ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – For Juneau resident Tamara Roberts, taking photos of the northern lights was just a hobby — that is until a different light altogether caught her eye.

Capturing what she’s called strange lights in the skies of Juneau near her home on Thunder Mountain, Roberts said she’s taken 30 to 40 different videos and photos of the lights since September 2021.

“Anytime I’m out, I’m pretty sure that I see something at least a couple times a week,” Roberts said. “I’m definitely not the only one that’s seeing them. And if people just pay more attention, they’ll notice that those aren’t stars and those aren’t satellites.”

Roberts has been a professional photographer for over 20 years. She said she changed interests from photographing people to wildlife and landscape when she moved to Juneau 13 years ago.

Once she started making late-night runs trying to capture the northern lights, she said that’s when she started encountering her phenomenon.

Roberts said not every encounter takes place above Thunder Mountain: her most recent sighting happened near the Mendenhall Glacier while her stepmom was visiting from Arizona.

“She’d never been here before, so we got up and we drove up there, and lo and behold, there it was,” Roberts said. “I have some family that absolutely thinks it’s what it is, and I have some family that just doesn’t care.”

Roberts described another recent encounter near the glacier she said was a little too close for comfort. While driving up alone in search of the northern lights, she expected to see other fellow photographers out for the same reason as she normally does.

But this night was different.

“I’ve gone up there a million times by myself, and this night, particularly, it was clear, it was cold and the [aurora] KP index was high … so as I’m driving up and there’s nobody there. And I was like, Okay, I’ll just wait and somebody will show up.’ So I backed up into the parking spot underneath the street light — the only light that’s really there on that side of the parking lot — and I turned all my lights off, left my car running, looked around, and there was that light right there, next to the mountain.”

Roberts said after roughly 10 minutes of filming the glowing light, still not seeing anyone else around, she started to get a strange feeling that maybe she should leave.

“I just got this terrible gut feeling,” Roberts said. “I started to pull out of my parking spot and my car sputtered. [It] scared me so bad that I just gunned the accelerator, but my headlights … started like flashing and getting all crazy.

“I had no headlights, none all the way home, no headlights.”

According to the Juneau Police Department, there haven’t been any reports of strange lights in the sky since Sept. 14, when police say a man was reportedly “yelling about UFOs in the downtown area.”

Responding officers said they did not locate anything unusual, and no arrests were made following the man’s report.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Weather Service in Juneau also said within the last seven days, no reports of unusual activity in the skies had been reported. The Federal Aviation Administration in Juneau did not respond.

With more and more whistleblowers coming forward in Congressional hearings, Roberts said she thinks it’s only a matter of time before the truth is out there.

“Everybody stayed so quiet all these years for the fear of being mocked,” Roberts said. “Now that people are starting to come out, I think that people should just let the reality be what it is, and let the evidence speak for itself, because they’re here, and that’s all there is to it.”

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ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – Heading into Friday’s game with a 6-1 record, Alaska Anchorage women’s basketball is faced with a tall task.

The Seawolves are set to face Division I Troy in the opening round of the 2024 Great Alaska Shootout. Friday’s game is the first meeting between the two in program history.

“We’re gonna get after it, hopefully it goes in the hoop for us,” Seawolves head coach Ryan McCarthy said. “We’re gonna do what we do. We’re not going to change it just because it’s a shootout. We’re going to press these teams and we’re going to try to make them uncomfortable. We’re excited to test ourselves.”

Beginning the season 1-4, the Trojans have faced legitimate competition early. Troy has played two ranked opponents to open the season, including the 2023 national champion and current top-10 ranked Louisiana State University on Nov. 18. The Trojans finished runner-up in the Sun Belt Conference with a 15-3 record last season.

“At the end of the day, they’re women’s basketball players too. They’re the same age as us and they might look bigger, faster and stronger, but we have some great athletes here,” junior guard Elaina Mack said. “We’re more disciplined, we know that we put in a lot of work, and we have just as good of a chance to win this thing as anybody else does.”

The 41st edition of the tournament is also set to feature Vermont and North Dakota State. The two Div. I squads will battle first ahead of UAA’s match Friday night.

All teams will also play Saturday in a winner and loser bracket to determine final results.

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Six Alaska House seats currently held by men are set to be held by women next year, bringing the overall number of women in the chamber to 21. This will be the first time in the state’s history that one of the legislative chambers is majority women.

The women elected to the Alaska House bring a variety of experiences and perspectives to the chamber. Ten of them are Republicans, including four newly elected this year. Nine are Democrats — including three who are newly elected. Two are independents who caucus with Democrats.

There are also five women in the state Senate, a number that remained unchanged in this year’s election, bringing the total number of women in the Alaska Legislature to 26 out of 60, a new record for the state. The previous record of 23 was set in 2019.

Nationally, around a third of legislative seats were held by women this year, according to researchers at Rutgers University. Nearly two-thirds of women legislators are Democrats. In Alaska, women serving in the Legislature are largely evenly split between the major political parties.

Before this year’s election, only seven states had ever seen gender parity in one of their legislative chambers. They include Arizona, Nevada, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Colorado, New Mexico and Oregon. California is set to join the list after this year’s election.

Three of the women slated to serve in the Alaska House next year are Alaska Native — also a record. Two of them were elected for the first time: Robyn Burke of Utqiagvik, who is of Iñupiaq descent, and Nellie Jimmie of Toksook Bay, who is of Yup’ik descent. They join Rep. Maxine Dibert of Fairbanks, of Koyukon Athabascan descent, who was elected in 2022.

The historic increase in representation of women came in Alaska even as voters did not reelect U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola, the first woman and first Alaska Native person to represent the state in the U.S. House. Peltola was voted out in favor of Republican Nick Begich III.

Women come to the Alaska Legislature from diverse professional backgrounds, but a disproportionate number of them will arrive with some experience in public education.

Three of the newly elected lawmakers — Burke, Jubilee Underwood of Wasilla and Rebecca Schwanke of Glennallen — have served on their local school boards, helping oversee the North Slope Borough, Matanuska-Susitna Borough and Copper River school districts, respectively.

The three bring different perspectives on public education. Burke said she is looking forward to working with a bipartisan caucus that is set to have a majority in the Alaska House this year, with a focus on increasing education funding and improving the retirement options for Alaska’s public employees, including teachers.

Schwanke and Underwood, on the other hand, have indicated they will join the Republican minority caucus, which has shown an interest in conservative social causes such as barring the participation of transgender girls in girls’ school sports teams.

The increase in the number of women serving in the Alaska Legislature comes as public education funding is set to be a key issue when lawmakers convene in January.

Burke said she and the other newly elected women bring different policy perspectives to the topic of education, but their shared experience in serving on school boards reflects a commitment to their children’s education.

“With so many parents and so many moms, I hope that there will be really good legislation that supports working families and children and education,” Burke said.