Editor’s note: This Halloween-centric story dives into a comical conspiracy many tin foil hat enthusiasts have shared at some time. It in no way depicts the authentic Afghan conflict, its people or culture — only the country’s alleged population of extremely large adult sons.
Like any military campaign, those who fought in the Afghanistan war hold memories both shared and personal.
But on this Halloween, we want to draw your attention to a more otherworldly concern. We speak, of course, of the Giants of Afghanistan, creatures from times past and parts unknown who were purportedly spotted outside U.S. garrisons, once upon a time.
Encounters with these beings, which some outlets claim to have occurred during service member deployments to Afghanistan, were recently recapped on The Havok Journal blog, a website dedicated to veterans news and issues. The accounts below originally appeared on “Tales from the Grid Square,” a collection of military encounters with the supernatural penned by author Nick Orton.
“During the war, many members of the US Military and Coalition would encounter activity that would defy normality,” Orton wrote on Havok Journal. “UFOs, cryptids and ghosts. Many bore witness to the immense and immeasurable mystery of Afghanistan. What they witnessed is often kept close to the heart, be it terrifying or truly something incredible.”
Chief among those terrifying encounters was an incident in 2002 with the “Giant of Kandahar,” a “Biblical cryptid” creature that special forces stumbled upon as the giant was doing giant things like cooking giant food and minding his giant business.
According to online accounts, the Giant of Kandahar, who was said to be responsible for an entire patrol going missing, stood a towering 13 feet tall. It sported a shock of flaming red hair, had six fingers on each hand and two rows of teeth for gnashing, thrashing and showcasing a smile that was undeniably dashing.
Upon contact, the giant purportedly 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁ed one U.S. service member with a spear only to be vanquished by the rest of the unit courtesy of “30 seconds of sustained gunfire,” according to an account on allthatsinteresting.com. As the story goes, the soldiers loaded the giant’s corpse onto a helicopter. It was never seen again.
Conspiracy theorists promoting the story prompted the fact-checking outlet Snopes to investigate in 2016. To the surprise of none, bewildered Pentagon officials told Snopes they had no record of such an incident.
