Hello, all my strange, dark, and mysterious loving friends. It's me, Mr. Balin. Now, some of you might know that before becoming a storyteller, I was a Navy SEAL. And while I was a SEAL, I did all sorts of stuff all over the world, and it was pretty wild. But honestly, the thing that really stands out about my time as a SEAL was actually not any of the actual seal stuff I did. It was the stories I heard. And these were not just stories about war. These were stories that honestly were really creepy. These were things that my fellow servicemen and women couldn't explain, things that terrified them while on deployment that had nothing to do with combat, things that just didn't make sense. You'd be amazed at how many just truly terrifying stories come from the battlefield that have nothing to do with war. So if this sounds even remotely as interesting to you as it is to me, I have an incredible new show to tell you about. And if you stick around, I'm actually going to play a clip from this new show, so you definitely don't want to miss it. The show is called Wartime Stories, and it's hosted by Luke LaMana, who has one of the best voices I've ever heard in my life.

And he also happens to be a United States Marine Corps reconnaissance veteran. I personally selected Wartime Stories to be a part of Ballon Studios because, well, it touches on all those totally crazy stories that I experienced firsthand when I was in, and Luke also obviously experienced in his I'm in. Basically, the show is quite literally, Strange, dark, and mysterious meets the battlefield and beyond. You'll hear stories of paranormal encounters, crypted sightings, and the most bizarre unsolved mysteries. And of course, there will also be stories of deception, of sacrifice, of horrible crimes against humanity and incredible acts of heroism. You'd be amazed at what members of the armed services have seen around the world in jungles, deserts, and abandoned cities. And all you have to do is tune in to this brand new show. From Balin Studios, please follow and listen to Wartime Stories, our brand new weekly podcast. New episodes every Monday, wherever you get your podcasts. And now, like I promised, here is a clip from the very first episode of Wartime Stories.

Yo, Rambo, put your damn knife away and help me get these tarfs up. All right, but one, it's a bayonet. And two, you got to admit this thing is pretty damn cool. Look at this thing. How much you pay for that thing, anyway? 250. Damn, bro. Seriously? Did it come with a Camaro and 29% financing? Whatever, man. This thing is awesome. I mean, it's a classic. Just help me get the damn tarps up, will you? All right, all right. One night during an operation we called the COOL, C-O-O-L. I'm not sure what it stands for, probably combat operations, something, something. We were at Bridgeport's highest landing zone, LZ Owl. We'd set up shelter with our tarps for the night. I should mention this tree we hooked our tarps on was growing up against a large rock face. I was a Lance Corporal at the time. I had with me one other Lance Corporal engineer and Lance Corporal Water Dog, a water specialist, and we used large rocks like small boulders and wooden stakes to anchor down our tarps to make a pyramid shape against the tree. So one end of the tarps was attached to the tree, and it was like a lean-to built around the entire perimeter of this tree.

So any water would roll off and keep our gear and us dry underneath. Another thing of note, the water dog we had with us would often be messing around with his rifle because he had a bayonet with him, and he'd stick it on the end of his rifle. He liked playing with it. He liked showing it off. So once night came and the freezing snow started falling, we went under our tarps and into our sleeping bags. This was around 9:00 PM. I woke up around 10:00 PM to the the sound of someone racking the charging handle of their weapon back. It's dead quiet up there, and we're supposed to be in a tactical environment, so making unnecessary noises like that is going to piss somebody off. So I look around, and me and my other engineer's M4s were on the ground next to us, and only the Water Dog's rifle was around the backside of the tree, where only he could see it. It was dark, and so I figured, it's this guy. He must be screwing around with his bayonet again. Is that you? So I asked him if that was him messing with his rifle.

He gets up out of his sleeping bag and tells me that it wasn't him. So now I'm thinking that someone, maybe one of the Infantry guys that we're training with, has snuck up to our Patrol base and is messing with us. So I pull out my K-bar and I crawl out from under the tarps. I I'm going to go threaten some poor guy who thinks he's going to scare us, right? But there was nobody else nearby. What the hell? Hey, Oscar. Yes, Sergeant. What the hell are you doing? I heard a noise. Did you hear a rifle or something? Yeah. Is that you guys? No, Sergeant. What's with the knife? I came out because I thought it might be one of the infantry guys or something. Yeah, okay. Let me go ask the firewatch to see if they're screwing around. God. So when I came out, my sergeant, he sees me coming up out of our lean to, and he walks up to me and asks me what the hell I'm doing, standing there holding a knife and all. And I asked if he had heard the noise that we did. And he said that he did, thinking it was one of us racking our rifles, which I told him it wasn't.

So then he walks over to the nearby Infantry men on Firewatch, and he asks if he or his guys were screwing around with their rifles. But that guy also knew nothing about it. So our sergeant comes back up and tells us that and says to just go back to sleep. So I went back in my sleeping bag, and I forget all about it. Next time I woke up was 6:00 AM, reveling. But now, our tarps are all on the ground, like something had pulled them down off the tree. And the small boulders we use to to hold them down, they are nowhere to be found. And the stakes, same story, gone. So as we're trying to figure out what had happened with our tarps, our sergeant comes back up and tells us what he saw earlier that night. He said he didn't mention it because he thought he was seeing things at the time. But after he told us to go back to sleep, and I had crawled back into in my sleeping bag, my sergeant said something caught his eye up at the top of the rock face behind us. And so he looks up and he sees this bald, naked, human-looking figure with shining eyes looking over from on top of the rock face.

Thanks for listening. Now go hit that follow button on the Wartime Stories podcast, wherever you get your shows, and start listening.