MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories - The Cemetery/Kandahar Giant | Campfire Stories with MrBallen

Episode Date: May 1, 2026

Tonight, I have two stories to tell you. And what makes these exceptional is that they're both just excellent stories to be told around a campfire. Be sure to WATCH this episode on my YouTube channel next Friday, May 1 at 2:00 p.m. ET. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

So tonight, I have two stories to tell you, and they're great stories, but when I was thinking about how I would go about teasing the stories, like I do at the top of these episodes, I couldn't quite think of sort of what the connective tissue was between them. But then I realized really what makes these stories exceptional is that they're both just excellent stories as I'm getting hit by the heat of this fire to be told around the campfire. But before we get into those two stories if you're a fan of the strange dark and mysterious delivered in story format and you come to the right campfire because that's all we do and we upload two three even four times every week so if that's of interest to you go ahead and

invite the follow button to to come to your campfire to cook some s'mores with you but give them the wrong date and location also please subscribe to our channel and turn on all notifications so you don't miss any of our weekly uploads okay let's get into tonight's stories In the late 1990s, in rural New York, there were these two teenage girls named Rachel and Molly, and they were both very good friends. They were part of a bigger group of friends in their high school that sort of spent a lot of time together, but Rachel and Molly oftentimes were together by themselves quite a bit.

And the thing that sort of drew the two together and really sort of made them friends in the first place and also drew them to that bigger group was their shared love of goth culture. So being goth, especially in the late 90s and early 2000s, if you were like a high school kid, basically meant you wore all black clothes, you had like black, you know, nail polish, black lipstick, your hair is black. You sort of embraced all things dark and macabre. Some people were genuinely very into sort of like the idea of embracing the dark side of things. Other people just did it as like a fashion statement. But in the late 1990s and early 2000s, it was definitely a thing, certainly in America and Rachel and Molly were both very committed goths and they just sort of loved that

whole vibe. And one of the things that Rachel and Molly really liked to do as goth teenagers is they and their group of friends would go hang out in the local cemetery. Now at first, the reason they did this was actually to sort of be ironic. You know, it's like they were known as the goth kids in their high school. And so the idea of them hanging out in a cemetery just seemed kind of too on the nose. And so they went out there almost like a joke, the whole group of them. But they found this cemetery was kind of a cool hangout spot. And they began to really enjoy hanging out in the cemetery. And it became sort of like their go-to thing, especially on the weekends. Now, typically when Rachel, Molly, and their friends would go hang out in the cemetery,

they would do so at night to sort of maximize, you know, the darkness, you know, really leaning into the whole goth side of things. But also, they would always go as a group. Like it was Rachel, Molly, and several other people that would be in the cemetery hanging out at one time. Like Rachel and Molly did not go there just the two of them. It was always a group. And part of the reason was it was just more enjoyable that way.

But also, despite their love of spending time in the cemetery, it was still a cemetery at night. And it was, you know, a little bit creepy. and so there was, you know, strengthened numbers, you know, and so they liked being there with a group. It felt safer. One Friday night, Rachel was home alone when she got a call from Molly. And Molly asked her, hey, do you want to go hang out in the cemetery? And Rachel's like, duh, like, that's what we do in the weekends. I'd love to go.

Like, come pick me up, let's go. And so Rachel, she gets all ready and, you know, she's waiting outside. And eventually Molly shows up in her car. And the first thing Rachel notices is that Molly's all alone. in the car. She is not with the group that normally she would be with when they picked Rachel up. So Rachel, she walks out to the car and she climbs in and she says to Molly like, hey, so are we, are we now going to pick up the rest of our friends? Like, where is everybody? And Molly's like, actually, no, I tried getting in touch with everybody else, but everybody's either busy or working

or hung over from last night. So it's just going to be us too at the cemetery. Like, is that okay? And Rachel, admittedly, did not think this was okay. Because again, like, this was not an activity that these girls did by themselves. Rachel was very close with Molly and vice versa. Like, that was fine. It's just a little uncomfortable being in the cemetery without the big group. But, you know, Rachel didn't want to be rude. She sort of felt like Molly had already clearly made peace with them being alone out there.

And so Rachel's like, oh, yeah, that's fine. Like, it'll be great, just the two of us. Like, let's go. And so even though she sort of didn't want to, you know, she gets in the car and they take off and they drive, you know, the half mile to the cemetery. Now, this cemetery was enormous. It was like this massive, very old cemetery. And when you pull up to it, as they did in their car, you would first see this, this huge, like medieval gate, like this archway that sort of goes across the entrance to the cemetery. and like the big wrought iron gates, they're sort of permanently open,

but it's this very like sort of gothic-looking, you know, archway that you drive through. And then once you're in the cemetery, the road you're on basically cuts down the very middle of the cemetery all the way to the back side. It's a huge, probably like over a mile from one side to the other. And it sort of split the cemetery into two big parts, the right and the left side as you go in. And where they, Molly, Rachel and their friends love to hang out was sort of as you're driving. driving into the cemetery, like the back left corner. And the reason they liked that area is because on the left side of the cemetery, sort of on the left-hand side, there was sort of like rolling hills that all the plots were in. And in particular, in the back-left corner of the cemetery, there was

