Cave Demons

Cave Demons is the seventh episode of the first season of the thriller horror docudrama found-footage television series Lost Tapes. It originally aired on Animal Planet on January 27th, 2009 and was directed by Douglas Segal.

Plot
On January 24, 2002, Sergeant Carlos Ramos and Corporals Latrel Wade and Derek Sawyer were sent to investigate bizarre interference that had been disrupting a new sonar-based cave-mapping system. The USMC has been using this system at Tora Bora in the wake of an intense bombing campaign in the winter of 2001, and believe that the interference is coming from a new jamming device developed by Al-Qaeda or the Taliban. Ramos was only a few days away from his return to the United States and was looking forward to seeing his wife Danielle and infant son AJ in Chicago, who he sends a video recording to just before going on the mission. After being briefed by their gunnery sergeant on their mission--to locate and destroy the thing that is causing the interference--the three marines made their way to the cave and arrive there shortly before midnight, recording the mission with helmet cameras. After confirming their status with base command, Ramos warns Wade and Sawyer to keep their wits about them; none of them have any idea how deep the caves run, and there could be land mines and improvised explosive devices anywhere. Shortly after entering the cave, they hear the squeaking of bats as they try to maneuver their way through the darkness by light provided by their helmets. Suddenly, there is a screech as a huge shadow briefly obscures the light from one of their flashlights. As they travel further into the cave, they come upon a disgusting smell and quickly identify it as guano also known as bat feces.

Ramos takes out a portable device which he uses to track a signal deep in the cave, which they believe is the source of the interference. As they follow the signal, they hear a strange sound and question what it is; when they hear the squeaks of increasingly numerous bats all around them, they assume that they were the source of the noise to them. Sawyer comments that he is afraid of bats, and Ramos jokingly chastises him, which Sawyer doesn't appreciate given their situation. As Wade joins in on teasing Sawyer, there is a sudden explosion as he accidentally sets off a land mine and plummets into another chamber of the cave fifteen feet below them, where their radios will no longer work. Ramos and Sawyer yell towards him to find out if he's okay; Wade is alive, but his spinal cord is broken. As Ramos and Sawyer climb down to him, Wade hears the sound of wings flapping and suddenly sees a large winged creature fly past him. Once Ramos and Sawyer find Wade, they discover that he is unable to move and he warns them that something else is in the cave. A frightened Sawyer asks what it was that he saw, but Ramos insists that Wade has been so badly hurt that he's delirious; Wade insists that he did see something, which resembled a woman, which spawns a brief argument between Sawyer and Ramos. Ramos' portable device begins pulsing rapidly; the source of the interference is very close-by. Resolving to destroy the source of the interference first and then help Wade, Ramos and Sawyer leave him to finish their mission. Sawyer doesn't like this idea, but Ramos insists that everything will be alright. Unbeknownst to Sawyer and Ramos, as they approach the strongest source of the signal, another, smaller source has appeared on the portable device, approaching Wade. Wade is suddenly attacked by a gigantic bat-like creature and opens fire it.

His screams and the gunfire compel the other two marines to return and try to help him, but arrive too late; he is dead. Sawyer starts sobbing at the loss of his friend, saying that they never should have left him behind. Ramos believes that it was the work of insurgents hiding elsewhere in the cave and insists that they go and destroy the source of the interference once and for all. As they again approach the deepest part of the caves, they hear louder chirps and other bizarre sounds; unknown to them, in the darkness all around them, at least five smaller sources of interference are lurking about. The portable device starts beeping constantly as they find themselves at the heart of the interference: not a terrorist hideaway, but a nest of the creatures. They are suddenly attacked by several gigantic bats. Their cameras capture glimpses of their wings and briefly, their mouths. Screaming in terror, the marines open fire on the giant bats (possibly killing a few) as their flashlights go out. Nine hours afterward, in the morning on January 25, a rescue team located Ramos near the cave entrance; he had suffered severe blood loss, but survived and was taken to a military hospital for treatment of a rare form of rabies, and was reunited with his wife and child after several months in quarantine. The bodies of Wade and Sawyer were never recovered, and Ramos' injuries--including a large bite wound on his neck--were too large, severe, and extensive to have been caused by any known species of bat.

Clips in the episode also discuss numerous mythical winged humanoids (usually female), the abilities of bats, and rabies.