Photo courtesy of Brian Stoecker
Local residents react in fear to the strange “fire in the sky”, unlike anything they had ever seen. This past week the sun finally came out in full glory.
By Brian Stoecker
Special to the Turnagain Times
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Photo courtesy of Brian Stoecker |
A recent celestial phenomenon created widespread pandemonium across Southcentral Alaska. According to Girdwood resident, Matt Kenney, “I was having a beer when all these people flooded into the bar. They were screaming about a fireball.” The burly, tattooed Kenney ran outside to help, then saw “God or something”. Said Kenney, “It was like an A-bomb in the sky. I freaked and ran back in.”
Further north in Indian, a de facto militia began shooting at the “craft”.
Jessica Knueppel recalled, “I didn’t know whether to grab a gun and make a stand with the rest, or head for the cellar and pray.”
Law enforcement went into high alert, both to the address the ambiguous threat, and as a show of force to calm area residents. However the Homeland Security threat level never changed from its static “yellow”. Calls to the department yielded assurances that it was probably nothing. Giggling could be heard in the background.
Quick thinking tourists such as Francesca Lombardo of Temecula, Ca., may have saved the day, ushering in a wary calm as frenzied mobs were taking to the streets. “I just explained that they weren’t seeing a UFO, terrorist attack, or a god,” said Lombardo. “It’s the sun.” Word soon spread and residents returned to their daily endeavors. No sun-related casualties were reported.
A still traumatized, Kristin King said, “So that’s what it looks like? Wow. It was so ‘right there’. I didn’t know what to think.”
Younger residents of Southcentral Alaska had never seen the sun, while most seniors had forgotten what it was over the vastness of time. “I now remember seeing it as a boy back on the farm,” said an elder Bird Creek man who wished not to be identified.
The sun is not expected to return until the year 2056.