The poet Robert Service called Alaska “the great alone,” but are we ever really alone? Some Alaskans say otherwise and have reported sightings of potentially extraterrestrial visitors. In fact, Alaska’s wide, starry skies have proven fertile ground for UFO spotters, and there’s a long history of strange and unusual UFO sightings in Alaska.
Whether you’ve spotted odd things in the skies or the closest you’ve ever come to an alien encounter is watching the “Men in Black” movies, it can be fun to think about visitors from beyond the stars. So, for a little look at strange sightings in the Land of the Midnight Sun, here are some of the wildest and weirdest UFO sightings in Alaska’s history.
1. The curious cases of the “Alaska Triangle”
While you may have heard of the Bermuda Triangle, where mysterious nautical accidents are alleged to be common, the Alaska Triangle is quite different. This isn’t a stretch of open water, but of land, and it’s notorious for disappearances, reports of cryptids, and, of course, UFO sightings.
People and even entire airplanes have vanished without a trace in the Alaska Triangle, and Indigenous Alaskan Tlingit folklore suggests the Kushtaka shape-shifter may be to blame. Others claim that the Alaska Triangle’s dangerous reputation is overstated and the result of cherry-picking, but the fact remains that, UFOs and Bigfoot sightings aside, tens of thousands of people have disappeared in the area that makes up the Triangle, and many have never been found.
But regarding UFOs, the Alaska Triangle has been a spot for sightings, but also a breeding ground for strange theories about them. The high number of disappearances in the Alaska Triangle, along with the multiple UFO sightings, has led some to believe that the two are connected, and that the vanishings are actually the result of alien abductions.
2. The flying saucer incident of 1947
Many people assume that UFOs are most commonly spotted in remote locations, but in 1947, Alaska had a major UFO sighting in one of its major cities. Specifically, a trio of teenage girls in the state capital of Anchorage saw an illuminated flying saucer whizzing across the sky, and marked one of the first reported sightings of a UFO in Alaska history.
The sighting was especially notable because it came on the heels of a very similar sighting in nearby Washington State, as well as the famous UFO sightings at Roswell, New Mexico, sparking speculation about extraterrestrial interest in the American West and the Pacific Northwest (or possibly the other way around).
3. An object over Elmendorf Base
One common speculation about UFOs is that they’re actually military equipment that hasn’t been cleared for civilians to know about. But what if it’s the military personnel who sight the UFO in the first place? That’s what happened in 1950, when multiple US Air Force personnel reported sightings over Elmendorf Air Force Base.
The “Elmendorf UFO” wasn’t a flying saucer per se, or even an obvious vehicle like many UFO sightings involve. Instead, the military personnel all reported seeing a “large, luminous object” zooming through the sky above the base. The “silent ball of light” was detected by multiple credible and experienced witnesses, has never been explained, and to this day remains one of Alaska’s most mysterious UFO incidents.
4. A fleet sighted by a flight in 1986
A single UFO is mysterious, but a whole group of them together can be downright terrifying. And a group of UFOs was exactly what Japan Airlines Cargo Flight 1628 saw in 1986, in an Alaskan UFO sighting that would go on to be the stuff of legend. The cargo plane was on the last leg of a round-the-world trip from Paris, France, to Narita Airport, Japan, with planned stops in Iceland and Alaska. As the plane flew over eastern Alaska en route to Anchorage, Captain Kenju Terauchi and his crew spotted something surprising—or rather, several somethings.
As those aboard the flight would later report, they saw something—or rather, multiple somethings. They saw not one, but many craft with near-blindingly bright lights, moving at much faster speeds than their own cargo plane. Whatever these fast-moving, luminous craft were, they were headed towards a much larger, dark shape, which Captain Terauchi would later refer to as the “mothership.”
Captain Terauchi asked the air traffic control ground crew at Anchorage for advice, but they could find no reports of nearby aircraft, and only told Captain Terauchi to stay clear of the UFOs. Stranger still, other nearby planes didn’t sight them—or even pick them up via radar.
Some theories suggest the crew saw strange reflections of other nearby aircraft, distorted by the weather, or classified military craft that the air traffic team in Anchorage (who had checked with the local Air Force base after receiving Captain Terauchi’s call) was told to keep secret. But there are still those who believe that JAL Flight 1628 did see a group of classified craft—from another planet.
5. The 2023 shootdown from the sky
Historical UFO sightings are cool and all, but surely now, modern science can explain anything weird in the Alaskan sky? Well, not always. In 2023, a UFO came to Earth after a sighting over Alaska, but even going from a flying object to a terrestrial object didn’t answer all the questions. The object, described as a metal cylinder, was technically shot down over Canada, after being detected by military personnel at Elmendorf.
The object was downed after a series of reports of spy balloons sent by the Chinese government to the United States, and there are many who believe that the “cylindrical object” is part of a similar spy device. But that’s just a theory, and until information about the object is declassified, or aliens come out to take credit for it, that’s all it can be.
With that in mind, the next time you look up at an Alaskan sky, keep your eyes wide open. Beyond clouds and constellations, you just might see something unexpected—or even something you just can’t explain.
This article first appeared on Good Info News Wire and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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Ellery Weil
Ellery Weil is a historian and writer who holds degrees from the University of Michigan and University College London. In her spare time, she likes cooking, theater, and petting dogs she meets on the street.