Haunted Ancient Outpost

by M.P. Pellicer | Stranger Than Fiction Stories
There is a solitary outpost in Afghanistan known as "The Rock", short for Observation Point Rock (OP Rock). It's situated southeast of Patrol Base Hassan Abad, and developed a reputation for being haunted.

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Two Soviet armored personnel carriers outside the Amir Agha villages which were destroyed in 1982 after getting stuck in mud c.2008 (Source-NYTimes)

The outpost is 65 feet above the surrounding landscape, and sits lonely and exposed on top of the ruins of an ancient medieval fort, made of mud and long since caved in. Arrow slits and turrets testify this piece of forbidding landscape has always been witness to battle, and the locals claim it dates back to the times of Alexander the Great (330 BC).  It's believed the foundation for the OP was built prior to the 1740s.

The villagers from Amir Agha considered the place cursed, and sacred as well due to the presence of a shrine in the village.

During the 19th century the British Empire, in order to protect its Indian territories from Russia. The First Anglo-Afghan War (1839-1842), was marked by the annihilation of Indian and British troops as they retreated from Kabul. The Second Anglo-Afghan War (1839-1842) resulted in the Treaty of Gandamak, where Britian took control over Afghanistan's foreign affairs in exchange for protection. Despite the treaty signed in May 1879, four months later the occupants of a British mission in Kabul were massacred. The Treaty of Rawalpindi was signed in 1919 during the Third Anglo-Afghan War, where Afghanistan lost its status as a protectorate of Britain
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Before the American military dropped a bomb on it, the Rock was a derelict Taliban-controlled fort. After 2008 it was a military base until 2021, when it fell into the hands of the Taliban when they took control of Afghanistan once again.

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Reenactment of discovery of human bones at OP Rock by U.S. military

The Taliban are a militant political movement and Islamic fundamentalists that are considered a terrorist group by most countries. They enforce strict Sharia laws against women, and have shown little regard to human rights.

Throughout the Afghanistan War (2001-2021) this was considered the most dangerous place in the country, and saw some of the heaviest warfare, with hundreds of civilians being killed.

During the Soviet Afghan War (1979-1989) Russian soldiers killed the Mujahideen who were hiding out in the Rock. Around 1980, forty Afghan communist police officers were captured near Amir Agha. They were taken to the Outpost, and they were all executed and buried there. Family recovered some of the bodies, but others remained.

When the Taliban recaptured the Rock they executed the Russians by ritualistically beheading them. Another rumor was that several Taliban had been entombed alive in a series of caves underneath the outcropping. In only a few decades it had served as a tomb for different men killed in horrific circumstances. ​

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Russian soldiers from Odintsovo, killed during the war in Afghanistan. (Source-Valeri Pizhanski) c.1980s

In June, 2009, Marines assigned there to keep watch soon found that those who met their deaths through the years did not lie quietly in their graves.

Digging trenches inevitably led to the unearthing of human bones, and at some point desiccated remains and entire skeletons would surface. One that was found still wore glasses. The marines reburied them, at a loss of what else to do with them. They found 3 graves lined up for men who met their end on the same day. However other discoveries predated recent battles such as ancient pottery shards. Small tunnels dug into its base led to a single chamber, which was believed to be either a tomb or a fort.

Those guarding the outpost would hear noises such as objects moving, strange lights and screams coming from the desert. Other phenomena was the sound of footsteps approaching on gravel, malfunctioning electronics and movement seen far off on the perimeter, and no person was ever found. Those on guard duty complained of feelings of being watched. On occasion the stink of corpses would float on the breeze.

The haunting affected not only the American, but the British soldiers who occupied it beforehand. The Welsh unit had their own encounters with the strange and even warned the Marines taking over the post. They described shadowy figures moving in the desert that were sometimes seen on night vision goggles. The most grave warning involved not touching or taking any of the relics because it carried a curse of bad luck.

The creepiest hours were between midnight and 4 AM. Sgt. John Brown commented, "The local people say this is a cursed place. You will definitely see weird-ass lights up here at night."

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Marine in Afghanistan c.2009

Corporal Jacob Lima described where one night he woke up to the sound of screaming. The yells came from Corporal Zolik. "When I got there he said that he was sitting there when he heard an angry voice whisper something in his ear. He said it sounded like Russian. He thought it said, 'Brozay oruziye'. He begged me to stay in there with him till he was relieved from guard duty. After that he really didn't like standing post up there."

He described where other times they heard footsteps pacing back and forth on the observation post above them. Another time when scanning the horizon with thermal imaging he saw another solider with "balled fists" standing in the desert. Only when the figure disappeared did he realize it was not a live person.

A dog that lived at the outpost named Ugly Betty would bark in the middle of night looking towards the desert, other times she would growl in certain areas behind the razor wire perimeter where the Marines lived. The sentries would hear approaching footsteps and an occasional icy breath, leading them to believe that something unseen was there with them.

