There is Something in the Desert

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance.

You chose to hit play on this podcast today.

Smart Choice.

Make another smart choice with AutoQuote Explorer to compare rates for multiple car insurance companies all at once.

Try it at Progressive.com.

Progressive Casualty Insurance and Affiliates.

Not available in all states and situations.

Prices may vary on how you buy.

For centuries, the deserts and mountains of the Middle East have been steeped in myth and mystery.

From ancient conquerors to modern armies, those who marched into these lands often returned with stories of strange and unexplainable encounters.

In more recent times, the deserts of Afghanistan and Iraq have become the backdrop for some of the world's most intense conflicts, and with them, unsettling reports from soldiers on the ground.

Amidst the dust and darkness of desert warfare, They tell of figures glimpsed through night vision, of shadows moving where no enemy should be, and of confrontations with beings that seemed anything but human.

Even today, whispers persist that in these unforgiving landscapes, there may still be

something

in the desert.

Deserts have been the backdrop for some of history's most brutal wars.

These are landscapes that strip men of comfort, deplete armies of strength, and bury empires beneath shifting sands.

From the ancient clashes of Persia and Greece, to the Crusades in the Levant, to the armoured campaigns of North Africa during the Second World War, the deserts themselves have always been as much an adversary as the human foes encountered there.

Afghanistan, with its vast barren plains and jagged mountain ranges, has long carried the ominous nickname, the graveyard of empires.

Time and again, powerful nations have marched their armies into its terrain, only to suffer staggering losses and eventual retreat.

The British, the Soviets, and more recently the Americans, all have learned the cost of fighting a war in such unforgiving conditions.

Iraq, though very different in culture and history, has posed similar challenges.

Its southern deserts are harsh and unrelenting, whilst its northern landscapes blur into rugged mountains.

From the Gulf War of the early 1990s to the later US-led invasion in the 2000s, soldiers stationed in Iraq faced not only insurgents, but the relentless exhaustion of desert life, scorching days, freezing nights, and endless horizons that left men vulnerable and exposed.

Yet alongside the hardships of terrain and climate, another thread runs through the history of desert warfare, one far stranger.

Across centuries, armies operating in these regions have reported experiences they could not easily explain.

Shadows seen moving against the horizon, sounds echoing across the sand with no discernible source, figures that seemed to vanish as suddenly as they appeared.

In the modern era, such reports have not diminished.

From the deserts of Iraq to the mountains of Afghanistan, American and Allied soldiers have returned with accounts that go far beyond enemy fire or local insurgency.

They speak of encounters that seemed unearthly, shapes glimpsed through night vision goggles, presences felt on patrol, and adversaries that left no trace behind.

Such accounts suggest that the dangers of the desert are not always human.

In these barren landscapes, some believe soldiers came face to face with forces beyond their understanding, sights and sounds that defied explanation, a presence that still lingers in whispers, long after the guns fell silent.

In 2004, soldiers of the US Army's 3rd Infantry Brigade were stationed at Forward Operating Base Diamondback, near the city of Mosul in northern Iraq.

During one night operation, the base perimeter came under attack.

Private Jerry Aberdeen was riding in a Humvee with two other infantrymen when they intercepted a group of intruders attempting to climb over the outer fencing.

The soldiers immediately dismounted and opened fire, killing one of the assailants and forcing the others to retreat back into the darkness.

As they moved closer to check the body, one of Aberdeen's colleagues called for them to stop.

Something strange was happening.

A faint wisp of smoke appeared to be rising from the mouth of the dead man.

The three men watched in silence as the smoke thickened.

Within seconds it had formed a rough, humanoid outline.

All later confirmed that the figure seemed to have glowing red eyes and a mouth stretched unnaturally wide.

It remained for only a short time before slowly turning away and dispersing into the night air.

Each soldier later admitted that the sight left them deeply unsettled.

Alongside the visual manifestation, they described a powerful sense of dread.

an atmosphere that none of them could explain.

Aberdeen himself has since spoken of the incident, admitting that he still struggles to understand what they encountered.

Despite all three men agreeing on the details, no official explanation was ever offered for what they witnessed.

By the late 2000s, the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan were overlapping, with US and NATO forces heavily committed on two fronts.

Reports of strange and unsettling encounters were not limited to Iraq alone.

