Spacemen and UFOs in Alaska Native Myths

Note: This is a slightly altered section from chapter 1 of my book "Saucers of The North", but with some additional information added.

There are 9 general native groups in Alaska: Athabaskan, Yupik, Aleut, Tlingit, Inupiat, Eyak, Haida, Tsimshian, and Alutiiq.  There are smaller groups within these 9.  Within these native groups there are a number of stories about tribesmen going up to the moon or up to the sky or being approached by the figure Eagle.  It can’t be stated indefinitely that these stories refer to abductions and UFO encounters, but the stories can definitely be interpreted that way.

In Tales of The Dena: Indian Stories From The Tanana, Koyukuk, & Yukon Rivers by Frederica de Laguna, there is an interesting story called “The Girl Who Went To The Sky” that was told by John Silas.  The story is about a family working at a fish camp.  The mother and father are busy, leaving the two daughters and the baby boy to entertain themselves.  The two girls chase a butterfly, hoping to bring it back to their brother.  While the girls are gone chasing the butterfly, one of them is noted as getting lost.  The other sister returns to the camp to get help, but they could not find the missing girl for the entire summer.

A Girl Chasing A Butterfly by Dale DeArmond

The missing girl ends up at a strange camp with an old woman.  The old woman tells her that there are several boys, but they’re all out hunting.  When they return the girl will be married to one of them.  As the story goes, the girl hangs out with this old lady and several boys during the summer.

Towards the end of the summer season, the old lady started to leave the girl home alone.  Every time she would tell the girl to not move a particular flat rock in the corner of the house.  Not surprisingly, the girl finally moves the rock and finds that she can see her family’s fish camp “way down there below”.  The girl is devastated and spends the day crying.  This doesn’t go unnoticed by the old lady when she returns.  The old lady tells her that if she was to go back, the boys would kill her [the old lady].

It doesn’t take long before the old lady decides to help the girl return to her family.  The old lady tells her that if she sees black smoke in the sky coming from upriver, it means that the boys returned and killed her.

The girl returns to her family with definite missing time.  Her baby brother is now old enough to talk, freely move around, and shoot arrows.  Once the girl gets her feet on the ground she looks up at the house she came down from and says that it looks like a spiderweb.

This story is of Athabaskan origin.  The old lady in the story is noted in the book’s footnotes as actually being Grandmother Spider, an occasional mythology figure.  This story provides us with a few interesting key points that can also be found in modern UFO abduction stories, such as: a sudden missing person, missing time (in this case, it was years), possible hologram technology onboard the ship, and a ship that is flat and broad like a spiderweb.  Could “the boys” be smaller UFOs that would dock with the mothership or “the old lady”?

From the Tlingit, there is a story called “The Arrow Chain” from Stith Thompson’s Tales of the North American Indians.  In this story, two boys are playing together on a small hill just outside of their village.  They like to make arrows and then shoot them until they have to make more.  While they’re out, they see the moon in the sky.  One boy gives the size of the moon as the size of his mother’s labret.  The other boy, the chief’s son, warns his friend not to talk about the moon.  Suddenly, the light from the moon is gone and only the stars remain.  Just as suddenly, a circular rainbow-like light swirls around them and the chief’s son finds that he is alone on the hill.  He determines that the moon took his friend.

The boy cries and tries to figure out what to do.  With the pile of arrows that he and his friend have made, he shoots them at the moon.  A ladder emerges from a nearby star, after his efforts, and hesitantly the boy ascends into the sky.  The chief’s son hides out on the star.  What he sees are bushes, a lake, and berry bushes.  He falls asleep in the bushes.

The chief’s son is woken up by a girl, who takes him to her grandmother’s house.  The grandmother gestures to her mouth in an eating gesture and food suddenly appears on the table.  The boy tells the grandmother and girl that his friend was taken by the moon.  Feeling sorry for the boy, the grandmother gives him a few “magical items” that would help him get his friend back.  The boy goes back outside and essentially taunts the moon, getting its attention.  When he returns to the star, the grandmother tells him to sleep and think of the hill he played on with his friend.

The chief’s son ends up back on the hill with his friend.  They’re told to forget their time with the moon and the star.  The boys, happy to be back, head home.  When they get there they find out that time has passed.  The chief’s wife simply mentions that her son “died some time ago”.  When she realizes that her son and his friend have returned, the whole village rejoices.

In this Tlingit story, we see some repeated themes from the Athabaskan story.  Missing time, a sudden missing person, possible hologram technology onboard the ship, two UFOs (the moon and the star), some kind of food synthesizer, and specific details of both ships.  Were these two boys on two different UFOs?  We can only guess.

Another similar story comes from the Alutiiq’s from Kodiak called “The Star Husband”.  In Margaret Lantis’ paper on Kodiak mythology, she notes that she had found similar mythos from other groups around the state and, while there were slight variants, they all had the same format.  In essence, a mistreated woman would find a husband from the stars.  In some cases, as with the Koyukon Athabaskans, the star husband is referred to as Eagle-Man, but the story is the same.

