And finally, we have reached the final state on this series, 50 whole blogposts about paranormal and unexplained stuff in all 50 US states. Alaska was the 49th state to acquire statehood, happening on the same year that Hawaii got statehood, Alaska got theirs on January 3rd, 1959, with Hawaii following in August later that year.
Alaska is an exclave of the US, the only state to be an exclave, it is separated from the US mainland by Canada which it shares a long border with, Alaska also faces Russia across the Bering Strait, Alaska was originally part of the Russian Empire but was acquired by the US as a territory via the Alaska Purchase. Alaska is by far the largest of the US states, Alaska has a long coast with the Pacific and Arctic Oceans which includes the Beaufort Sea, Chuckchi Sea, Bearing Sea and Gulf of Alaska. The state has many islands as well, including the Aleutian Islands chain. The state capital is Juneau, while the largest city is Anchorage. Alaska is the most sparsely populated US state. Alaska’s indigenous population is proportionally the highest of any state and over two dozen native languages are spoken.
The South Central and Southeast of Alaska is where much of the population is located, the rest of the state being either sparsely inhabited or uninhabited. Much of Alaska is a frozen wasteland or tundra (Alaska North Slope) and empty wilderness (Alaska Interior) but there are also many forests and lakes. There are also 100s of volcanic islands. There are areas of Alaska that are relatively flat and areas that are rugged and mountainous. On average Alaska has the coldest temperatures out of the other US states.
Although Alaska has one of the smallest state economies its per capita income is still one of the highest and it has a diversified economy which includes fishing, natural gas, and oil, the United States armed forces bases also contribute to the state economy as well as tourism. Over half of Alaska’s land is federally owned public land due to National Forests, National Parks and National Wildlife Refuges.
Now that it is done and dusted let’s for the final time in this series, get on to the strange and the unexplained, this time for Alaska.
The first one I know off the top of my head is the Iliamna Lake Monster, and yes, I know what you might be thinking, uuhhhgg, not another lake monster! But this one is actually fairly unique and I’d say it certainly isn’t inspired by Nessie, and it’s interesting with a lot of stories and accounts. From what I’ve read there seems to be something to it but who really knows. I have previously done a short blogpost on the creature that was part of my previous Obscure Encounters series, an experimental series that I have discontinued for now, but the post, which is very short as was the intention of the series, is still quite interesting, so check it out.
Iliamna lake is located in southwest Alaska at the north end of the Alaska Peninsula and is the largest lake found in the state and the 3rd largest lake in the US as a whole. The area it’s found is sparsely populated with only a few tiny villages on the lake’s shores, many sightings are made by natives in the area or via people flying over the lake. The lake is 1,012 square miles in surface area with an average depth of 144ft and a max depth of 988ft.
Within this lake is something called the Iliamna lake monster, at least supposedly from many interesting sightings and encounters, including by a few prominent and seemingly respectable people. Other names for the monster include simply Illie or native names such as Jig-ik-nak which it was called by the Aleut people who believed there were multiple of them and they’d avoid hunting them, and Gonakadet which it was called by the Tlingit people who provide some of the earliest accounts of the creature, and saw it as a sort of powerful being or God. The monster can actually be quite concerning to locals who live near to the shores of the lake, who may tell their children to keep away from the waters.
Common descriptions have it described as looking like a massive fish anywhere from 10-20+ feet and some natives have even blamed it for lake deaths and sinking of boats, the colour of the monster has been described as aluminum or black with a white stripe and that it has a square-shaped head that makes it good at ramming things. Those who have investigated the lake monster have suggested there could be more than one of the creatures within the lake, some native legends also agree with this. Explanations for what the creatures could be are anything from Pacific Sleeper Sharks, to Whales and also Sturgeons, or even simply a completely undiscovered species. Others claim they are simply sealions.
Interestingly sightings made from the air tend to give the monster an aluminum colour while sightings from the shores or on the lake tend to give it the black with white stripe description.
I can bring an interesting sighting that I included in the Obscure Encounters post…
One of the first good sightings of the thought to be unknown cryptid was in the fall of 1941 when Carlos Carson, who was a local game warden, and his passenger was flying over Talarik Creek in a floatplane when he said he spotted a number of what he called “logs” that sank from sight.