like this one depression in the earth where there really weren't that many tombstones. And there was like a big boulder sitting at the bottom of the depression and a tree that was next to it. So basically, if you were scanning across the top of the cemetery, just from the gate, looking out at the entire expansive land, anybody that was down in that sort of depressed area in the back left corner, you basically couldn't see them. They're sort of tucked away down there with the rock and the tree. And so for teenagers, you know, for Rachel, Molly and their friends, that was like a great place to hang out and kind of be away from the prying eyes of the public. And so, you know, Rachel and Molly, they drive through this gate and they make them. the familiar drive right down the middle of this road all the way to the very back of the cemetery. By this point, it is getting dark outside. It's not totally dark yet, but it's pretty dark.

Nobody's out at the cemetery. No one really ever was. Occasionally, on the other side of the cemetery, basically on the exact opposite side from where they would hang out, sometimes the college kids that were in town, there was a university in their town, they would sometimes hop the fence on the other side, and there was like a little bonfire section, like right up against the fence in the cemetery. Totally not allowed, but they would sneak over and do that sometimes, but that was sort of rare. But other than those occasional college students over there, the cemetery was basically always vacant. And so they get to the other side, they parked their car, they get out, and they walk right from the road, basically right down this, you know, it's a gentle sloping hill, but down into this

depression, their hangout spot. And once they get down there, there's that, that big rock, and the tree, and they each took up positions sitting on the rock leaning against the tree, and then just began crushing cigarettes and just hanging out, because that's what, you know, goth teenagers in rural New York in the 1990s did. So Rachel and Molly, they're just, they're doing their thing, they're having a nice time, they're, you know, swapping stories, they're talking about their boyfriends, about drama at school, and eventually, you know, it gets fully dark outside, and the girls are still just having a nice time, and Rachel's actually thinking to herself, like actually, this is kind of nice.

Like, this isn't scary. This is kind of cool. Like, I'm having, you know, good one-on-one time with my buddy here. But eventually, as they're down there, they start to smell smoke. Now, remember, periodically on the other side of the cemetery, like pretty far away, was that bonfire area that college kids sometimes would, you know, start bonfires over there. And, you know, when Rachel and Molly had first come into the cemetery, they had looked over there and hadn't seen a fire, but they're thinking, you know, we've been hanging out

here for quite a while. It's entirely possible that in the time we've been down here that those kids have hop the fence started a fire, and that's what we're smelling. Now, the fire itself really had no bearing directly on whatever Molly and Rachel were going to do that night. I mean, they're on opposite sides of the cemetery. But Rachel and Molly knew that historically, whenever there was a bonfire over there, eventually the police would always show up because you're not allowed to do that and they would kick off the kids. They'd make them put their fire out. And then always the police would do a check of the entire cemetery. And anybody that was hanging out in there, like Molly and Rachel were, also got kicked out, even if they were not starting fires.

And so Molly and Rachel, they look at each other after smelling this fire and they both sort of have the same thought. Like, we should probably just leave before the police get here and make a leave. And, you know, after all, they'd been there for quite a while. They were about ready to leave anyhow, so this was like, no big deal. So, you know, they put out their last cigarette, they got their stuff, and they turned and began walking back up the hill back in the direction they had come down on, back in the direction of their car. And as they're walking up, they're expecting to crest the hill and, you know, see their car and see the whole cemetery, and, you know, maybe way off in the distance, you know, maybe they'll see a flicker of the bonfire that they must be smelling.

But as they walk up and they see their car and they look out across the cemetery, they don't see a fire over there. Instead, basically right over to their right, like, you know, 100 meters away from them, was another sort of depression in the cemetery, another rolling hill that sort of went down at a site. And they could see basically the tops of a flickering fire, like in the neighboring depression, like 100 meters away. Now, when they showed up, they were definitely alone.

on this side of the cemetery. There was nobody else here. And so clearly, someone has shown up and started a fire while they were here. And they've never seen any behavior like this. This is like completely unusual. Like, no one starts fires over here. Like, what is that? So the two girls are, they're curious.

Like, did the college kids come over here to start a fire? Because, again, they can only see the tops of the flames of this fire down in this neighboring depression. They can't see the person or people who are around it, but they're thinking like, the people over there have no idea that we are over here. And so the two girls are like, well, what if we kind of go back down to where we were and sneak up the far side of our sort of hilled in area and poke our heads over and like see whose fire this is? You know, we'll see the college kids and see what they're doing. We can like spy on them or something. And the two girls are like, yeah, why not? We're already here. And so the two girls, they turn around, they walk back down,

to the base of their depression where the big rock and the tree was that they were just sitting on for the past couple of hours, and they walked past it basically to the other side and begin walking up that hill. And as they're getting closer and closer to the top of this hill, when eventually, once they reach the top, they could peer over and see the fire and see whoever was there. Right as they got almost to the top, Rachel sort of unintentionally makes some noise, like the way she was walking, and she sort of made a sound as she stepped on something, but she accidentally makes a fair amount of noise.