Eventually all the Marines there had a brush with the supernatural. One of them requested a transfer away from OP Rock. After they finished their assignment, three were killed and one was badly scarred by an IED. Only three of the original group stationed there lived to tell the tale.

The outpost is located in Helmand Province, infamous as the center of Afghanistan's opium poppy agriculture. It is mostly a tribal and rural society, with the native ethnic Pashtuns being the majority. Most of the population practices Sunni Islam. 

A U.S. Marine wrote the following in 2015, about his experience at OP Rock:​

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For the most part, I hated being in the military when I was in it, but now that some years have past I love the memories of being in the military. Either it is I only remember the good parts(definitely not true) or you end up having the feeling of pride, not pride in that you did something "honorable" or "badass" but rather pride in that you survived it, you overcame it.

This is one of the few absurdly negative memories I have had being in the Marines.
My unit's motto was "Not for self but for country" let me tell you, if I knew what I was going to have to witness there, I would not do it for my self, and I also would not have done it for my country.

My unit had been deployed to Patrol Base Hassan Abad.

Now, as some of you may know, America was not the first to foray into Afghanistan. There were the Russian before us, the British, even Alexander the Great of Macedonia tried to march through this land. None of them were able to hold onto this serene and quite beautiful landscape, all of them met an eventual defeat.

I and three other men were put out at a little bump in the land, a hill of about 65 feet, called OP Rock. Before us the British were there, they warned us of an "oppressive atmosphere" Ya no shit buddy it's Afghanistan everything is oppressive. OP Rock was approximately 600 meters from Patrol Base Hassan Abad, where the rest of my unit was. Our job was to watch for any baddies heading towards the Patrol Base, engage them, and call in a QRF and possibly Air Support(I do love me some BRRRRRT's).
OP Rock used to be have a small cave system under it, most likely dug by the Taliban. That is until the U.S. dropped about 2,500 pounds of explosive freedom onto their heads. If there were any men inside who did not die first from having the air sucked out of their lungs, die a second time from having the concussive force turn their organs into jelly, or die a third time by being engulfed in flame, they were buried.

So, we get up to our little OP Rock on the first day, of what was going to be about three months of literal hell. First thing you do when you are going to go static at a location, dig. You dig some holes, maybe a trench, and dig some more to throw up a few HESCO barriers and the like. Well we started digging, and as we were digging we started to find bones. Not one bone, not two bones, tons of bones, there were bones for days. We could have built our whole OP out of bones. We found relics too, pottery, tin ware, a helmet. The helmet was a Soviet Issue from the 70's/80's. These were human bones of Soviet soldiers who never made it home.

Our first night, I got third watch, from 12 midnight to 4 in the morning. I had night vision and was just watching out over the landscape. I start to see flashes of light about 400m from my position. Looks like incoming small arms fire, but I do not hear any gunfire, nor the distinctive snap of a round going past in close proximity, nor any distinctive tracers(shit looks like star wars at night, tracer rounds are AWESOME). They pop up all over the place then disappear, then show up again a few minutes later. I wake up one of my butt buddies and he too notices the flashes. So it was not just my imagination or malfunctioning gear.....great...... eventually some other lights showed up in the sky, significantly brighter and seem to float to the ground, like a really dim flare. Taking off the NVG's all we could see was dark.

Unsettling to say the least. This happened a few times, not just to me, but to the other guys on the hill as well.

The worst event at OP Rock, and probably the most terrifying moment I have experienced in my life happened about three weeks after we posted up.

I was sitting another late night watch. It had been a few days since anyone had seen any of the strange lights. However immediately they came on in force. I swear they were muzzle flashes, I saw the dim flares again, it seemed like the entire position was being lit up, at first I ducked for cover, but there was no physical or auditory evidence, just the lights. Then almost as abruptly as it started it ended, and I was back to looking at the land through a fuzzy green lens.

A whisper in my ear. "Brozay oruziye"

I don't know what it meant. I knew it was Russian, I knew it sounded angry. I startle, I flop on the ground like a fish trying to bring my weapon up to bear and turn to my right, and there is nothing there. Nothing at all. I freak out, wake up my butt buddy, and told him he needed to take watch.(He owed me one because I bit the bullet one day and took the egg omelette MRE WILLINGLY, just so everyone else could have something significantly less shitty. That day I was a true American Hero). It was only when I had started to calmed down that I noticed I had pissed myself.(A significantly more common occurrence in the military than one would think. Definitely was not the first time I pissed myself in my military career and it was not the last.)

A few weeks later some trannies (that's what we called our translators) talked to some locals in the area. Apparently there was a small Soviet OP here as well during their war in Afghanistan. It had been overrun by the Mujahedeen and every single last one of them was slaughtered. The captured were executed, and they left the bodies to lay there.
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Those poor men were still fighting that war.