Alaska
LocationRegionAlaska
LocationRegionAlaska is the largest U.S. state and an Arctic air-defense frontier, where JAL Flight 1628 reported a UFO in 1986 and an F-22 shot down an unidentified object in 2023.
Alaska is the largest U.S. state and an Arctic air-defense frontier, where JAL Flight 1628 reported a UFO in 1986 and an F-22 shot down an unidentified object in 2023.
Alaska is the largest U.S. state by area, covering about 665,000 square miles, yet it has only about 740,000 residents. The United States bought the territory from Russia in 1867 for $7.2 million, and it became the 49th state on January 3, 1959. Facing Russia across the Bering Strait, Alaska hosts a large military presence, including F-22 fighters at Joint Base Elmendorf–Richardson, and Anchorage long served as a stopover for polar cargo flights.
That aviation role shaped the state's best-known UFO case. On November 17, 1986, the crew of Japan Air Lines Flight 1628, a Boeing 747 freighter flying from Paris to Tokyo with a stop in Anchorage, reported unidentified lights pacing the aircraft over eastern Alaska. Captain Kenju Terauchi described what he called two small ships and a mothership, and Anchorage controllers advised evasive action after seeing returns on radar. Later Federal Aviation Administration review dismissed the military radar images as clutter and the FAA screen return as a probable split image of the jet. The skeptic Philip Klass attributed the lights to Jupiter and Mars.
Alaska returned to the official record in February 2023, days after a Chinese surveillance balloon that had crossed Alaska and western Canada was shot down off South Carolina. On February 10, on President Joe Biden's order, an F-22 from Elmendorf–Richardson fired an AIM-9X Sidewinder at an object flying at about 40,000 feet over the Beaufort Sea off Deadhorse. The Pentagon called it about the size of a small car and a risk to civilian flights. Debris fell onto sea ice, and the search was abandoned by February 18. Further engagements followed over Yukon and Lake Huron, and on February 16 Biden said the objects were most likely balloons tied to private companies, recreation or research institutions.
Alaska's remoteness also makes it a setting for newer, unverified lore. In a clip shared in May 2026, Linda Moulton Howe described a buried dark pyramid near Mount Denali, citing a secondhand account from a military pilot's son. The experiencer Chris Bledsoe promoted a September 2026 Missing 411 Alaska cruise built around skywatching, and a "golden orb" filmed by a NOAA robot on the Gulf of Alaska seafloor turned out to be a rare deep-sea anemone. Beyond that lore, the state holds two of the best-documented official episodes in modern UAP history: an FAA case file on an airliner encounter and a presidentially ordered shootdown of an unidentified object in U.S. waters.
“JELLYFISH” UFO FOOTAGE FROM ANCHORAGE, ALASKA A woman photographing a rainbow in Alaska says she captured something she still cannot explain. Sara Jane Osborn says she and her husband were in Anchorage this June when she noticed a dark object above the trees. The footage shows an unusual silhouette with several long extensions hanging beneath it, giving it an almost organic appearance against the mountain backdrop. Osborn described the object as black and silver, turning from side to side wh...
A rather strange object was spotted in the sky over Alaska, near a key American military base. The mysterious sight was captured on video by a woman who first noticed something unusual while watching a rainbow. What appeared above the distant tree line soon caught her attention for an entirely different reason. Sarah Jane Osborne was filming the rainbow when she suddenly noticed a strange dark object in the sky. After her husband, Pete, pulled into a nearby parking lot, she continued filming...
Location: Eagle River Alaska, near Joint Base Elmendorf Richardson It was apparently a jellyfish-looking object, it appeared out of nowhere. It was just floating around relatively in the same spot. It was taken place around Eagle River, Alaska.
Daily Mail: Jellyfish-like UFO filmed hovering in direction of US military base in Alaska, 6/15/2026
[Retweeted] 🇺🇸 WTF is this thing flying near a U.S. military base in Alaska? A woman in Anchorage was taking pictures of a rainbow when she spotted something bizarre in the sky. It looked like a giant jellyfish, with dark tentacle-like parts dangling underneath. The thing hovered for about 3 minutes before suddenly disappearing. Even stranger, it was spotted in the direction of a U.S. military base that houses F-22 fighter jets. She and her husband went looking for a kite or anything that c...
The way the legs move so freely makes me think that maybe it's a balloon. Or, as others have said, a kite? Anybody else? https://t.co/3wFsmqMgua [Quoted] 🇺🇸 WTF is this thing flying near a U.S. military base in Alaska? A woman in Anchorage was taking pictures of a rainbow when she spotted something bizarre in the sky. It looked like a giant jellyfish, with dark tentacle-like parts dangling underneath. The thing hovered for about 3 minutes before suddenly disappearing. Even stranger, it was...
Hmmm 🤔 https://t.co/YeHAUWUGWV [Quoted] 🇺🇸 WTF is this thing flying near a U.S. military base in Alaska? A woman in Anchorage was taking pictures of a rainbow when she spotted something bizarre in the sky. It looked like a giant jellyfish, with dark tentacle-like parts dangling underneath. The thing hovered for about 3 minutes before suddenly disappearing. Even stranger, it was spotted in the direction of a U.S. military base that houses F-22 fighter jets. She and her husband went looking...
Jellyfish-like UAP filmed near Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska (June 15, ~10:13 PM)
The Daily Mail spoke with a witness who filmed an unidentified, jellyfish-shaped object hovering near Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson (JBER) in Anchorage, Alaska. https://t.co/sajiqEYnqt
I’m beginning to wonder whether the Jellyfish UAP was just the beginning. Newly surfaced footage from Alaska shows a bizarre, jellyfish-shaped object floating above a mountainside. Some say it’s a kite. But does that really explain what we’re seeing? https://t.co/DwqtVyQuoY
