Bigfoot, aliens, gravity: this state has the highest number of unsolved disappearances

In the "Alaska Triangle", according to IFL Science, nearly 20,000 people are said to have disappeared since 1972 (that's 2225 per year). An area of the planet that accounts for the highest number of unsolved disappearances.

Because Alaska, the largest state in the United States, has a rather low population density of 0.43 inhabitants/km², the number of disappearances is all the more impressive, according to the Belgian media outlet RTBF. Fuel for conspiracy theories: alien abductions, Bigfoot interventions, reversed gravity...

The triangle covers a large part of Alaska and extends over an area located between Utqiagvik, Anchorage, and Juneau, mainly consisting of wilderness, alpine lakes, glaciers, caves, and dense boreal forests.

A skull split by a bear

It all started in 1972 when a plane suddenly disappeared between Anchorage and Juneau. Despite all the searches, involving 40 military vehicles, 50 civilian planes, and lasting more than 3600 hours, neither the passengers nor the wreckage of the plane could be found. Other planes, hikers, and tourists also subsequently vanished. One of the most famous cases? That of 25-year-old New Yorker, Gary Frank Sotherden. He had gone hunting in this much-discussed area of Alaska in the mid-1970s. It was only 7 years later that his skull was found, split by a bear, on the banks of the Porcupine River (northeast of Alaska).

Nature to blame

The region's wild nature, extremely cold and harsh climate in winter (as well as in summer), and abundant wildlife (bears, lynxes, wolves) can explain this large number of disappearances, but don't deter conspiracy theorists from developing their paranormal hypotheses.

(MH with Raphaël Liset - Source: RTBF - Illustration: ©Unsplash)