Observation Point Rock, “OP Rock”, lay a few hundred metres southeast of Patrol Base Hassan Abad in Afghanistan’s infamous Helmand Province. Between 2008 and the point at which the coalition forces departed the country, the isolated OP had been in NATO hands since it had been captured from the Taliban.

During 2008 and 2009, a unit of the Welsh Guards from the British army and then U.S. Marines deployed at the OP Rock reported strange supernatural activity with several men involved to corroborate the weird experiences. Locals and foreign soldiers have reported experiencing apparitions, unexplained events, and strange curses.

One U.S. Marine wrote in a Reddit post that his experience at OP Rock scarred him for life, “My unit’s motto was ‘Not for self but for the country’… If I knew what I was going to have to witness there, I would not do it for myself, and I also would not have done it for my country.” He described his stint at the post as “one of the few absurdly negative experiences I have had being in the Marines.”

Did paranormal events cause these experiences, or was this a case of priming or the effects of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), as some believe?

The Afghan war, for now, has come to an end after decades of conflict, thousands of lives lost and hundreds of billions spent. The country is now under the religious rule of the Taliban. American and British soldiers have left Afghanistan for good, not just OP Rock. But, the ghosts and nightmares of OP Rock have stayed in the memories of those unlucky enough to have lived and fought at the Afghan outpost in Helmand.

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