Mystery of Alaska triangle as UFO is shot down by F-22 fighter jets in US

Icebergs, polar bears and the spectacular Northern Lights mingle with floating orbs and egg-shaped mother ships in the freezing Arctic climate of Alaska.

Mysterious disappearances - between 500 and 2,000 a year, which is twice the national average - are commonplace, especially in the - between Anchorage and Juneau in the south and Utqiagvik in the north.

Philosopher Dr Rohit Dalvi says: “People report a kind of feeling of . It’s something about the spirit of the place which unnerves people.”

Now a new Blaze documentary series, Alien Corridors, examines areas - often dubbed triangles - known for repeated sightings and unexplained phenomena. It has brought together experts and sceptics in a bid to discover the reasons behind , asking if the Northern Lights could be linked.

British archaeologist Natasha Billson says: “Most people have heard of the infamous Bermuda Triangle, but not as many people know about the Alaska Triangle."

READ MORE:

Meteorologist Mark Robinson adds: “You are sitting right near the Bering Strait, which has some of the worst storms in the , that easily get on land there. All the various creatures that would love to eat you. That part of the world is just super dangerous. You can’t just walk into the Alaska wilderness and expect to do it on your own. You are not going to survive.”

In 2007 alone, 2,833 people disappeared - many lost forever to the unforgiving Alaskan landscape.

But, increasingly, people are asking if extraterrestrial activity is responsible for at least some of the disappearances.

In February 2023 at the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, in Colorado, radio operators detected an unusual object floating over northern Alaska - posing a serious threat to US airspace. Cruising at an altitude of 39,000 feet, the unknown object was within the typical altitude range for civilian aircraft.

Alaskan authorities hurriedly ordered an airspace closure and within hours a small fleet of F-35 fighter jets was en route to investigate.

But their testimonies only complicated the mystery.

Some pilots said the car-sized craft appeared to be moving through the air with no visible means of propulsion, meaning they had no idea how it was staying airborne. Other pilots had trouble even approaching the object, claiming that it interfered with their sensors.

The following morning, two F-22 fighter jets took off from Elmendorf Richardson Airbase, Alaska, with permission from the US President to engage and destroy the mysterious flying object.

A short range air-to-air missile sent the unknown craft hurtling into the frozen waters of the Arctic, just off the Alaskan coast.

Battling through torrid and limited daylight, the 39 day recovery operation lost most of the UFO to the frozen sea.

But this was not the first report of a suspected UFO in Alaska.

Seventy six years earlier, FBI HQ in Anchorage received an incredible eye-witness report from two Army officers.

British historian Tony McMahon explains: “The two pilots are travelling across Alaska when they see this large spherical object that is soaring through the sky, leaving no exhaust trail. There’s a slight discrepancy in terms of the accounts of the size of this flying craft, with one of the pilots believing that it was further away and larger, something like 10ft long, the other believing that it was closer and a lot smaller, only about 2 to 3ft.”

It was the second sighting of its kind in a month, with a civilian pilot going over

Anchorage also claiming to have seen a strange object, shaped like a wing, flying through the sky.

Throughout the 1950s, strange sightings in Anchorage and the Alaskan tundra - reported by credible, professional witnesses - continued to confound military observers.

Scientist Dr Mazyar Fallah explains: “When civilians, pilots or people on the ground see UFOs, one of the examples or reasons that have been given for it in the past is these are just military aircraft. When a military pilot or the military is coming out and saying things, then that lends to a different level of credibility or belief, because you’d expect that military pilots on the base would know what type of military vessels are being tested.”

Also famous for the sheer scale and beauty of its Northern Lights, or aurora borealis, these attract trained observers and tourists alike to Alaska.

In 2013, a man was driving less than 50km away from Anchorage with his son, who could see waves of lights dancing through the passenger window.

The man pulled over and saw dozens of floating red crafts emerge from the pink and green glow. They grouped together, forming an enormous circle.

More cars stopped and drivers gathered by the side of the road asking each other what the bizarre fleet of aircraft was. Where did they come from? And could they have anything to do with the aurora borealis above?

UFO expert Dr Matthew Hayes says: “One of the stranger things about the aurora borealis is that it has been connected to the UFO phenomenon in the past.

“People have reported sightings of UFOs in and around the aurora, coming out of it. What kind of relationship is there between the aurora and the UFO phenomenon?”

Tony McMahon says: “Some UFO enthusiasts question whether or not the aurora creates energy, as it were, for alien craft, or whether it guides them in. It’s like the lights on a runway.”

Whatever the reasons behind Alaska’s unidentified aerial activity, it seems the authorities are taking it increasingly seriously.

Dr Matthew Hayes says: “There seems to be some kind of shift happening, a sea change perhaps, in the way that UFOs are handled or understood, or at least the receptiveness to it.

“As recently as 2023, the Pentagon actually put out a call to current and former employees who may have knowledge of programs that were associated with UFOs in some way.”

But as a new era of research into and monitoring of unidentified phenomena dawns, the decades of surreal encounters in the United States’ final frontier of Alaska have prompted Ufologists to wonder if, rather than just being visited by aliens, they are already here!

• MUST KEEP: The 8-part series, Alien Corridors, premieres on Thursday 14th November at 21:00

READ MORE: