I was deployed as an infantry team leader with the Army in the Kunar Province of Afghanistan

from 2008 to 2009.

One night we set in on an observation patrol to overlook a village that we suspected

IEDs were coming out of due to a successful IED recovery a few weeks prior.

The lieutenant gave me a new thermal imaging system called the Recon 3, and none of us were

familiar with and were told to just figure it out.

I started messing around with the Recon 3 to see its capabilities and I was surprised

with the clarity of the images and the clarity of the zoom on it.

I spent most of my time messing with the different functionalities and watching the village.

I started to look across the valley to see what I could see and that led me to look upon

a spur that we had sit in on and I saw a very large heat signature at the top of one

of those false peaks.

I did everything I could to get as clear of an image as I could.

Suspecting that it was a Taliban puddle together around the light as they tend to do in the

mountains when all of a sudden the heat signature stood up as one being.

It started taking steps parallel to my position and was covering ground quickly with ease.

It tried to slow and relaxed but yet it moved with incredible speed.

That led me to believe that this creature was indeed gigantic.

It traversed along the landscape and I lost sight of it along a neighboring spur.

I did not believe what I saw initially assuming that I imagined it and I never seen anything

like it before my life.

The history of our earth is so different from what we can imagine.

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