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[[Image:Adak_Island_Map.jpg|right|thumb|Adak Island Map (Click to get the higher resolution image)]]
[[Image:Art_Letter.jpg|right|thumb|Art's letter to his family (Click to get the higher resolution image)]]
[[Image:Art_Envelope.jpg|right|thumb|Envelope the letter was sent in (Click to get the higher resolution image)]]

== Case Briefing  ==

By [[Brian Vike]]

Location Information: Adak is an island midway along the Aleutian Island chain southwest of mainland Alaska at 177 degrees west. At 52 degrees north it is not exactly arctic, nor is it temperate; but it is nearly always buffeted by cold, wet winds. Most of the wind is generated by an endless series of cyclonic storms. The weather report for aviators almost never varies: Winds 25-40 gusting to 60, mostly cloudy with layers at 800 feet, 1200 feet, 2000 feet. Visibility 7 miles, rain. Temp 40 degrees F (plus or minus 5 degrees for most of the year). It is bounded on the east and the west by volcanoes. To the west is Kanaga Volcano, a beautiful perfect cone, and to the east by Great Sitkin, which nearly always is at least smoking and erupted in the early 1970's.

Brian Vike Director of *HBCC UFO Research* had a nice telephone conversation with an ex-serviceman by the name of Art. Art was stationed on Adak Island Aleutian Islands and was part of the crash crew for the fire department. One late night in January 1976 at the airport, the control tower personnel rang the crash crew and told the members that an aircraft was going to be landing. The crash crew members jumped up and peered out the window and did not see an airplane of any kind, but rather a glowing object approximately 50 feet across. (Art told me it was the brightest light that he has ever seen in his life) 

Art said it was really eerie to watch, and the humming that came from the UFO, seemed to resonate throughout all of the crash teams bodies. One has to remember that the crash team was still inside their building when they could feel the humming, but they eventually did move outside and stood approximately 100 feet away from this huge and extremely bright UFO which was hovering just over the tarmac pretty much in front of the control tower and of course all the men watching. 

As everyone stood looking at this unidentified object, more bright lights about the size of a Volkswagen came from out of the hovering UFO and flew at an incredible fast rate of speed up to a communication station which was located on a nearby hill and sat stationary on it. Another light went down and hovered over the bunkers. After a period of time the lights that were zipping around did come back to the main object and merged into it. All of a sudden the large UFO took off at such a high rate of speed it left all of the personnel watching it dumfounded. As Art mentioned, we have nothing here on earth that could move as quickly as this thing did and I would certainly be in agreement with Art on this.

The control tower called the crash crew and asked, "what the hell was that"! The crew replied back, it was a UFO! Art remembers one of the personnel in the control tower cursing, as this was something one does not see every day, and he also mentioned that the object was as bright as the sun and lit up the entire area as if it was daylight.

Art said, they were really frightened, they were young men at the time, Art being 19 years old. The thirteen men stood looking at one another saying, "what the heck was that"? 

Soon afterwards, or after the event was over which left a lot of men scratching their heads, the officer of the day showed up and confronted the men and told them what they all saw was "Ball Lightning". Art's response to the officer of the day was, if that was ball lightning, then it had to be the largest display of lightning on record. Art also said he would be more than willing to sit down and take a lie detector test to provide what he is relating is the truth. 

He also mentioned that there were people taking pictures of the object. He could not remember who these people were, but when the pictures came back, Art remembers everyone looking at them and seeing nothing but a bright, camera flash type light in each of the photos. One just wasn't able to see anything other than this brilliant white light.

Art also figures the object sat stationary just feet about the tarmac for 10 to 15 minutes. This object wasn't flying by, it was sitting still for a long period of time in front of all these men. Also he said that the UFO incident was placed into the crash crews logbook and also in the control tower's logbook as well.

Art sat down on another day following the sighting and wrote a letter to his family back home. This was a personal letter, asking how things were, etc, then Art added that he saw a UFO. He described just a little about what he saw. 

You can view the letter by clicking on the following link. I also should add that HBCC UFO Research has not removed any of the names or information. I asked Art if I should remove names and he told me to leave the letter as is. The family members who are mentioned in this letter have passed away. I have also added a link to the envelope the letter came in. After the family members passed on a lot of their possessions were given back to family and this is how Art came into possession again of his letter.

On a side note, separate from the sighting Art and the other men had. Art told me about another time when a Coast Guard ship docked at Adak Island where he was stationed, and he and others were handling the tying up of the Coast Guard ship. After the ship was docked and the Coast Guard crew were coming off the ship, one of the sailors stopped and talked to Art and the other men, saying you would not believe what just happened as the Coast Guard ship was coming into port. A UFO came straight up and out of the water in front of the ship and kept traveling straight up. The sailor said the craft was anywhere from 50 to 100 feet in width. The ship immediately scrambled and went into general quarters. The sailor said he was as white as a sheet, from the sounds of things, the entire crew was pretty freaked out over the incident. Also I should add, this UFO incident happened prior to what Art and the others folks witnessed. 

Thank you to Art for a fascinating report, the letter, envelope and telephone conversation.

== Telephone Interview ==

* [http://hbccufo.org/videos/Art.mp3 You also can listen to the telephone interview Brian did with Art over the UFO sighting at Adak Island, Aleutian Islands Alaska. The interview is 23:31 minutes in length.]


== Credits ==

Special thanks to [[Brian Vike]] & [[HBCC UFO]]

== External Links ==

* [http://www.hbccufo.org/ HBCC UFO Website]
* [http://www.mufon.com/reportufo.htm Report your UFO Sighting]

[[Category: UFO cases in Alaska]]
[[Category: Cases in UFOlogy]]