And the only noise in the area was the sound of the fire. They hadn't heard any voices yet. And so Rachel, she just covers her mouth and looks over at Molly. And Molly kind of looked at her like, what are you doing? Like, we're sneaking up on these people. Like, why are you making noise? And the two girls, they just freeze for a second, waiting to see if, you know, whoever was over there heard them

and sort of reacted to the noise Rachel made. But it was silent, sort of eerily silent. And at this point, Rachel and Molly, it was like the mood just shifted. Like they had not reached the top of the hill yet. They had not seen whoever was at this fire. But it was like something just felt wrong now. And the two girls looked at each other and they're like,

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

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

And Rachel, she whips around and she's like, Molly, look, look. And Molly looks and she's like, let's get out of here. We don't know who that guy is. Like, we got to get out of here. And so Rachel and Molly, they begin quickly walking up the hill. And then a second later, Rachel turns back around and the man is no longer on the hill. But then she sees movement and she realizes he's running down the hill in their direction. And so the girl starts screaming.

They start running up the hill. Rachel's constantly looking around and this guy's gaining on them. They get to the top of the hill. They charge over to Molly's car. they jump inside, they lock the doors, they fire it up, and they drive off. And as they're driving, Rachel's looking out the back window, and she sees this man basically looking. He's reached the road, like he almost got to them. And he was looking in their direction. And as they drove off, he just slowly turned and walked back down the hill out of sight. And so Rachel and Molly,

they're like totally shaken up by this. Like clearly, that wasn't a college kid. Like, that was a 40-something-year-old man who they had never seen before. Like the whole, situation just felt totally just creepy and spooky and they really didn't know what to make of it. They sort of felt like, like, what could have happened if he reached us? Like, what was he, what was he trying to do? Like, what just happened? But ultimately, when they got home or when Molly dropped Rachel off at her house, the two girls were sort of like, man, that was, that was crazy, huh? You know, they kind of like chalked it up as like just a crazy night, you know, like, oh boy, we better, you know, stay out of there alone at night, you know? Like, it was just sort of a

joke by the time they were done for the night. And so Rachel, you know, she goes into her house, doesn't even tell her mom. She just, you know, puts her stuff down, goes to her room. And Molly, she went to her house. And she too, didn't even tell anyone. She went to bed as well. The next morning, Rachel woke up and she went downstairs into the kitchen. And her mom was in there. And her mom was just kind of doing her morning routine. And when she saw Rachel come in, she said to Rachel like, hey, how was your night last night? And Rachel was like, oh, you know, it was fine. Me and Molly went out. It was fine. No big deal. And her mom was like, oh, did you hear what happened last night?

And Rachel's like, no, what do you mean? What happened? And her mom was like, well, a woman in our town got kidnapped. And she actually, she got kidnapped from the very parking garage where I park. Like she worked in the same building as me. She got kidnapped. And Rachel's like, oh my God. Like, what happened to her?

Like, did they find her? And Rachel's mom is like, no. Unfortunately, it was too late. When they found her, she was dead. And in fact, whoever kidnapped and then killed her brought her body last night to the local cemetery and burned her in this huge bonfire. And whoever did it still hasn't been caught.

And when Rachel heard this, it was like her whole world came crashing down because suddenly she understood what had happened the night before. That fire was no ordinary fire. That was the killer that chased them down the hill. that fire very likely contained the woman who had been killed. They were right next to this person, this killer, and this horrible thing happening. And even more creepy is like they were there very likely when the killer arrived,

set up shop, and began burning this body, you know, no more than 100 meters away from them. And what would have happened if that man who chased them? What would have happened if he caught them? And so Rachel, she pours her heart out to her mom and tells her everything that happened the night before. and her mom is like, oh my God, I can't believe this happened. You have to tell the police because they haven't caught this guy. Like, you have a description of him. Like, go talk to the police.

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

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

And so needless to say, Rachel and Molly, when they think about what happened that night in the cemetery, they feel very fortunate that Rachel sort of inadvertently made noise on their approach to go spy on the fire, which ultimately caused them both to sort of rethink their decisions and turn around and leave. It very likely saved their life. Because if that hadn't happened and they had gone over the hill and had been confronted by the killer, it's entirely possible that both those girls could have wound up in the bonfire as well. So before I became Mr. Ballen and told stories on the internet, you know, strange, dark, and mysterious stories, I was in the military. I was a Navy SEAL for seven years. And there was a time where I believed that was going to be my calling in life. But I ultimately got hurt. And honestly, it wasn't really a fit. So I wound up departing. And then obviously the rest is history. I became Mr. Ballen. But, you know, I have lots of stories about my time. When I was in the military, I have lots of really funny stories about training and scary stories, you know, about my actual service overseas.