As the war in Afghanistan intensified, similar stories began to emerge from troops stationed deep in Helmand province.

By 2008, NATO operations against the Taliban had pushed far into the south.

To secure the area, a network of forward operating bases was established, including one at Asana Bad.

Along its perimeter stood a sentry position position that would soon gain a notorious reputation amongst the Marines posted there.

Known simply as the Rock, the post was situated within the crumbling remains of an old mud-brick fort, its walls rising some 20 feet above the ground.

Whilst excavating firing positions, Marines uncovered not only fragments of ancient remains and pottery, but also more recent foreign equipment.

Rumours quickly spread that during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, a platoon of Russian soldiers had been executed by the Mujahideen and buried in the ruins.

Within days of manning the site, Marines began reporting strange occurrences.

At first, these were minor technical failures.

Radios with fresh batteries would die within minutes of arriving at the rock.

only to function again once carried back inside the wire.

Torches that had been fully charged flickered and went dark, and rifles, recently cleaned and maintained, inexplicably jammed or misfired.

As the weeks went on, the stories grew darker.

At night sentries claimed they could hear footsteps crunching in the gravel or the sound of whispers close at hand, even when they were completely alone.

Some described faint moaning voices carried on the wind.

Younger Marines started requesting reassignment away from the post, unnerved by what they were experiencing.

One non-commissioned officer, Corporal Zolik, refused to return altogether.

He later claimed that while standing watch alone, he distinctly heard a man cough behind him before a voice whispered in his ear, in Russian.

Reports escalated further.

Some men swore they had been shoved or struck by unseen assailants.

Others described strange blue orbs of light drifting through the darkness near the fort, hovering close before darting away.

In response, the command doubled the number of sentries assigned to the rock, but the unease surrounding it only deepened.

A few weeks into the deployment, reports from the rock began to escalate.

Sentries claimed they were seeing shapes and shadows venturing steadily closer to their positions, often approaching with deliberate deliberate intent before melting back into the darkness.

To verify the claims, thermal imaging equipment was deployed.

Yet, despite repeated alerts from guards, nothing registered on the screens.

The following mornings, patrols checked the ground where movements had been reported, but no footprints or signs of disturbance were ever found.

This mismatch between what the men swore they had seen and the absence of any physical evidence only deepened their unease.

One evening, a corporal Lima was scanning the horizon when he caught sight of a lone figure silhouetted against the skyline.

The shape made no attempt to conceal itself and appeared to be standing upright, fists clenched at its sides.

Lima later recalled an overwhelming sensation that the figure was watching him personally, its focus fixed entirely upon him.

When he raised his night vision goggles for a clearer view, the figure instantly vanished.

Lowering the goggles, he found only an empty horizon.

Not long afterwards, another Marine sentry reported a similar experience.

He saw a figure standing some distance away, apparently waving at him.

When he raised his night vision optics, the figure disappeared.

When he lowered them, it reappeared, only now it was several feet closer.

The soldier repeated the process switching back and forth between his night vision and thermal scope, each time finding the entity gone in one mode but visible in the other, creeping closer with every switch.

When the mysterious figure closed to within roughly 20 feet, the sentry panicked.

He fired a signal flare skyward and shouldered his carbine, preparing to open fire.

Advancing cautiously, he found no trace of the intruder.

Then, without warning, he heard a whisper in his ear and felt a powerful blow to his ribs that knocked him to the ground.

Shaken and convinced he had been physically attacked, the Marine fled back inside the perimeter.

The incident left him so disturbed that he immediately requested a transfer out of the unit, refusing ever again to stand watch at the rock.

The Hassan Abad hauntings are eerily similar to the experiences of the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment who were stationed at FOB Salerno in the southeastern coast province.

One of their observation points was located on the site of an old Afghan graveyard, overlooked by two ruined ancient towers.

At night, the sentries would be plagued by the ghost of a young Afghan girl, who did not show up in their thermal imaging goggles, but would materialise next to the men, giggling and laughing at them.

But as troubling and haunting as these incidents were, they are trifling compared to the terror that an 8-man Special Forces team experienced when they were tasked with extracting a high-value target from a remote village, located in the country's mountainous central highlands region.

They had been camped upon the target location for two days when their radio equipment began to inexplicably fail on them.

