00:00We don't often cover stories like this on our channel, but every once in a while an event comes along that just feels too bizarre.
00:07Too outside of the realm of normal experience to be passed up. This is one of those stories.
00:12This is the tale of the lights at Firebase Echo.
00:16In the desolate badlands of eastern Afghanistan, somewhere between the literal and figurative deserts of Kandahar and Pakta,
00:22provinces lies a forgotten speck of sand and wire mesh known officially as Observation,
00:28post-Keating, and unofficially as Firebase Echo.
00:32OP Ketering is your typical austere, isolated military base, a small collection of tents and shipping containers
00:38surrounded by razor wire and sandbags, in an otherwise open and empty desert,
00:44the kind of place where everything is quiet. That is, until it isn't.
00:48On February 28, 2009, a U.S. Army National Guard squad was stationed at Firebase Echo,
00:54a remote NATO outpost that was typically so uneventful that its official name was rarely used,
01:00going by unofficial moniker instead. Their mission was a routine training operation with no anticipated threats.
01:07So imagine their surprise late that night when the team on night watch radioed in something unusual,
01:13some strange lights in the sky above the base. Now lights in a war zone aren't unusual.
01:18We're talking about a place where night is filled with the drone of surveillance aircraft,
01:22the flash of tracer rounds, and the bloom of artillery. There are even bioluminescent fungi that
01:27grow on the corpses of dead animals out there. So you can imagine how many different things might
01:32catch the attention of a bored or exhausted soldier on night watch. But these weren't any of those.
01:38These lights were silent. They moved in odd angular patterns and changed direction mid-air.
01:43Instantly, no arc, no descent. Just stop-on-go motion that no known aircraft could replicate.
01:51Even stranger, they seemed to hover silently overhead for up to 45 minutes at a time,
01:56occasionally accompanied by a high-pitched ringing in the men's ears.
02:00Alarmed but unsure if this was some kind of new tech or a test by NATO allies,
02:05the commander ordered the watch to stand down, assuming it was some sort of drill.
02:09But the lights returned the next night, and the next after that. Each time getting closer,
02:14by the fourth night, they were within 150 feet of the perimeter, hovering directly outside the
02:20sentry's line of sight, hidden in the darkness just beyond the edge of the lamplight. On the fifth
02:25night, they ventured even closer. So close that several men reported hearing a high-pitched ringing
02:30in their ears. One soldier later recalled,
02:33You couldn't see them, but you could hear them, and they were right outside the wire.
02:37We were all scared, sitting there wondering what they were and why they were there.
02:41Then, just as suddenly as they appeared, they vanished. The next morning, one of the soldiers,
02:47a 22-year-old specialist named Carter, was missing. His weapon, radio, and vest were still in his tent.
02:53But he was gone. No signs of struggle, no tracks, no indication as to whether he'd been taken
02:58or had wandered off. All that was missing from the tent was a sleeping soldier and the space directly
03:04beneath him in the dirt. Had caved in slightly, as if something heavy had been abruptly removed.
03:11A search party was immediately dispatched, combing the area for miles in every direction.
03:16They found nothing. They deployed drones, dogs, air support, nothing. Three days later,
03:22they found Carter naked, freezing, six miles away in a ravine, with no cover and no footprints around him.
03:28He had no injuries, no dehydration, no sunburn, despite being gone for 72 hours in 100-degree heat.
03:36But Carter wasn't the same. He wouldn't talk. He wouldn't eat. He stared blankly and muttered the
03:41phrase, it's not the sky. It's under us, over and over. He was medically evacuated and placed in
03:48psychiatric care. No follow-up has ever been made public. Six weeks later, Firebase Echo was
03:54decommissioned. No reason was given. The official report listed Carter's disappearance as fatigue-induced
04:00dissociation, a psychological defense mechanism that can cause a person to temporarily forget who
04:06they are and what they're redoing. But according to one soldier who later spoke to the media off-record,
04:12he never looked up when we talked to him. It's like he was afraid something would look back.
04:17Now, obviously, we can't say what really happened here. There's no evidence to support any theories.
04:22But if we're going to toss out possibilities, we say there's likely more to this story than meets
04:27the eye. What do you think? Let us know in the comments below.
04:31If you enjoyed this video, please be sure to check out our other content where we publish similar
04:36videos. Thank you for watching.
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