But one story that has always stood out to me was actually what it was like to deploy for the very first time to Afghanistan. And this is not really a war story. And that's why this story sort of stands out to me. So, you know, I spend, you know, years, literally almost three years training and becoming a Navy SEAL. And then it's like, okay, I get to my SEAL team on the East Coast in Virginia. And, you know, so SEAL team too is where I was. And we start training for our deployment. And we find out it's going to be to Afghanistan.

And, you know, this is back in 2013. And so, you know, going to Afghanistan likely meant combat. In that time, there was still definitely active combat operations happening. And for Navy SEALs and for any, like, you know, direct combat unit, you do want to go to war. not because you are like a war monger, but because that's what you're trained for. And so it's like, okay, like I'm getting ready for combat. And then the day comes. And the way you deploy is, this is not unique to Navy SEALs, but like they don't send you out to wherever you're going in one group because it's sort of risky.

You know, what if a plane crashes and your whole platoon gets wiped out, right? So you get sent out in like little batches, like sometimes on civilian flights. Like I flew to first to South America with like a couple other seals. We're all dressed as civilians, and then we hitched a military transit flight actually into Afghanistan. But again, like my mentality, as I'm getting ready for this deployment, is like, okay, like this is the thing I've trained for. Like, here we go, like combat. And I remember I was on this military plane. This is the last leg actually getting into Afghanistan.

And when we actually flew into Afghani airspace, which is an active war zone at the time, the pilots, the military pilots, they turned the lights inside of the aircraft from the white overhead, like, you know, daytime lights to red. And then they told all of us to stay away from the windows. And the reason was, like, we're now entering, you know, the part of this trip where we're going to land. And in theory, you know, the plane could get shot at. You don't want to get shot at through the window. And, I mean, if you think about it, if you're getting blasted by like an RPG, it's not going to matter that, like, you're near a window or not. But it's, it was sort of the stark reminder that it's like, okay, here we go, like, we're about to enter a war zone, and then the way these planes would land

is they needed to basically cut down the amount of time they were within small arms range. So the lower you get, the more, you know, sort of exposed the plane is. And so the way they'd land is they would take these really steep descents and basically like fly straight down and then land really abruptly. It was like sort of gnarly. And so we're coming in for this crazy landing. The red lights are on. and everyone's tucked away from the windows.

And I'm like, okay, we're getting ready for Afghanistan. And we touch down. And, you know, it's a successful landing. And now we're in this, like, pretty well-fortified base. Shank is what it was called. And I remember the back of the plane opened up after, you know, we sort of had stopped taxiing. You know, we came to a stop. And the back of the plane opened up.

And remember, my mentality is like, okay, we're going to war, right? And I grabbed my pack. The rest of my stuff had been packed on pallets. you know, weeks prior. So all I have is a backpack. And me and a buddy of mine, another guy on my team, we walk out the back, the runway. And we basically see Afghanistan really for the first time. Because I really had that. The windows on the airplane, by the way, were like these little portholes. You really never got a good look, not to mention we had to avoid the windows. So this is like my first view of Afghanistan. And I remember just like looking around. And it was just

unbelievably beautiful. Like Afghanistan is shockingly beautiful. It's in every direction, 360 degrees, these just enormous, like massive snow-covered mountains and just beautiful fields. It's like untouched land. And like we're in the middle of this like jagged scar across the earth, which is this like NATO base where war is sort of launched out of. But it's like you're looking around at just this unbelievably beautiful place. And it was like in such contrast to what I believed I was coming here for or what I was there for, like to fight in a war. And it just like didn't compute.

Like this is too beautiful a place to be having a war fought. But I mean, very quickly after sort of seeing this environment and being like, oh my gosh, you know, we were quickly ushered over to this like holding area and we had to grab our stuff. And then before long, we had jumped into these very up armored military vehicles called RGs, which are like 50,000. ton anti-IED vehicles, basically if it detonates underneath you, in theory, you'll survive. And out we go, you know, from the base we were on, out to this like very forward operating base that was sort of out in the sticks. And it was like sort of a vulnerable spot. And it was

where we were going to be operating from for the next six months. You know, our mission was pretty, pretty vulnerable. You know, we were out sort of actually actively fighting the war. But that first night, we get to our actual base, this very stripped down, like very vulnerable spot out in the middle of nowhere. And when we got there, the previous team was still there. They were wrapping up their deployment. And there were interpreters who are a central part of the war fighting effort, you know, from our side.

