The Alaska Triangle: The Bermuda Triangle's Weird Cousin Up North
Move over, Bermuda Triangle, because a far creepier triangular nightmare land is taking the spotlight. This triangle takes us to the great Alaskan wilderness, where extreme conditions have led to disappearances so frequent and shocking that many believe that they HAVE to have supernatural causes.
The Alaska Triangle stretches from the northern Utkiagaviq to Anchorage and Juneau in the south. It’s an area of glaciers, wilderness, and other areas never or rarely touched by humans. Now, humans go missing all the time, as tragic as it is, but what sets the Alaska Triangle apart is just how frequent missing person cases are. Since 1988, there have been more than 16,000 people reported missing. To explain how such a strangely common occurrence happens, people have turned to theories involving monsters or paranormal occurrences.
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Alaska’s creepiest Triangle first made news in 1972 when it claimed the life of Hale Boggs, the U.S. House Majority Leader. Bogg, along with Representative Nick Begich of Alaska, was flying from Anchorage to Juneau, but his plane never arrived. A massive search effort searched tens of thousands of square miles of the Alaskan wilderness in search of any sign of the plane Boggs was in, but no one found anything. Boggs became just another soul lost to the Triangle. How did this happen?
If you’ve never heard the term “energy vortex,” then today is your lucky day. One of the stranger theories about the nature of the Alaska Triangle is that it is the site of one of these supernatural anomalies. According to people who are either far wackier or far more brilliant than any of us, these are locations where intense electromagnetic energy occurs, causing strange things to occur. Other supposed energy vortexes include Stonehenge and the Great Pyramids. Energy vortexes can cause confusion and hallucinations, which lead to those traveling in the Triangle getting lost.
Alright, if that explanation is a little too out there for you, how about we try something a bit more realistic: an otter man. The Kushtaka is a cryptid in the traditional lore of some indigenous Alaskan groups. According to legend, the otter-like Kushtaka mimics the screams of a woman or child to trick travelers into coming to its aid. The Kushtaka then kills them or turns them into another Kushtaka. Some believe that the Kushtaka can be blamed for disappearances in the Alaskan Triangle.
Or, maybe cryptids and energy anomalies aren’t your thing, and you want something a bit more “grounded.” In that case, the vastness of Alaska can serve as the explanation for disappearances in the Triangle. There have been cases where the wreckage of planes was discovered under avalanches in glaciers. Even with search crews of hundreds of planes, it can be nearly impossible to find something or someone that became lost in a glacier. A plane could misjudge its altitude, unexpectedly crash into a glacier, and become completely lost. That’s creepier than any otter demon could ever be.
Whether the Alaska Triangle contains a supernatural energy vortex, a Kushtaka, deceptively big glaciers, or a Kushtaka that sucks people into glaciers with an energy vortex, its effect remains the same. Alaska’s landscape is beautiful, and it is a beauty that you can quite literally get lost in.
Top Image: JLS Photography - Alaska
