there were these
38:32
Speaker 1: huge like cave entrances that sort of basically fed out.
38:36
Speaker 1: These three cave entrances fed out onto this plateau as
38:40
Speaker 1: if it was like the plateau was the front porch
38:42
Speaker 1: and the cave entrances or like the doors that lead
38:45
Speaker 1: into this upper section of the mountain.
38:48
Speaker 2: And on this plateau.
38:49
Speaker 1: Scattered all over the place is not just you know,
38:52
Speaker 1: more pieces of military equipment, but also pretty obviously human
38:58
Speaker 1: bones or what appeared to be human bones like scattered about,
39:02
Speaker 1: and there was you know.
39:03
Speaker 2: No living people up here.
39:04
Speaker 1: The missing unit was definitely not up here, but it
39:07
Speaker 1: looked like if they were up here, I mean, something
39:10
Speaker 1: horrible happened to them. And so once they reached the
39:13
Speaker 1: plateau again you got a picture like this elite military unit,
39:16
Speaker 1: they would have immediately taken up positions all around this
39:20
Speaker 1: plateau because they know these cave entrances have to be explored.
39:24
Speaker 1: You have to see who's inside of there, like is
39:27
Speaker 1: the missing unit and there are are the remaining survivors
39:30
Speaker 1: taking shelter in there are their combatants in there. And
39:32
Speaker 1: so mister Kay and his unit they sort of detailed
39:35
Speaker 1: taking up positions, you know.
39:37
Speaker 2: Getting ready to engage if they had to.
39:39
Speaker 1: And then once they were in position, mister k and
39:42
Speaker 1: the guy he was next to is shooting buddy, if
39:44
Speaker 1: you will, were tapped to go up to the entrance
39:47
Speaker 1: of one of these caves and just look inside. And
39:50
Speaker 1: so silently they got up and they walked across this
39:53
Speaker 1: plateau while the rest of the team is sort of
39:55
Speaker 1: looking outward and also looking in so there's three hundred
39:57
Speaker 1: and sixty degree security. So mister k he walks up
40:00
Speaker 1: along with the shooting buddy, and he said, he looked
40:03
Speaker 1: into this entrance, this huge, massive entrance, like could easily
40:06
Speaker 1: just walk into this opening, but it's it's totally dark inside.
40:10
Speaker 2: And so he goes into the cave.
40:12
Speaker 1: And once he gets in there, like it's very dark
40:14
Speaker 1: and he's sort of trying to to look inside to
40:16
Speaker 1: see if he can see anything, and it does go
40:18
Speaker 1: back a little ways, but you know, he barely takes
40:21
Speaker 1: a couple of steps into the cave when he realizes,
40:24
Speaker 1: like there's like this sheer cliff within the cave, like
40:27
Speaker 1: you basically walk in and then it just it shoots
40:30
Speaker 1: straight down, and you know, mister Kay, he caught himself
40:33
Speaker 1: and he looked down to see if he could see
40:35
Speaker 1: what was down sort of in this pit within the cave,
40:38
Speaker 1: but it was just too dark.
40:39
Speaker 2: He couldn't see anything.
40:40
Speaker 1: And then like as he's standing back up again getting
40:43
Speaker 1: ready to sort of assess what he should do next,
40:46
Speaker 1: he sees a flash of movement in the far backside
40:49
Speaker 1: of the cave basically beyond this, this crevass that he
40:52
Speaker 1: can't cross, and so mister k instinctively raises his gun
40:56
Speaker 1: like he's ready to engage whatever this is. But before
40:58
Speaker 1: he can, this enormous spear, like a massive javelin, comes
41:04
Speaker 1: soaring out of the cave and impales the shooting buddy.
41:09
Speaker 1: His name was Dan, the other Green Beret that was
41:11
Speaker 1: next to mister Kay, who went up to explore the cave.
41:13
Speaker 1: The spear impales him, sends him flying back, and this
41:16
Speaker 1: is a plain view of all the other Green Berets.
41:19
Speaker 2: They all see this happen.
41:21
Speaker 1: And then like in the space of a few seconds,
41:23
Speaker 1: this massive, just enormous human creature, this like twelve foot
41:29
Speaker 1: tall thing comes bounding out of the cave, clears the crevass,
41:33
Speaker 1: and charges out onto the plateau. And it sort of
41:36
Speaker 1: looked like a huge person, but again it's like twelve
41:38
Speaker 1: feet tall. It's got six fingers on each hand, six
41:42
Speaker 1: toes on each foot, it's wearing various animal skins, got
41:45
Speaker 1: this huge red hair, red beard, and it runs out
41:49
Speaker 1: to you know, presumably attack the Green Berets, but immediately
41:53
Speaker 1: they just start shooting it, and in like seconds, this
41:56
Speaker 1: massive creature falls.
41:58
Speaker 2: To the ground dead.