And a lot of these interpreters who were pretty young, like in their 20s, like they've been out there working with various units that have come. through those bases for years. And because they're working with NATO, they really, they don't have a place outside of the base. Like they're targeted by the Taliban and other sort of militant groups because, you know, they're working for NATO. They're traitors, you know? And so the great promise for these interpreters is that by working with NATO eventually they'll be given the opportunity to leave Afghanistan and come to the United States. And for some people, that's true. Not true for everybody. But these interpreters are like hard as nails. They've been in,

so many gunfights. Like these people have seen some crazy stuff. And I, my role, was to work with these interpreters. I was going to be someone that worked with our partner force. And so I get to this little outstation. It's late at night. And it's sort of overwhelming this whole thing. You know, the team that was already there, still Team 8, they were like so, like, cowboy by

this point. They'd been in combat now for the last six months. They're all just like jacked and huge beards. Like, they could care less about anything. And I'm like super green. And I went and I met with one of our interpreters to like sort of give me a lay of the land of what to expect over the next couple of days And so we talked about some operations we'd likely do and sort of you know got to know each other a little bit But at some point one of these interpreters the guy I was talking to who maybe was like 25 26 and I was in my 20s too

He said to me he goes bro bro and they all talk in like Western slang like their English is like rugged like American military slang because they're around like 18 year old Marines 24-7, that he's like, bro, have you heard the story of what was in the cave in Kandahar? Now, we were in a different part of Afghanistan, but he was referencing Kandahar, Afghanistan, and what I would come to find out is there was this story about a giant, like a creature, some huge creature that lived in a cave out in the mountains of Kandahar. And like Afghanistan, again, is this huge, just like mountains everywhere. And there are all these cave systems up in these.

mountains, some of which are like untouched by humanity. And this, this terp was like, bro, I'm telling you, it's real. Like there was a giant up in the caves in Kandahar. Like, have you heard about this? Like, I want to know more. The interpreter did. And so, you know, we didn't really talk much more than that, but it was planted in my mind that there was like this real belief by this interpreter, that there was like some truth to this what sounded like sort of a folklore, this crazy story about a giant in a cave. And so it stuck with me. You know, it stuck with me that I had heard that story. Fast forward, you know, years later, I'm out of the military, and I've become Mr.

Ballin, you know, I've begun telling strange, dark, and mysterious stories on the internet, and I was thinking about what stories I wanted to tell. This was like in the very early days of having the channel, and I suddenly remembered, like, the Kandahar giant. And I was like, man, I want to look into that and see if there's any truth to what my interpreter was getting at. And sure enough, I found like this treasure trove of testimony from this special operations group, the Green Berets, that apparently did. Like this one particular group of Green Berets that apparently came in touch with something otherworldly up in the caves of Kandahar.

And in particular, there was one soldier who just went by Mr. K because he was worried about his name getting out there who gave just like shocking testimony about what they saw. And so I felt like I needed to do the story justice. I wanted to sort of compile the notes and put together a story that, you know, sort of picked up where my interpreter had began. And I, and I told the story years and years ago. And tonight, I'm going to tell you that story again. So in 2002, there was this Army infantry unit that was out doing a patrol in the Kandahar Mountain Range. And again, you got a picture just massive snow-covered mountains. I mean, this is a huge area.

And, you know, a lot of times in 2002, these patrols, you know, you'd be sort of looking potentially for cave systems where Taliban fighters would be camping out or, you know, sometimes there'd be fighters that were down in the valleys below. But these patrols were fairly routine for NATO in 2002. And so this unit, they're out on patrol. And generally, the way it works, really independent of what branch of the military you're in in the U.S. military, you know, when you're out on patrol, you basically up to. some level of higher command as you're doing the operation. And also, by the way, virtually no operations, no matter how routine or mundane, like no operations aren't planned out.

Like everything is planned. Like what time you get there, how long you're gonna be there, what you're trying to do, when you're gonna leave, what platform you're gonna use to leave, like everything is really coordinated. And so this unit, they went out, you know, for the, you know, umpteenth time to do this patrol. And at some point in the middle of this,

this patrol, the higher command lost contact with them. And the reason this immediately stood out as problematic is, you know, it wasn't totally unusual for a group to lose comms. I mean, you're trying to communicate across huge mountain ranges, you know, using, you know, these radios that are really a lot of times not that great. And so losing comms is not that unusual. But generally speaking, like a lot of times if you lose comms, you get it back pretty quickly. And so there had been a pretty long period of time where no one could get in touch with this unit.

And then on top of that, as, you know, higher command was beginning to figure out like what we should do here, should we send out a quick reaction for us to go find them? Should we send, you know, air assets overhead to go try to look for them that way? As they're thinking about that, somebody realized that not only had they suddenly gone silent, this, you know, huge infantry unit, but also they had not called in a tick before they went silent. So a tick or troops in contact is the acronym for basically being in a gunfight. And the reason this is important is, you know, when you're in a combat zone, your higher command doesn't automatically know if you're getting shot at or if you're in an

active gunfight. You need to call it in. And the reason you call it in is because you may need huge help. You might want air assets to come in and save the day. You might need a medevac. You might need reinforcements. And so basically the instant you start getting shot at, commanders on the ground or whoever's on the ground could be someone super junior. They'll call in to hire command and say, troops in contact, you know, tick, tick, tick, tick.

