America's Unsung and Unseen Occult Operatives

America’s Unsung and Unseen Occult Operatives:

The Moonwatchers

By: Liam Einhorn

You’ve likely heard the stories of the brave souls storming the beaches of Normandy. You may have even heard of the famed Code Talkers, immortalized by Hollywood in the film Windtalkers. My pursuit into the supernatural sides of history—the ones the powers that be don’t acknowledge—led me to a dank basement, smelling of mildew and secrets. There, I learned of a group you haven’t heard of… a secret unit of the US military kept confidential even in whispers.

I’m talking about the Moonwatchers. This secretive group was scouted from all corners of the country with one goal in mind: prevent the Nazis from gaining a supernatural upper hand. The individuals who made up the Moonwatchers were each recruited for their unique abilities and for their insight into the occult dealings the German Thule Society is now understood to have pursued.

The Moonwatchers were each designated with codenames, their true identities kept secret even from one another. I was able to unearth just enough evidence to piece together the details of a single Moonwatchers mission and the mysterious agents involved.

Deep in what was once the records room of a long-since decommissioned military abbey, I pored over dusty logs and heavily scrubbed journals, stitching together as much of the story as I could. From mostly redacted dossiers and typewritten mission logs and proposals, I’ve been able to glimpse the ghosts of a mission meant never to be seen again.

First, let me tell you about the brave souls who dared to take on such a perilous task. Keep in mind that I don’t have all the information, only what survived the passage of time; the ever-encroaching mold in the records room; and the secret keepers who decided which secrets needed to stay that way.

The group seemed to be led by a woman known as Baba Yaga, an Eastern-European immigrant who never left her grimoire behind. The codename refers to a witch of Slavic folklore who lived in the woods and preyed on children from her hut that walked on giant chicken legs. Instead of children, our Baba Yaga preyed on Nazis and their superstitions.

Also serving on the Moonwatchers was codename Whisperkin, the team’s infiltrator. My research indicates that he was a Native American man who somehow outlasted the rest of his tribe, seemingly erased from history sometime before the Civil War. How he’d lived long enough to serve in World War Two is still beyond me, but perhaps it had something to do with his supernatural gifts. Records indicate that Whisperkin was able to change his form from a physical man to a puff of smoke, allowing him to easily remain undetected and move unhindered by any obstacle less than airtight.

Lastly was the trio’s most dangerous member, a man codenamed Pruflas. What remained of a shredded journal was covered in ancient runes and filled with barely decipherable scribblings I can only describe as the work of a madman. The little I was able to decipher seemed to reference a deal with a demon by the same name—Pruflas. Further digging into ancient demonology revealed Pruflas to be a hawk-headed demon said to turn men against one another.

Now that you’ve gotten a feel for the operatives, I can continue. June 6th, 1944, as the Allied forces stormed the beaches of Normandy in one of history’s bloodiest battles, the Moonwatchers were deep behind enemy lines.

Through scrying spells and other forms of divination, Baba Yaga had traced the source of a great disruption to the natural order deep into Germany and pinpointed its exact location.

The target scribbled on the mission notes I uncovered was Wewelsburg Castle, located about 440km from Berlin and home to the SS. Here, the Nazis trained their leading officers not only in elite military strategy but also in the ways of the occult. Were you to wander into one of their sessions, you might find a silent room of German officers meditating, trying to reach wisdom from beyond the material realm. Just down the hall, in a room adorned with the Black Sun, you might find Heinrich Himmler leading a séance, attempting to commune with the spirits of Atlantis, believed by the Thule Society to be the original homeland of the Aryan race. Sources in both English and German speak of Wewelsburg with the same hushed horror reserved for Dracula’s Castle.

Baba Yaga, along with the help of allied spies, had determined that the Nazis were conducting a dark ritual meant to prevent the forces of the Allied armies from ever advancing into the heart of the Fatherland. A tattered journal, allegedly belonging to a Nazi cultist, described a ritual intended to afflict any invading soldier with a dark plague the moment they dared to set foot upon German soil.

While streams of bullets were whizzing across the beaches of Normandy, Whisperkin was scouting ahead at Wewelsburg. Reports from the German side tell of a wisp of smoke that passed through the front gates and into the building. Several sightings appeared throughout the compound before all hell broke loose.

The same reports indicate that there was soon a foreign man standing outside the gates wearing an owl mask and chanting in an “unknown tongue.” The guards at the gate who accosted him, quickly turned on one another and began to argue for an undetermined reason. Their argument soon turned to bloodshed as one guard shot the other with his rifle before turning his attention inside and attacking more of his Nazi colleagues. Official records kept by the German military refer to this as “a sudden bout of idiosyncratic hysteria.”

This was the distraction Pruflas and Baba Yaga used to follow Whisperkin’s lead into the compound and toward the ritual site. An alleged eyewitness account recorded in a German newspaper claims that a woman wielding “blood and thunder” stormed the inner chambers of the Third Reich’s ritual chapel, accompanied by “a man with the head of a bird” who they described as “speaking in tongues.”

The Moonwatchers made their way to a chamber at the heart of the compound. Inside, surrounded by swastikas and Black Sun motifs, thirteen SS officers in black robes were interrupted mid-chant as they attempted to curse their enemies.

One line survived the redacting process in mission notes regarding that moment: “with an inhuman cackle and the thunder of dead gods.”

It remains unclear what exactly happened when the Moonwatchers entered the ritual chamber, but the ritual was evidently unsuccessful. Typewritten notes dated a week after the mission are entirely blacked out, save for the header: “Operation: White Sun – Debrief.”

With no more records to comb through, I’m left with lingering questions and a hunger for answers.

Did the Moonwatchers all make it home safe? Is Whisperkin still wafting the Earth today in a fog of his own making? Did Baba Yaga acquire more spells for her grimoire as the spoils of war? How different would the world be if these three secret agents hadn’t invaded the black heart of the Nazi cult?

The answers may be completely buried by history now, or perhaps the Moonwatchers have taken their secrets to their graves. Either way, I’ll always be digging for more.

Liam Einhorn is a fictional investigative journalist, studying the supernatural and paranormal history of the world. He is the lead reporter for Paranormal History, a branch of Tales from a Madman, and one small piece of the mind of the Madman.

†This is a work of parafiction. Real historical elements are blended with fictional characters, agencies, and events.