Unidentified Aircraft in Alaska / Alaska UFO

Submission 7,540

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Overview

The Unidentified Aircraft in Alaska, also known as the Alaska UFO, refers to an unknown aircraft that was shot down over the ocean in Alaska in mid-February 2023 by an American F-22 fighter jet. The flying object was described as "car-sized," flying at high speeds and posing a threat to commercial airliners as reported by the Pentagon. The event of its crash and the news coverage surrounding it generated interest, curiosity, discourse and memes online, mostly related to the speculation that the object was an alien spacecraft. The discourse was amplified by the then-recent takedown of the Chinese Spy Balloon, resulting in comparisons between the two aircraft and military events. As the "Alaska UFO" trended on Twitter, the word "Cumtown" (related to the Cum Town podcast) was trending alongside the word "Alaska," resulting in a false association between the two words that created the town of Cumtown, Alaska that was imagined to be the town where the aircraft was shot down.

Background

On February 10th, 2023, news outlets online started reporting on a "high-altitude object" the size of a "small car" that was shot down over the state of Alaska by the U.S. military.^[1] For instance, the news outlet Disclose.tv posted to Twitter^[1] with the headline, earning roughly 17,300 likes in one day (shown below).

The New York Times^[2] published an article on February 10th about the event, including reports from Washington, D.C. that President Joe Biden ordered the aircraft to be shot down because "it was traveling at an altitude that made it a potential threat to civilian aircraft." Additionally, "U.S. officials said they could not immediately confirm whether the object was a balloon," and, "Pentagon officials said they were able to immediately bring down the object over water, so they could easily avoid the dilemma posed by the spy balloon drifting over populated areas."

Other news outlets like CNN^[3] also reported on the unidentified aircraft over Alaska on February 10th, coinciding with John F. Kirby, a White House spokesman, hosting a news conference on the military event (YouTube^[4] upload shown below) and an official statement from the U.S. Department of Defense titled, "Air Force Shoots Down 'High-Altitude Object' off Alaskan Coast," published on the department's official website.^[5]

Online Reactions

Soon after the Pentagon released its official statement on February 10th, 2023, online reactions surfaced across the internet. For instance, the military event was quickly discussed on 4chan's /pol/ ^[6]^[7] and /x/^[8] boards. Many anons discussed and made jokes about the unidentified object being "car-sized" and speculated about the object being an alien UFO.

Twitter users also discussed and joked about the possibility that the object was a UFO, such as Twitter^[9] user RevMattSchultz on February 10th, 2023, who tweeted a photo of an "Imperial Probe Droid" from Star Wars with the caption, "Pentagon releases image of the object shot down over Alaska," earning roughly 1,000 likes in less than a day (shown below).

Memes and discourse also surfaced on Reddit, such as a post from Redditor Shalashaska1873 on February 10th to the subreddit /r/NonCredibleDefense^[10] that imagined the "car-sized" object as the flying car from Harry Potter, earning roughly 10,400 upvotes in less than a day (shown below).

Cumtown, Alaska

Cumtown, Alaska, also known as the Cumtown, Alaska UFO, refers to an imagined town in the American state of Alaska where many Twitter users claimed that the February 2023 unidentified aircraft in Alaska was shot down by an F-22 fighter jet. "Cumtown" refers to the Cum Town podcast which was trending on Twitter alongside the Alaska UFO in February 2023, resulting in an unfounded association between the two and multiple memes thereafter about the imaginary town.