The decision was made on the second night to withdraw a short distance in order to re-establish communications with headquarters, but as the team had begun to hike away from the village, they experienced a low buzzing sensation that gradually increased in volume and pitch until it was completely deafening to them.

Unable to effectively move forward or talk to each other, the men were forced to dig in until the mysterious noise eventually subsided.

It was then that one of the lookouts spotted a white shape moving slowly towards their position out of the darkness.

When the team observed the approaching figure, they were stunned by what they were seeing.

Through their night vision goggles, it resembled a male Afghan elder dressed in long flowing white robes, but was not giving off any trace on their thermal imaging scopes.

His unblinking eyes looked as if they were glowing a luminous and deep red colour, and he seemed to be gliding slightly above the ground, passing through the trees and rocks he encountered as he steadily moved towards where the Special Forces team were concealed.

The soldiers continued to watch in horror as one of the man's arms dropped to the floor.

The figure paused to pick up the limb, which melted back into his body as if it was some form of detachable proboscis disguised to look like an arm.

It then resumed its slow forward progress.

At this point, the terrified soldiers became aware of illuminating lights and the sounds of shouting coming from the direction of the village.

The approaching figure paused, seeming to contemplate this, before turning and recommencing its ponderous journey, now towards the village.

Assuming the commotion they could hear was Taliban fighters coming to investigate the mysterious humming sound, the American soldiers immediately abandoned their position and made their way back to their own lines.

Two days later, a more heavily armed infantry force sent back to the village found nothing but the hideously disfigured bodies of the target and his entourage.

The dead had been brutally hacked at and dismembered, reduced to little more than bloodied chunks of flesh, their weapons lying empty and abandoned near their remains.

There was no evidence at the scene to identify their attackers, but when the eight Special Forces operators heard about what had happened, they knew exactly what had carried out the attack.

In the weeks that followed, the team reportedly refused to discuss the incident in any detail, even amongst themselves.

Others in their unit later recalled that the men seemed shaken in ways that battlefield experience alone could not explain.

Word of the white figure spread quickly through nearby bases, carried in whispered conversations around campfires and barracks.

Most dismissed it as an exaggeration or as the product of stress, but a few believed the operators without question, noting the consistency of their shaken demeanour.

Amongst soldiers rotating through Helmand and the central highlands, the story of the glowing-eyed figure became a kind of cautionary tale.

To some it was a ghost, to others a demon, and to a few it was something far worse.

A reminder that in Afghanistan, not every enemy carried a rifle and not every battle was fought against the living.

As unsettling as these encounters were, one final account from Iraq stands apart.

Soldiers stationed at a forward operating base in the northeast began to speak of something unusual during their night watches.

What started as hush rumours amongst sentries grew into a story that spread throughout the camp.

In time, the figure at the centre of these reports would come to be known simply as the Black Eyed Lady of Bakubar.

The accounts began with a young private assigned to perimeter watch.

His duty was fairly routine, keeping watch, listening for movement and reporting anything suspicious.

One night while scanning the horizon through his rifle scope, he felt a sudden presence at his side, as if someone was standing close beside him.

Turning his head, he found nothing there.

Puzzled, he returned to his watch, but the sensation only grew stronger.

He was certain he could feel breath against his skin.

Slowly, he turned again, but this time he was met with a woman's face, only centimeters from his own.

Her eyes were pitch black, her mouth twisted open in a silent scream, and her pale features trembled with unspoken fury.

Startled, he stumbled backwards over an ammo crate, but when he looked back up, the figure had vanished without trace.

Although shaken, he kept the experience to himself, convinced exhaustion had caused him to imagine it.

But within days, others on watch duty began reporting the same thing.

The details were almost identical.

Each man described feeling the sense of another presence at their side, then turning to see a horrifying female face only inches away, her eyes dark and empty, before she vanished without a sound.

At first, the story circulated quietly amongst the enlisted ranks.

Some laughed them off as nerves, others admitted they dreaded being assigned to the same posts at night.

But as the weeks passed, the reports grew harder to ignore.

Men from different companies who had no reason to collude described the same figure in the same circumstances.

Some believed she was the ghost of a civilian killed during the early fighting.

A few insisted that after seeing her, they experienced nightmares for weeks afterwards, her face haunting their dreams.

Command officially dismissed the claims as reactions to stress, but still they quietly adjusted watch rotations.