And the reason they do that is basically to have help on standby. Now they're like, okay, we know something's going down. We're ready to support. And in fact, you know, what we saw when we were in Afghanistan is if anything, we were like too quick to call in a tick. Because it's sort of like a cheat code, right? Like, oh, I think I heard gunfire way over there, call in a tick. And then immediately you got like warthogs overhead and crazy assets everywhere. Like you're totally protected.

We sort of took advantage of it. And a lot of people did. Like it's rare for the reverse to happen. Like people are not conservative calling this in. And so for an entire unit to suddenly go like silent having not called in a tick, it's either a huge like radio problem, but that usually gets resolved relatively quickly. Or it's something else, something that is just harder to define because it just doesn't really happen very much. And so after a certain amount of time had passed when still no one could get in touch with this unit,

ultimately the Army decided this was a big enough deal. You know, there was enough people in that unit that were now unaccounted for that they decided to send in an elite military unit to try to find them. And so they tapped this Green Beret unit. So the Army's top Special Forces team, the Green Berets. They grabbed a group of those guys and said, you go out into the mountains of Kandahar to their last known location and figure out what happened to them. And one of the people that was in this detachment of Green Berets was Mr. K, one of the people that gave pretty incredible testimony that I'm about to relay to you right now. So Mr. K and the rest of his small, in a small group of Green Berets, they hop on helicopters and they fly out. to this section of Kandahar where, you know, this infantry unit was last.

And they touched down. And you've got to understand that this is like rural as rural can be. There is, you know, no people. Like there's no cities, no nothing. There's like mud huts periodically. But it's just like mountains. You know, you kind of feel like sometimes when you're in Afghanistan, that you're like almost on a different planet.

And so they touch down and they look around and they see nobody. Like there's no locals. There's certainly no, you know, American military or NATO. just like a wasteland in all directions. And they know that the area they're searching is pretty sizable and it's very mountainous. So it's gonna be like a very rough several days of basically hiking through the mountains

trying to find any sign of this unit. And so they touch down and they all have like extremely heavy packs on. I mean, you got all your ammo, your equipment. Like this is a rugged thing they're doing. And they start hiking through the mountains. Based on the brief that that unit had given before they stepped out for this mission,

they sort of had a rough idea of Mr. K and his unit of the direction of travel. And so they're sort of following that direction. But as they're hiking through the mountains, I mean, the unit that Mr. K was a part of, they didn't find anybody. And for several days, I mean, they're out there in the mountains just hiking all day. You know, they came into contact a couple of times with the enemy, but there wasn't even any ticks or anything. It was just like at a distance, like, oh, there's some fighters over there. But they're on a mission to find these missing soldiers. So they're not trying to engage with anybody else, like they're just hiking and looking for any sign of this

unit. But again, for a few days, they couldn't find anything. Finally, though, on the fourth day of this rescue mission, so during the daytime, Mr. Kay and his team, they're walking along the mountain range, and they decide to take this goat trail that they can see right ahead of them. It sort goes up and over the top of this mountain. They decide, okay, we're just going to take that goat trail and see what's on the other side. You know, there wasn't any clear agenda for why this goat trail was of interest, but they're like, oh, you know, everywhere else we're walking is just rugged and awful. At least this goat trail, a literal trail made by goats running along this area,

is easier to walk on. So let's take that. We'll follow it to the other side, and we'll see what's up there. You know, and also we'll be up higher, and we can maybe get a view down into the valley on the other side, and maybe we'll see something. And so Mr. Kay and the rest of the Green Berets begin making their way up. this goat trail, which sort of meandered its way up and then eventually on to the other side. And as they're walking up, they start to notice these little bits of plastic and metal

sort of strewn about on the trail. And at first, as they're walking, they don't actually know what they are. But as they keep moving, they start to realize that these are parts of military equipment. Like these are parts of radios and other stuff that would definitely belong to, for example, an infantry unit. And so now, like Mr. Kemp. and the others, they got their rifles sort of ready to go. They're walking up more apprehensively because they're thinking, like, this is obviously connected to what we're looking for. Like, who knows what we're going to find once we cross the top of this mountain?

