Rakes on Night Watch

In remote training areas, far from anything resembling civilization, service members occasionally report encounters they struggle to explain. Most can be written off — stress, exhaustion, or misidentified wildlife. But some accounts are harder to dismiss. Across multiple locations and separate incidents, soldiers and Marines have described seeing the same pale, human-like figure moving just beyond the treeline — watching, tracking, and vanishing without a trace. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Some stories aren’t told until years later — passed quietly between friends, or remembered only after something brings them back to the surface. Within the Wartime Stories team, a handful of these experiences have stayed with us, each one difficult to explain. From abandoned buildings to historic battlefields and training grounds, these firsthand accounts reflect moments that didn’t make sense at the time — and still don’t now. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

During a field exercise in the jungles of the Philippines, a unit of artillerymen responded to a nearby village reporting livestock thefts and the disappearance of a newborn child. What they encountered in the forest that evening would become one of the strangest stories ever shared between soldiers. Drawing on accounts passed between servicemen and long-standing regional folklore, the incident raises unsettling questions about what may exist deep within some of the world’s most remote jungles. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Across every branch of the military, crews depend on their machines for survival — aircraft, ships, and vehicles that become lifelines in combat. But sometimes, certain machines develop reputations that go far beyond normal mechanical trouble. From a Marine Corps helicopter with a deadly past… to a British jump jet plagued by accidents… to a World War I submarine surrounded by tragedy and ghostly sightings, servicemen have long shared stories of war machines that seemed marked by something darker than bad luck. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

During combat deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, some soldiers reported encounters that didn’t fit any known threat, animal, or enemy tactic. Small humanoid figures seen at night. Unexplained movement around guard posts. Local interpreters refusing to enter certain villages without explanation. Often dismissed as stress, exhaustion, or superstition, these accounts share striking similarities with regional folklore that long predates modern warfare. From remote outposts to abandoned settlements, servicemen describe experiences they still struggle to explain. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the skies over wartime Europe and the Pacific, Allied pilots began encountering something they couldn’t identify — glowing objects that followed their aircraft, evaded radar, and vanished without explanation. Was it a Nazi weapon? Or something from another world?  Recorded in combat reports and wartime newspapers, the Foo Fighter sightings would haunt aircrews long after the war ended, raising questions that were never fully answered. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Before the Civil War, Champ Ferguson was a quiet mountain farmer, a loving husband and father living a simple life in the hills of Kentucky. But when the conflict came to his doorstep, something broke, unleashing a savage brutality that would make his name whispered in terror across the border states as one of the Confederacy's most infamous and bloodthirsty guerrilla fighters. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On the island of Oahu, the US military stands as a symbol of modern power, a high-tech fortress in a tropical paradise. But when the sun sets over the volcanic peaks, an older power awakens, and today’s soldiers come face to face with the ghostly armies of Hawaii's ancient warrior kings. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is Part Two of the story of the Depraved Doctors of the Third Reich. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Nazi obsession with creating a pure Aryan race was not just a political ideology; it became a twisted scientific mission. Entrusted with this dark purpose, German physicians abandoned their ethics to perform monstrous experiments on children, the disabled, and prisoners of war, all in a depraved attempt to engineer their vision of humanity. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices