Gambell, St. Lawrence Island, Alaska: Stationary light on the horizon west of the village

According to an Air Intelligence Information Report of December 8, 1953, from the U.S. Air Force’s 5004th Air Intelligence Service Squadron, the observer, a squad leader of the Gambell unit of the Alaska National Guard whom two squadron members described as trustworthy and honest, saw the light while standing in front of the Gambell School. The light did not move, which he checked by sighting along the school’s flagpole; it showed no reflection or beam, was neither bright nor very dim, and at 11:15 UTC disappeared “as though someone had turned it off.” A squadron member determined the bearing with a lensatic compass and found no one else in the village who had seen the light; the night was very dark, with slush ice west of Gambell and a calm ocean. The preparing officer noted that the observer’s two size estimates contradict each other and that no land lies within a considerable distance on that bearing, ruling out a land-based light; he reached no conclusion and named only the possibility of a ship at sea, according to the summary operating in or near U.S. territorial waters. The details are taken from records released by the U.S. Department of War in PURSUE Release 07 (record code DOW-UAP-D162) and do not represent an independent determination by From Beyond Space.