Sentries who claimed to see the woman were often reassigned, and more experienced soldiers were paired with younger ones in the affected post.

Despite this, the sightings continued.

What unsettled many was the consistency of the description.

Unlike rumours that change with each retelling, the black-eyed woman was always the same, pale, silent, eyes completely black.

Several men swore that she never appeared more than a hand's breadth from their faces.

Whether hallucination, shared stress or something stranger, The legend spread across the base and beyond.

For those who claim to have seen her, the experience was no joke.

They describe the same reaction every time, a moment of pure dread, the feeling of being haunted, and the knowledge that something had looked into their very souls, before vanishing without trace.

So I go to the ATM to take out some cash when suddenly my heart sinks.

I see that I've accidentally overdrafted.

What a horrible feeling.

But QIIME understands that every dollar counts.

That's why when you set up direct deposit through QIIME, you get access to features like free overdraft coverage.

Learn more at chime.com slash bedtime.

Chime is banking done right.

You can also open a checking account with no monthly or maintenance fees.

When you set up direct deposit, you can get paid up to two days early, and with qualifying deposits, you're eligible for free overdraft up to $200

on debit card purchases and cash withdrawals.

Not to mention that you get access to over 47,000 fee-free ATMs.

My younger self would have really benefited from this.

I can't tell you how many untold dollars I've spent on ATM fees over the years.

Work on your financial goals through QIIME today.

Open an account in two minutes at chime.com/slash bedtime.

That's chime.com/slash bedtime.

Chime

feels like progress.

Chime is a financial technology company, not a bank.

Banking services and debit card provided by the Bankwork Bank NA or Stripe Bank NA, members FDIC.

Spot me eligibility requirements and overdraft limits apply.

Timing depends on submission payment file.

Fees apply it out of network ATMs, bank ranking, and number of ATMs, according to US News and World Report 2023.

Chime checking account required.

It is easy to dismiss the majority of these stories as the products of overactive imaginations placed under enormous stress, or perhaps as examples of group hysteria.

The human mind, when confronted with something too traumatic or confusing to process, has a tendency to reinterpret visual information and reshape memory as a coping mechanism.

This allows the witness to create a version of events that feels more acceptable, permitting them to move on rather than dwell endlessly on what they experienced.

In other cases, witnesses may unconsciously adopt mistaken assertions or false details from their comrades, gradually building a shared narrative that feels easier to carry than the terrifying uncertainty of the truth.

The seemingly impossible conditions that soldiers are forced to endure, hostile environments, constant threat of ambush, separation from family and home make them especially vulnerable to such distortions.

Under the perpetual fear of enemy attack and the disorientation of nighttime operations, it is not unreasonable to assume that many of these accounts might be exaggerated, misinterpreted, or even entirely false constructs.

And with so little in the way of physical or verifiable evidence, sceptics argue there is little to separate such stories from campfire myths.

Yet it becomes harder to dismiss when incidents are reported by multiple witnesses across different units and when they appear to result in physical consequences that cannot be explained away so easily.

One such claim, perhaps the most infamous of all, is the alleged killing of the so-called Kandahar giant in Afghanistan.

According to the story, not only was the entity encountered and destroyed, but its remains were later recovered and transported to the United States for analysis.

The story begins in 2002 in the early stages of the US war in Afghanistan.

An infantry patrol reportedly disappeared whilst operating in the remote deserts near Kandahar, vanishing without trace.

Concerned by the lack of contact, the army dispatched a special forces unit to investigate and, if possible, recover the missing men.

After several days of searching the patrol's last known area, the operators began to pick up a trail.

They found broken and abandoned military equipment scattered along a mountain pathway, backpacks, a radio set and fragments of clothing.

Some of it appeared to be flecked with blood, and further ahead, they noticed growing concentrations of spent cartridge casings on the ground.

The trail led them upwards into a plateau dotted with cave entrances.

There, the team discovered bones and fragments of uniforms seemingly belonging to the lost patrol.

The soldiers moved cautiously, fanning out into defensive positions, suspecting the perpetrators might still be nearby.

Their instincts were soon confirmed.

Without warning, a flash of movement erupted from one of the caves.

The point man was struck with such force that he was lifted from his feet, impaled by a crudely fashioned spear that tore through his body armour.

A guttural roar echoed through the mountains as the attacker emerged.

The soldiers now faced a creature unlike anything they had ever seen.

