Inside mystery of 'Alaska Triangle' where travellers keep disappearing

Polar bears are rubbing shoulders with aliens in the wild wilderness of Alaska, according to many Ufologists.

A consistent flow of sightings, coupled with between 500 and 2,000 mysterious disappearances a year - twice the national USA average - means even sceptics are starting to believe reports of extraterrestrial sightings are true.

Famous for its incredible Northern Lights, the vast state of Alaska covers 1.5 million square kilometres, yet only 160,000 of its 365 million acres of land are inhabited by humans.

Disappearances are commonplace, especially in the notorious Alaska Triangle - between Anchorage and Juneau in the south and Utqiagvik in the north.

It was first flagged as a site of unexplained activity back in 1972, when a small plane suddenly disappeared while it was travelling from Anchorage to Juneau.

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Three people - US House Majority Leader Thomas Hale Boggs Sr, Alaska Congressman Nick Begich and his aide Russel Brown - were on board, alongside the pilot, when it suddenly vanished.

Despite an extensive search lasting 3,600 hours and spanning a 325,000 square mile radius, the plane and its passengers were never found.

The incident prompted a host of conspiracy theories, as two notable political figures were involved, but their disappearance ultimately remains a mystery.

Another notable case involved 25-year-old New Yorker Gary Frank Sotherden, who went to the Alaskan wilderness in the mid-1970s for a hunting trip and never returned.

It wasn't until 1997 that a human skull was discovered along the Porcupine River in northeastern Alaska. DNA testing in 2022 confirmed that the skull belonged to Sotherden, with the likely cause of death being a bear mauling.

More recently, in June 2019, Shanna Oman, 43, was visiting a friend in Fairbanks when she disappeared. She didn’t show up for the lift she’d arranged with a friend and never returned home. Canine units and helicopters were used in a search lasting several days, but she was never found.

American cryptozoologist and field researcher Ken Gerhard described feeling uneasy about the “strange disappearances” when he was conducting studies in the area.

Someone vanished from a cruise ship and another in a “crowded tourist area on top of a mountain” while his team was investigating earlier disappearances there.

He said of some of the cases he looked at: “They disappeared for no good reason.”

Speaking on a documentary, Mr Gerhard described the triangle as a possible “vile vortice,” a lozenge-shaped area with increased electromagnetic force, resulting in “strange things” happening.

Meanwhile, some UFO experts have said that the sparsely populated nature of Alaska makes it attractive to aliens, as it allows them to roam freely and largely undetected.

But the disappearances cited here are the tip of the iceberg.

Explanations vary, with some people still blaming the terrain and its wildlife - with the vast, rugged wilderness, horrifically cold and, of course, lots of bears.

Many, however - even the more sceptical among us - suggest it’s all down to aliens!