42:00
Speaker 1: And so at this point, like after the the creature
42:02
Speaker 1: is down, I mean, nobody knows what to make of this.
42:04
Speaker 2: But again it's like they fall back into their training.
42:07
Speaker 1: They immediately once they know the threat is down and
42:10
Speaker 1: there's nobody else coming out of the cave, they run
42:12
Speaker 1: over to Dan to provide you know, life saving care.
42:16
Speaker 1: But Dan's dead, I mean he was he was killed
42:18
Speaker 1: by this javelin. And so now the team they poked
42:21
Speaker 1: their head into the cave to make sure there wasn't
42:23
Speaker 1: anybody else, but as far as they knew, there wasn't and.
42:26
Speaker 2: For sure this this giant was dead.
42:29
Speaker 1: And so like they hadn't found the missing military unit,
42:33
Speaker 1: but now they have a casualty and like they have
42:34
Speaker 1: this horrible thing that's happened. And so one of the
42:37
Speaker 1: team leads for this Green Beret team. They end up
42:39
Speaker 1: calling higher command and they say, hey, you got to
42:41
Speaker 1: come get us. Like we can't even tell you what
42:43
Speaker 1: just happened, but we have a man down, killed in action,
42:46
Speaker 1: and we have this combatant, this this creature, we don't
42:50
Speaker 1: even know what to call it, but you got to
42:51
Speaker 1: get out here, and you got to take this thing too.
42:54
Speaker 2: We don't even know what it is.
42:55
Speaker 1: And so not long after two helos showed up, and
42:59
Speaker 1: one of them was to try transport the Green Berets
43:01
Speaker 1: and to transport Dan back to the base. And then
43:05
Speaker 1: the other helo had this huge net that they basically
43:08
Speaker 1: wrapped around this dead, huge giant and they strapped it
43:13
Speaker 1: up to the underside of the helo, and then they
43:15
Speaker 1: flew off with this giant. And you know, mister k
43:19
Speaker 1: and his unit they expected to be brought back to
43:23
Speaker 1: base and to basically debrief the mission, which you know,
43:26
Speaker 1: in Layman's terms, means you basically talk through what actually
43:29
Speaker 1: happened and you sort of put it down in your
43:31
Speaker 1: after action report, like what happened, you know.
43:34
Speaker 2: What mistakes were made, what did we do?
43:37
Speaker 1: Like you basically put it on the record, like what happened,
43:40
Speaker 1: and then you do it typically like right afterwards, even
43:42
Speaker 1: if you've had like a casualty, you immediately document what's happened.
43:47
Speaker 1: And so they go back to base expecting not only
43:50
Speaker 1: to tell their story about seeing this giant, if you will,
43:54
Speaker 1: but to maybe get some clarification about what the heck
43:57
Speaker 1: just happened, Like, you know, they wanted some more information.
44:00
Speaker 1: But when they got back to base and they did
44:02
Speaker 1: their after action report, which they sort of did on
44:05
Speaker 1: their own.
44:05
Speaker 2: Nobody came to talk to them.
44:06
Speaker 1: The unit was sort of pushed off to the side
44:08
Speaker 1: and told to just, you know, write down what you
44:10
Speaker 1: saw and just leave it at that. After they wrote
44:13
Speaker 1: it all down and they included, you know, the truth,
44:15
Speaker 1: everybody on the team saw what they saw, they were
44:18
Speaker 1: told by higher command that they actually could not publish
44:21
Speaker 1: those details in their after action report and they had
44:24
Speaker 1: to change it, like this is this. We can't say
44:26
Speaker 1: you fought a giant in a cave. We can't say that,
44:29
Speaker 1: Like there's no way that's true. You can't say it.
44:32
Speaker 1: And so mister k and his team, like despite knowing
44:35
Speaker 1: it wasn't true, they went and they changed the report
44:37
Speaker 1: and they just said they came in contact with the enemy,
44:39
Speaker 1: and the enemy, you know, through small arms fire, killed Dan.
44:43
Speaker 1: And then after they submitted this you know, erroneous report,
44:47
Speaker 1: they were then told to sign all these non disclosure
44:50
Speaker 1: agreements to basically say they would not talk about what
44:52
Speaker 1: they actually saw in that cave. And after that, I
44:55
Speaker 1: mean Dan and the rest of his unit, I mean
44:58
Speaker 1: they were basically told you can't talk talk about this,
45:00
Speaker 1: This is too sensitive, and they even went looking for
45:03
Speaker 1: more information about it, and they found that all of
45:05
Speaker 1: the reporting in Afghanistan around that time about that operation
45:09
Speaker 1: had been heavily redacted. I mean, mister K never even
45:12
Speaker 1: found out what happened to the missing unit that they
45:14
Speaker 1: had gone out looking for, Like it was just this
45:16
Speaker 1: big mystery. But fast forward fourteen years to twenty sixteen,
45:21
Speaker 1: and mister K just felt like he didn't want to
45:23
Speaker 1: keep this a secret anymore, and he spoke to some
45:25
Speaker 1: other members of his team that were there, and they
45:28
Speaker 1: too were just like really shaken up by what happened
45:30
Speaker 1: and just felt like it was wrong that nobody knew.