In Kodiak, the myth is as follows:  The chief's daughter is single and refuses to marry the suitor her father has lined up for her.  One night, while sleeping, she is abducted by two men who claim her as their wife.  After the first three days, the two husbands begin mistreating her.  She is kept in a cold house and is left to starve, but she is secretly fed by an old lady while the two husbands are away.  After this goes on for a certain amount of time, the old lady tells the woman that she’ll rescue her if she’ll marry her son.  The woman agrees and the old lady rescues her.  The woman is tucked away in the old lady’s basket and is warned not to peer out or they will fall into the water.  The woman does as she is told and can’t help but hear the wind fiercely whip by.

Upon arrival at the old lady’s home, the woman finds it warm inside and that clean clothes are waiting for her.  After changing, she meets the old lady’s son, the star husband, who is said to have moss on his head, willow twigs for hair, a very bright third eye in the center of his forehead, and mice nestled in the moss and twigs.  She is not frightened by this man.  Instead he makes her happy and they live well.  They even produce a child who is like his father.

After the birth of her child, the woman grows homesick.  The old lady instructs her to peer under the rocks near the fireplace.  She looks under four rocks and sees her village at night, at dawn, at sunset, and at midday.  The old lady takes her and her child down to her village in the same manner as before - in her basket.  The woman is told, again, not to peer out.  Upon arriving in her village, she finds that everyone believes she has died.  Everyone becomes fearful of her child.  The woman and her child return to the heavens.

These stories represent some of the stranger mythology that comes from the Alaska Natives.  Most of their mythos is based on animal gods like Raven, Beaver, Bear, Eagle, etc.  Celestial beings tend to be more tied with creation stories, except for these strange stories where natives encounter beings from the heavens.  Eagle is a figure that is tied to the cosmos as a messenger.

According to Daniel Merkur, the Inuit were known to create cosmic poles, planed and oiled tall poles with an eagle at the top, positioned outside of a dwelling which were used in an effort to accept messages from the cosmos.  They even created the Messenger Feast to reflect the deliverance of messages from Eagle.  At the beginning of the Messenger Feast, two selected messengers would go outside with a shaman while others remained inside the dwelling.  The messengers would cover their faces in black soot and lay in wait for Eagle's voice to be heard, through a shaman typically.  After it was heard and the messengers were able to signal to those inside the dwelling, the feast would begin.  According to the Inuit myths, Eagle was said to often abduct and kill hunters, sometimes as Eagle and sometimes in a false human form.  If hunters get close to Eagle, it's said that a deep [low] drumming noise is heard which increases in volume as they get closer.  Also, at times Eagle would provide shamanic powers to the Inuit.

L to R: And She Borrowed Her Husband's Eagle Feather Cape by Gertrude Svarny (Unangax) Anchorage Museum 1988.030.001ac, Eagle Dance Demonstration photo Anchorage Museum B1985.027.2375, and Untitled, Messenger Feast scene by Kokituk (Inupiaq) Anchorage Museum 2004.061.092.

While Merkur doesn’t suggest that Eagle is UFO or alien related, those familiar with a variety of UFO stories may realize that cosmic messages, the abduction and/or killing of isolated people, the false human forms, a deep pulsating sound, and the sudden appearance of “powers” can all be related to UFO encounters, alien abductions, alien being encounters, and abductees with sudden new knowledge or abilities.

The Inuit also have tales of Eagle Husband, which is very similar to the Star Husband/Eagle Man stories previously mentioned.  The only difference in the Inuit versions is that when the woman returns to her village the Eagle Husband comes searching for her and her father ends up killing Eagle Husband.

The question from ufologists regarding these stories is: could these be explanations of alien abductions by local native peoples?

Since the Russians claimed Alaska as their own there has been trade and communication between the native peoples and the peoples who have claimed the land for their countries.  This means that stories and resources have been discussed between parties.  There are tales of strange animals, hidden lands, areas of high natural resources, and even gathering intelligence for the local military (whether Russian or American).  What is distinctly different is that there aren’t any Russians or Americans sharing these same celestial stories of a “star husband” or fighting the moon or going up into a giant spider web.

Citations:

• Cannon, Chris M. NORTHERN DENE ASTRONOMICAL AND SKY-RELATED KNOWLEDGE: A COMPARATIVE ANTHROPOLOGICAL STUDY. Dissertation. University of Alaska Fairbanks; December 2021. https://scholarworks.alaska.edu/handle/11122/12991

• De Laguna, Frederica. Tales of The Dena: Indian Stories From The Tanana, Koyukuk, & Yukon Rivers.  “The Girl Who Went To The Sky.” University of Washington Press; Seattle, 1995.

• Jeness, Diamond. Report of the Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1913-18.  Volume XIII: Eskimo Folk-Lore.  Part A: Myths and Traditions From Northern Alaska, the Mackenzie Delta, and Coronation Gulf. F. A. Acland; Ottawa, 1921.  Issued November 15, 1924.

• Lantis, Margaret.  “The Mythology of Kodiak, Alaska.” The Journal of American Folklore.  Vol. 51, No. 200 (Apr-June 1938), 123-172.

• Merkur, Daniel.  History of Religions. “Eagle, the Hunter's Helper: The Cultic Significance of Inuit Mythological Tales”. Vol. 27: Issue 2, pages 171-188.  University of Chicago Press; Chicago, November 1987. https://doi.org/10.1086/463111

• Our Voices: Native Stories of Alaska and the Yukon. (2001). Canada: University of Toronto Press.

• Thompson, Stith.  Tales of the North American Indians.  “LIII. The Arrow Chain.”  Harvard University Press; Massachusetts, 1929.