Like, are we going to find, like, a bloodbath? Are we going to find the missing unit waiting for us? Like, they don't know. And so they continue walking up this trail. And as they get higher and higher, they find bigger and bigger pieces of military equipment on the ground, like whole military backpacks, like bigger chunks of radios. And then also they began finding bits of uniform, like military uniforms that even in some cases still had like name tags and patches on them. And they were able to see very clearly that those

uniforms at least definitely belonged to the specific unit they were looking for. So they know, like they've discovered their first real lead here and it doesn't look good. And so up the goat trail they go and they finally get to the very top. And I say this, you know, I'm trying not to be biased because obviously I was a Navy SEAL and I think very highly of U.S. special operations in their training. But, you know, green berets and Navy SEALs, they're very different and definitely do different jobs,

but in many ways they are peers, certainly in terms of like the rigor of training. And one of the things that it's just absolutely true and I've seen it in combat is that when stuff gets wild, like in a combat scenario, in a dangerous scenario, these green berets would have absolutely,

fallen into their training, like, flawlessly. This would not have been, no matter how crazy or how insane, whatever they saw on the other side of the mountain, whatever it was going to be, they were ready for it. And so they would have been, like, dialed in, making their way up the mountain, getting ready to handle whatever's up there. And so, you know, Mr. Kay and in his team, they make their way to the very top of this goat trail. And then they crested the top, what they saw was like this plateau. So it wasn't like a peak. It was like this flat section of the mountain. mountain and actually there was another section of the mountain that sort of went up beyond the plateau and there were these huge like cave entrances that sort of basically fed out these three cave

entrances fed out onto this plateau as if it was like the plateau was the front porch and the cave entrances are like the doors that lead in to this upper section of the mountain and on this plateau scattered all over the place is not just you know more pieces of military equipment but also pretty obviously human bones, or what appeared to be, human bones, like scattered about. And there was, you know, no living people up here. The missing unit was definitely not up here. But it looked like if they were up here, I mean, something horrible happened to them. And so once they reached the plateau, again, you got a picture like this elite military unit.

They would have immediately taken up positions all around this plateau because they know these cave entrances have to be explored. You have to see who's inside of there. Like, is the missing unit in there? Are the remaining survivors taking shelter in there? Are there combatants in there? And so Mr. K and his unit, they sort of detailed taking up positions, you know, getting ready to engage if they had to. And then once they were in position, Mr. K and the guy he was next to, his shooting buddy,

if you will, were tapped to go up to the entrance of one of these caves and just look inside. And so silently they got up and they walked across this plateau while the rest of the team is sort of looking outward and also looking in. So there's 360 degree security. So Mr. K, he walks up along with his shooting buddy. And he said he looked into this entrance, this huge, massive entrance, like could easily just walk into this opening. But it's, it's totally dark inside. And so he goes into the cave. And once he gets in there, like, it's very dark and he's sort of trying to look inside to see if he can see anything. And it does go back a little ways. But, you know, he barely takes a couple of steps into the cave when he realizes,

Like, there's like this sheer cliff within the cave. Like, you basically walk in and then it just, it shoots straight down. And, you know, Mr. Kay, he caught himself and he looked down to see if he could see what was down sort of in this pit within the cave. But it was just too dark. He couldn't see anything. And then, like, as he's standing back up again, getting ready to sort of assess what he should do next, he sees like a flash of movement in the far backside of the cave, basically beyond this crevasse that he can't cross. And so Mr. Keket.

instinctively raises his gun, like he's ready to engage whatever this is. But before he can, this enormous spear, like a massive javelin, comes soaring out of the cave and impales the shooting buddy. His name was Dan, the other green beret that was next to Mr. Kay, who went up to explore the cave. The spear impales him, sends him flying back, and this is in plain view of all the other green berets. They all see this happen. And then, like, in the space of a few seconds, this, massive, just enormous human creature. This like 12-foot-tall thing comes bounding out of the cave, clears the crevasse, and charges out onto the plateau. And it sort of looked like a huge person. But again, it's like 12 feet tall. It's got six fingers on each hand, six toes on each foot.

It's wearing various animal skins, got this huge red hair, red beard. And it runs out to, you know, presumably attack the Green Berets. But immediately they just start shooting it. and in like seconds, this massive creature falls to the ground, dead. And so at this point, like after the creature is down, I mean, nobody knows what to make of this, but again, it's like they fall back into their training. They immediately, once they know the threat is down and there's nobody else coming out of the cave,

they run over to Dan to provide, you know, life-saving care. But Dan's dead. I mean, he was killed by this javelin. And so now the team, they poked their head into the cave to make sure there wasn't anybody else, But as far as they knew, there wasn't. And for sure, this giant was dead. And so, like, they hadn't found the missing military unit, but now they have a casualty.

And, like, they have this horrible thing that's happened. And so one of the team leads for this Green Beret team, they end up calling higher command, and they say, hey, you've got to come get us. Like, we can't even tell you what just happened. But we have a man down, killed in action, and we have this combatant, this creature. We don't even know what to call it, but you got to get out here. And you've got to take this thing, too. We don't even know what it is.