Later on, his passenger stated that they had spotted about ten or twelve huge mystery fish near a small island off the shore known as Big Mountain. He said that during the sighting they were cruising at an altitude of about 1,000ft and that they turned and slowed the aircraft to get a better look, saying the fish seemed to sink slowly into the deep water but not before they got some good looks.
Another report claims that a tuna hook from a floatplane caught on the monster and then dragged the plane around the lake before people were able to release the tuna line, with some have been snapped by whatever the creature or thing was.
There have been a number of other sightings, although they eventually slowed down since the 1990s, an Alaskan newspaper, the Anchorage Daily News, has offered an $100k reward for conclusive evidence of the creature’s existence since 1979, which could potentially cause some to try and fake evidence, but the prize remains unclaimed as no conclusive proof has yet been discovered.
I agree that most lake monster mysteries tend to be fairly boring because there are so many, and so much of them just seem to be clones inspired by the Loch Ness Monster, but the Iliamna Lake Monster is one of those that stands out from the majority on its own two feet… or fins.
Next up is a rather creepy legend of something known as the Kooshdakhaa, paranormal tricksters who prey on humans in a bid to either kill them savagely or turn them into a Kooshdakhaa. The scary thing about these is they can disguise themselves as looking like Otters or worse looking like family members of the people they are targeting, in a bid to fool them into a false sense of security.
The paranormal creatures come from the legends of the Tlingit peoples in southeastern Alaska. They are shapeshifters and there main form is that of an otter and as said they can shapeshift into looking like the loved ones of whoever they go after. Humans turned into a Kooshdakhaa will have their soul become trapped on the Earth forever and will never be able to move on into the afterlife.
There are various stories about the Kooshdakhaa including stories where they have even been helpful, such as via saving people from drowning or other perils, but other times they can be flipped right on to the other side of the sliding scale of evil and just absolutely rip apart the flesh of victims, in very gory methods. Some Kooshdakhaa stories have them saving people who are lost in the cold by turning them into a Kooshdakhaa so they are able to resist the cold. Sometimes they may also trick people, such as sailors, to their deaths. They are also said in some stories to be able to imitate a woman’s scream or the cries of a baby to lure victims.
They are also said to make a three-part whistle sound in a pattern of low-high-low and this can warn one is nearby.
So how do you keep you and your family safe from these highly emotionally-variable creatures? Well one of the main things you can do is get a dog, man’s best friend is able to apparently sniff out any Kooshdakhaa in disguise and on top of that Kooshdakhaa are scared of dogs, so if a dog discovers one the creature will likely make a run for it. The Kooshdakhaa are also said to be scared of copper and fire, so make sure you have some on hand and also keep fires going. Alternatively, you can also pee at them as they are apparently scared of urine – this can perhaps make sense if they’re territorial and use urine as a way to identify/mark territory.
Another interesting encounter is that of what has become known as the Kodiak dinosaur. The encounter apparently took place on 15th April, 1969 and was captured by a boat called the M.V Mylark that was trawling for shrimp, this was taking place off the coast of Raspberry Island in the Shelikoff Strait with the island of Kodiak also nearby. The vessel was fitted with state-of-the-art sonar equipment to help locate shrimp.
At some point one of the crew operating the sonar noticed something very large picked up on the equipment, an object that was believed to be as much as 200ft in estimated length which was swimming below the boat, about 330ft under the water. The beast or thing was so colossal that the crew dubbed it a dinosaur and apparently a photo was taken of it on the sonar, but this was typically lost, as is often the case around these events unfortunately, and often makes it a bit suspicious.
Many experts went on to claim it was simply a whale but the crew continued to maintain that it was completely out of proportion to that of any species of known whale or even any other type of large aquatic life in that area of the ocean.
Ivan T. Sanderson, widely known for publishing materials on cryptozoology, was said to have received the photo of the sonar capture, and he agreed that it was certainly dinosaur like, describing it as between 150-180ft in length, with two visible flippers, extended tapering tail, a long, slender neck and a snub-nosed head. He brought the encounter to wider popular attention, which up until that point was only little-known having had a small section on it within an Alaskan newspaper.
