An errant rocket launched from Poker Flat Research Range March 20 has apparently shot down an alien spacecraft and university researchers are looking at the ship to determine more about the extraterrestrials inside.

The 80-foot long rocket was fired at 3:53 a.m. March 20 and flew normally for about five minutes. Then, as the third stage of the rocket was igniting, range personnel noticed on their radar an unidentified object flying at a high altitude in the local airspace. After attempting to reach the circular object using radio transmissions, the rocket apparently rammed into it at an estimated 2,500 feet per second and landed in the back yard of legendary fur-trapper Lefty McGee.

"Yep," McGee said, "I was sitting in my outhouse, just looking up at the stars and taking it all in, when all of a sudden the sky lit up and a big heap of flaming metal landed right next to me. Needless to say, my trip to the outhouse was cut short."

McGee's homestead on the Seckungessa River has erupted with people since the initial excitement last Sunday, and UAF researchers have set up large wall tents in order to remain on-site while they take a closer look at the twisted and charred wreckage. Expert welders have been called in to take apart the mangled pieces of spaceship and rocket, and an ordnance disposal team is on hand to deal with any explosive materials.

"What we've got here could be the only substantiated case of extraterrestrial contact with human kind ever," said astronomy professor Helmut Carlburg. "The creators of this ship, if they are extraterrestrials and not just some kind of hoax, will have important things to tell us about the universe and about how cool it is to fly around in a spaceship."

As of press time, scientists had yet to discover where the ship originated from, what it was made out of, and who would be awarded a government contract to investigate it.

The ruins of a crashed UFO as seen from the air. The UFO was broght down by a scientific rocket launched from Poker Flats
Fun Star file photo

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