The Kandahar Giant

In 2016, an account appeared online that claimed to be from a member of a US special forces team that encountered, and killed, a giant humanoid during operations in Afghanistan. While the account has largely been debunked, this hasn’t prevented a number of theories arising surrounding this supposed giant, as well as a video interview with a man who claims to have been present during the incident.

Despite not surfacing until 2016, the supposed encounter is said to have taken place in 2002. After a US Army patrol in a remote part of Kandahar Province went missing without making radio contact, Special Forces were dispatched to look for the missing men. Searching along the line of the patrol’s known route resulted in them discovering discarded pieces of equipment, much of it broken. The debris led the troop to a difficult, mountainous trail, which terminated at a large cave and a clearing scattered with broken equipment and cracked bones.

The account then claims that a red-headed, powerfully built humanoid, around 13 feet in height and clad in animal skins, emerged from the cave. On spotting the patrol the giant promptly killed one of them, an individual specifically named in the original account as ‘Dan’, by impaling him with a large, metal-tipped spear. The rest of the patrol then killed it with ‘thirty seconds of sustained fire’.

On inspecting the body, they found that the creature had six fingers on each hand and two sets of teeth. The giant was then reportedly collected by Chinook and transferred to a C-130 to be transported to an unknown location, with members of the aircraft crew reportedly stating that it weighed in excess of 1,200lb.

After a request for comment to the US Department of Defense, a spokesman stated in 2016 that they had no record of such an incident. Further, the only US service member with the first name Daniel who was killed in Kandahar during 2002 died in a bomb blast alongside three others. No statement referring to a member of the special forces being killed by a giant has ever been released by the Department of Defense, either in 2002 or at any other time. 

Of course, some researchers claim that this is simply because the US Government conspired to cover up the incident. Several unverified accounts have emerged, including two from men that claim to have been part of the special forces patrol that encountered the giant. A number of other videos and blogs have claimed to have spoken with other US military personnel that served in Afghanistan during 2002, often stating that the encounter with the giant was an ‘open secret’ amongst many that served in Kandahar. 

One relatively popular theory is that the creature was one of the nephilim, creatures mentioned in the Hebrew bible and variously translated as giant or fallen angel. Another interpretation is that the nephilim were the offspring of relationships between either angels and humans, or angels and devils, depending on the account in question.

Filmmaker L.A Marzulli conducted a lengthy interview with a man, known only as Mr D, who claims to have been present during the encounter with the Kandahar giant. The interview can be found here.