And so not long after, two helo showed up, and one of them was to transport the green berets and to transport Dan back to the base. And then the other helo had this huge net that they basically wrapped around this dead, huge giant. And they strapped it up to the underside of the helo, and then they flew off with this giant. And, you know, Mr. Kay and his unit, they expected to be brought back to base and to be brought back to base and to be. basically debrief the mission, which, you know, in layman's terms, means you basically talk through what actually happened and you sort of put it down in your after-action report, like what happened, you know, what mistakes were made, what did we do? Like, you basically put it on the record, like what happened. And you do it typically, like, right afterwards. Even if you've had, like,

a casualty, you immediately document what's happened. And so they go back to base expecting not only to tell their story about seeing this giant, if you will, But to maybe get some clarification about what the heck just happened. Like, you know, they wanted some more information. But when they got back to base and they did their after-action report, which they sort of did on their own, nobody came to talk to them. The unit was sort of pushed off to the side and told to just, you know, write down what you saw and just leave it at that. After they wrote it all down, and they included, you know, the truth, everybody on the team saw what they saw. They were told by higher command that they actually could not publish those details in their after-action report.

and they had to change it. Like this is this, we can't say you fought a giant in a cave. We can't say that. Like there's no way that's true. You can't say it. And so Mr. Kay and his team, like despite knowing it wasn't true, they went and they changed the report. And they just said they came in contact with the enemy and the enemy, you know, through small arms fire, killed Dan. And then after they submitted this, you know, erroneous report, they were then told to sign all these non-disclosure agreements to basically say they would not talk about what they actually saw in that cave. And after that, I mean, Dan and the rest of his unit, I mean, they were basically told, you can't talk about this.

This is too sensitive. And they even went looking for more information about it. And they found that all of the reporting in Afghanistan around that time about that operation had been heavily redacted. I mean, Mr. Kay never even found out what happened to the missing unit that they had gone out looking for. Like, it was just this big mystery. But fast forward 14 years to 2016,

And Mr. Kay just felt like he didn't want to keep this a secret anymore. And he spoke to some other members of his team that were there. And they too were just like really shaken up by what happened and just felt like it was wrong that nobody knew. And so that's what ultimately prompted Mr. Kay to go public with his story. And also when he went public, what he also discovered is that other people sort of in the military hierarchy also had some level of exposure to this giant. I mean, what Mr. K would discover is that after the giant had been hoisted in that net by that helo and flown off somewhere, apparently it had been brought to an airfield in Afghanistan, another NATO base, and pilots that were going to be transporting this to another base. Remember seeing this 12 to 15 foot tall giant looking person with six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot in this net.

They remember seeing it and actually describing it in their after-action report. and they would say they were told not to include those details, and those details were redacted and made top secret. And so basically, Mr. Kay, after coming forward, quickly learned through the grape line that basically everybody affiliated with the giant was told not to talk about it, and the government basically shut it down,

redacted it and made it top secret. Now, I don't really know what to make of this story. You know, there's a part of me that does want to believe that, you know, the testimony of Mr. Kay is totally legitimate. But there's also a part of me that knows. that, you know, this could all just be made up. But a lot of people claim to have seen this thing. And I remember so distinctly, you know, my own interpreter back in 2013,

being so convinced that there was something in the caves in Kandahar. And he really wanted to know more about it. It's like there's some level of truth to this. I mean, I was, you know, in Afghanistan, and I was in the mountains of Afghanistan, not Kandahar. I was in Lugar. But, I mean, we used to walk by. and look up and see these cave entrances, and I got to tell you it's unsettling.

I mean, who knows what's inside of those things? It doesn't seem entirely impossible that a giant could be in there, you know? Like, this is a landscape that's just, it's different. It's like a different planet out there. But, I mean, really what you're left with here is you have an entire infantry unit that's still unaccounted for, at least publicly, and you have an army green beret in Dan who was killed in front of his team, and they want answers.

And, you know, it's like what you see is the government apparently went to great lengths to cover up what happened, or to at least disguise the truth, whether or not they're covering something up remains to be seen. But I think there's more to this story that we simply don't know. But I'd love to hear what you think in the comments. So why don't you let me know in the comments, and I'll get back to as many people as I can. A quick note about our stories. They are all based on true events. But we sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people involved,

and some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes. The Mr. Ballin podcast, Strange, Dark and Mysterious Stories, is hosted and executive produced by me, Mr. Ballen. Our head of writing is Evan Allen. Our head of production is Zach Levitt, produced by Jeremy Bone, research and fact-checking by Shelley Shoe, Samantha Van Hoose, Evan Beamer, Abigail Shumway, and Camille Callahan. Research and fact-checking supervision by Stephen Ear.

Audio editing and post-produced by Whit Lacasio, Jordan Stidham, and Cole Lacassio. Mixed and mastered by Brendan Cain. Production Coordination by Samantha Collins. Production support by Antonio Manata and Delana Corley. Artwork by Jessica Klogstenkiner. Theme song called Something Wicked by Ross Bugden. Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin podcast.

If you enjoyed today's story and you want to hear more like it, go ahead and check out our YouTube channel, just called Mr. Ballin, where we have hundreds more stories a lot like this one, but most of them are not available. on this podcast. They are only available on that YouTube channel, which again is just called Mr. Ballen. So that's going to do it. I really appreciate your support. Until next time, see ya.