Descriptions claim it stood around 13 feet tall, its body covered in animal skins, its hair long and red, and its beard thick and unkempt.

It moved with terrifying speed for something of its size, rushing to retrieve its weapon from the fallen soldier.

In that instant the team's paralysis broke, rage and fear mingled and they unleashed a hail of automatic fire.

For close to half a minute they poured rounds into the giant's body, reloading and firing again until finally it collapsed.

Witnesses claim its final twitches were answered only by the deafening silence of the plateau.

Once the immediate threat was neutralized, some soldiers moved to recover what was left of the missing patrol whilst others examined the body of the fallen attacker.

The giant was said to possess six digits on each hand, sharpened teeth and crude weapons fashioned from what looked like human bones.

Its feet were wrapped in rough animal hide coverings, and its sheer bulk was unlike anything they had ever trained to fight.

The creature, by some estimates, weighed over 500 kilograms.

The operation did not end there.

Reports suggest that when a recovery helicopter arrived, even the air crew struggled to lift the body into the aircraft due to its immense weight.

Later, the remains were allegedly flown out of Afghanistan aboard a C-130 transport plane, though details of their final destination remain unknown.

Those who claim to have handled the body insist the stench it produced was almost unbearable, so powerful that it overwhelmed even seasoned airmen.

What makes the Kandahar Giant story stand apart from most other paranormal military encounters is not only its violent outcome, but also the number of personnel said to be involved.

Soldiers, recovery teams and aircrew alike.

Still, there is no official acknowledgement.

No photographs or physical samples have ever surfaced, leaving the story to circulate only in testimonies and whispers.

Those who believe the account often connect it to ancient myths.

The Nephilim, referenced in early passages of the Christian Bible, were described as giants born from the unions of fallen angels and human women.

To some, the similarities between these old accounts and the Kandahar giant are too striking to ignore.

Could remnants of such a race have survived, hidden away in the inaccessible mountains and caves of Afghanistan, until conflict brought them into sudden contact with modern soldiers?

The references do not stop there.

The descriptions given by Jerry Aberdeen of a smoky, red-eyed entity in Iraq and by Marines at Hassan Abad of whispering voices and blue orbs align with long-standing traditions of the jinn.

In Islamic culture, jinn are described as beings of smokeless fire, able to shapeshift and meddle in human affairs.

They are often portrayed as playful or mischievous, but also dangerous when crossed.

To soldiers unfamiliar with such lore, the encounters might have seemed incomprehensible.

To locals, however, they could be recognized echoes of folklore dating back centuries.

The Middle East, with its vast deserts, impenetrable mountains and labyrinthine cave systems, offers countless places where such entities, whether physical beings or supernatural forces, might dwell unseen.

It is not unreasonable to imagine that pockets of life, long thought extinct or relegated to myth, could persist in regions so inhospitable and inaccessible.

History teaches us that war often drives humanity into places it would not otherwise go.

In such places, unexpected encounters may occur, and they are often brief, violent, and fatal.

As in so many conflicts, official channels remain silent.

The US military and its allies have offered no comment on these stories, leaving them to circulate unchallenged.

This silence may well be deliberate, a strategy to discredit the accounts by denying them oxygen, whilst quietly analysing them behind closed doors.

It is easy enough to dismiss a lone soldier's claim of the supernatural, but when testimony is repeated across units, corroborated by comrades and written into reports, it becomes harder to ignore.

And beyond this theatre, there is precedent.

Every year, scientists announce the discovery of new species in Earth's oceans, jungles and caves, creatures previously unknown to us.

If new forms of life can still be uncovered in environments so thoroughly studied, then why not in the remote and forbidding landscapes of the Middle East?

Perhaps one day we will know the truth.

For now, The story of the Kandahar giant, like the whispering jinn of Asanabad or the Black Eyed Lady of Barquibar, remains part of that uneasy catalogue of encounters, tales that blur the line between battlefield reports and folklore.

Perhaps the most unsettling part of these stories is not whether they are real, but the silence that surrounds them.

For in silence, legend grows, and soldiers still whisper of what they saw in the desert.

Join Vanguard for a moment of meditation.

Take a deep breath.

Picture yourself reaching your financial goals.

Feel that freedom.

Visit vanguard.com/slash investinginyou to learn more.

All investing is subject to risk.