Sanderson apparently took the photo of the sonar capture to the manufacturers of the sonar equipment, but although they could not confirm its authenticity definitively, they did cast a degree of doubt upon it by saying that it had a couple defects that makes it questionable, and also that the person operating the sonar equipment at the time may have purposely misinterpreted the sonar recording. It was also said the creature was more likely 15ft in length at most and 3-4ft in width.
So, although it isn’t ruled out that something was captured, as it appears something was, it may very well have been overexaggerated, but that still leaves the question as to what it was, as for example the long neck is still mysterious, and it leaves the possibility that it may well have been an unknown sea creature/cryptid not yet discovered or at least one close to extinction, that was perhaps already thought to be have been extinct.
Sanderson also investigated further and countered a number of the doubtful claims via cross-examination using multiple experts and also that the sonar photo was still within the machine when the captain came to get it, which makes tampering less likely, and the experts also concluded there was no tampering.
Sanderson took it ultimately as proof that some unknown long-necked creature was caught, perhaps definitively for the first ever time, although it still remains up for debate, and with the photo now being missing, it’s likely it will be up for debate ever more.
There have been various claims that mammoths lived in Alaska up until very recently, far more recently than what science agrees upon, some even claim to have seen them in Alaska during more modern times with one such encounter having been recorded by Colonel C.F. Fowler and published in a November 1896 edition of a newspaper in Maine called The Portland Press.
Fowler had travelled to Alaska as he planned to buy ancient ivory mammoth tasks from the natives there, and he came upon something quite curious, some of the tasks seemed to be fresh, as in they had blood and rotting flesh from where they had joined on to the beast. Naturally this prompted Fowler to ask when and where the elder had acquired the tusks from.
The elder claimed that a hunting party only three months before had come across what he called a drove of monsters only 50 miles away from where they were currently encamped, the elder claimed that two of these creatures were killed by the group.
Fowler looked into it further by questioning the hunting party who gave a description of the encounter and creatures, the men said they heard a chorus of loud and shrill trumpet-like calls and that then an enormous creature had come crashing through a thicket, with the ground trembling from its movement. The group opened fire on the mammoth with high-caliber muskets, and they surmised that eventually one of the bullets must have penetrated the creature’s brain as it fell forwards dead.
The article even told how the 2nd governor of Alaska, Alfred P. Swineford, believed there were mammoths in Alaska saying there were large herds of them above Snake River and in Alaska’s Seward Peninsula.
So, could mammoths have survived in Alaska up until much more recent times? I don’t see why not, and maybe we will one day find evidence that they indeed did. Could some even still be alive to this day? It seems more doubtful now with how easily we can traverse across the globe, you’d think one would have been spotted and catalogued definitively by now given their size. Alaska isn’t the only place either, there have been claims that Mammoths also survived in Siberia to a far later period than thought, with claims of sightings even as recent as the 2nd World War.
Well, there you have it, that’s some of the strange and unexplained things within Alaska, and also a couple legends/folklore as well. And that brings an end to this long series, but that doesn’t mean we’ll never revisit America’s paranormal and unexplained stuff again as there is so much, I didn’t include that is out there or not out there or whatever you believe. So, I know we very well will see America keep popping up from time to time in these Mystery blog posts. Although I would like for a time to focus on other countries.
I was thinking of perhaps some series on the UK now, I’ll see what I can come up with.
Thank you for reading this post, if you have any queries please Email me, you can find my Email in the Contacts & Community section. Please also follow The Weekly Rambler on Twitter, Reddit, Pinterest and Facebook which you can access through the buttons at the bottom of this website. You can also use the social media buttons under each blogpost to share with your family, friends and associates. You can also subscribe to Email notifications at the right-side of this website to know whenever a new post goes up (you can easily unsubscribe from this at any time through a button in each Email notification), or alternatively you can use an RSS Feed Reader. Please also join my FB Group The Weekly Ramblers Readers Group where readers can more easily talk with each other and also with me whenever I am on, you can also find it in Community.