45:32
Speaker 1: And so that's what ultimately prompted mister K to go
45:35
Speaker 1: public with his story. And also when he went public,
45:38
Speaker 1: what he also discovered is that other people sort of
45:42
Speaker 1: in the military hierarchy also had some level of exposure
45:47
Speaker 1: to this giant. I mean, what mister K would discover
45:50
Speaker 1: is that after the giant had been hoisted in that
45:53
Speaker 1: net by that HEILO and flown off somewhere, apparently it
45:57
Speaker 1: had been brought to an airfield in Afghanistan another NATO
46:00
Speaker 1: basse and pilots that we're going to be transporting this
46:03
Speaker 1: to another base. Remember seeing this twelve to fifteen foot tall,
46:08
Speaker 1: giant looking person with six fingers on each hand and
46:11
Speaker 1: six toes on each foot in this net. They remember
46:14
Speaker 1: seeing it and actually describing it in there after action report,
46:18
Speaker 1: and they would say they were told not to include
46:20
Speaker 1: those details, and those details were redacted and made top secret.
46:24
Speaker 1: And so basically, mister Kay, after coming forward, quickly learned
46:27
Speaker 1: through the grape mine that basically everybody affiliated with the
46:31
Speaker 1: Giant was told not to talk about it, and the
46:33
Speaker 1: government basically shut it down, redacted it, and made it
46:36
Speaker 1: top secret.
46:37
Speaker 2: Now I don't really know what to make of this story.
46:40
Speaker 1: You know, there's a part of me that does want
46:42
Speaker 1: to believe that, you know, the testimony of mister k
46:44
Speaker 1: is totally legitimate. But there's also a part of me
46:47
Speaker 1: that knows that, you know, this could all.
46:49
Speaker 2: Just be made up.
46:50
Speaker 1: But a lot of people claim to have seen this thing,
46:53
Speaker 1: and I remember so distinctly, you know, my own interpreter
46:57
Speaker 1: back in twenty thirteen, being so convinced that there was
47:00
Speaker 1: something in the caves in Kandahar and he really.
47:03
Speaker 2: Wanted to know more about it. It's like there's some
47:06
Speaker 2: level of truth to this.
47:07
Speaker 1: I mean, I was, you know, in Afghanistan, and I
47:10
Speaker 1: was in the mountains of Afghanistan, not Kandahar.
47:13
Speaker 2: I was in Logar.
47:14
Speaker 1: But I mean we used to walk by and look
47:18
Speaker 1: up and see these cave entrances, and I got to
47:20
Speaker 1: tell you it's unsettling.
47:22
Speaker 2: I mean, who knows what's inside of those things.
47:25
Speaker 1: It doesn't seem entirely impossible that a giant could be
47:28
Speaker 1: in there. You know, like this is this is a
47:30
Speaker 1: landscape that's just it's different. It's like a different planet
47:33
Speaker 1: out there. But I mean, really, what you're left with
47:36
Speaker 1: here is you have an entire infantry unit that's still
47:39
Speaker 1: unaccounted for, at least publicly, and you have an Army
47:43
Speaker 1: Green Beret in Dan who was killed in front of
47:46
Speaker 1: his team, and they want answers, and you know, it's
47:48
Speaker 1: like what you see is the government apparently went to
47:51
Speaker 1: great lengths to cover up what happened, or to at
47:55
Speaker 1: least disguise the truth. Whether or not they're covering something
47:58
Speaker 1: up remains to be seen. But I think there's more
48:01
Speaker 1: to the story that we simply don't know. But I'd
48:04
Speaker 1: love to hear what you think in the comments, So
48:05
Speaker 1: why don't you let me know in the comments and
48:07
Speaker 1: I'll get back to as many people as I can. Hey, everyone,
48:14
Speaker 1: just a reminder, I'm going on tour this year, which
48:18
Speaker 1: means if you go, you can experience never before heard
48:21
Speaker 1: stories from me, live and in person. We did this
48:24
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty four and people loved it. So get
48:27
Speaker 1: your tickets today at tour dot bollinstudios dot com right
48:30
Speaker 1: now before they sell out. That's tour dot balinstudios dot com.
48:35
Speaker 1: I can't wait to see you all at the shows.
48:38
Speaker 1: All right, Thank you all so much for joining me
48:40
Speaker 1: tonight at the Campfire. And if you enjoyed this, remember
48:44
Speaker 1: we actually have a whole playlist of Campfire episodes that
48:47
Speaker 1: are ready for you to binge right now. If you
48:49
Speaker 1: want to do that, go ahead and click right here
48:52
Speaker 1: and give them a watch.
48:53
Speaker 2: All right, until next time, see ya,