On October 17, 2019, U.S. Army Specialists Emma Hawkins and Tara Mitchell, both 27, left Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost Province, Afghanistan, for what their bosses said was a normal supply run.
They drove out in the first of two Humvees, with weapons stowed, the route confirmed, and communications normal.
They never came back.
Hours later, the second vehicle said it had lost touch. A search team followed the convoy’s intended route and found the lead Humvee burned and empty on the border of the Sabari District desert. There was a lot of blood in the cabin. The tires were on fire. Both soldiers had left.
The official story from the Pentagon is that Taliban soldiers set up an ambush.
Status: Killed in Action. The case is over.
But for many who knew Hawkins and Mitchell, like their old team commander, Master Sergeant Curtis Boyd, something about it never felt right. “There were no tracks. No cases. No drag marks. “Just fire and silence.”
In April 2024, a Navy SEAL team was sent to sweep a suspected rebel compound deep in the Shah-i-Kot Valley, near the border with Pakistan. They were following orders from both the CIA and the Navy.
But
In a chamber hollowed out of the mountain, they found something that no one expected and that no one could understand.
The SEAL squad found more than simply a cave. Man-made gear, camo netting, and welded steel strengthened the man-made building.
Inside:
Two U.S. Army uniforms arranged neatly on mattresses made of straw.
Name tapes: HAWKINS and MITCHELL.
Dog
A notebook that got wet yet is still readable. Pages full of entries from the past… until 2022.
And the most unsettling thing was that there were hundreds of deep hash marks on the stone walls. One for every day.
The last entry said, “Day 1,241.” No one yet. I’m still waiting. “But something happened last night.”
When the finding was called in at 3:00 a.m., the call went straight to Master Sergeant Curtis Boyd, who is now stationed in Germany. He hadn’t heard the names Hawkins or Mitchell in a long time. He was just told that something had been found and that he should pay attention to it.
Then, over a secret communication channel, the voice of the SEAL leader, who was apparently terrified, said, “Boyd… there’s food down here.” “It’s still warm.”
That signified that someone was still there. Or had been there just a few minutes before they got there.
What Are Hawkins and Mitchell Up To Now?
Military intelligence is now haunted by more than just what happened in 2019; they also want to know what happened between then and today.
Were Hawkins and Mitchell held hostage by unknown parties, such as the Taliban, local warlords, or rogue gangs? Did Hawkins and Mitchell live in secrecy, oblivious to the government that dismissed them? Were they running their own operations, possibly off the books?
And if they were alive not too long ago, why didn’t they get in touch?
One scary idea says they were part of a black site experiment that an allied intelligence outfit used, studied, or left behind.
Another hypothesis that troops talk about in secret is far darker: “They weren’t alone down there.” But they also weren’t prisoners.
The Pentagon hasn’t officially reopened the case yet, but sources inside the agency say that the CIA, NSA, and Army CID are all looking at papers relating to the 2019 disappearance and the 2024 SEAL find.
A representative for the Department of Defense said, “We are currently evaluating new information related to the loss of two personnel in 2019.” We are unable to provide any additional information at this time.
We have not returned the recovered letters from the mountain bunker to the families, which is a significant concern. Neither the heated food nor the blood samples collected from the scene have undergone forensic testing.
Did the Army hide the truth?
Master Sgt. Boyd, who is now retired, is speaking up for the truth. In a recent interview, he added, “They were left.” Not remembered. We wrote them off because it was easier than saying we lost them. But someone knew. Someone kept them out of sight. And someone might still have them.
There are many speculations going around in online forums and military conspiracy threads: Could the GPS error have been an oversight? Were the women working in secret? Did they find anything they weren’t supposed to see?
And maybe the most unsettling thing is that five years later, who was still feeding them?
The last words of the found journal still worry the police: “It comes at night now.” But it speaks in her voice.
What or who were they talking about?
The mountain chamber has been shut since then. Under classified protocols, all members of the SEAL squad that were involved were debriefed.
No remains have been found to this day. No bodies. No official responses.
There were only two names, two outfits, and a place where the food never went cold.
