"The Aleutians Illusion"(Joseth Moore) “The Aleutians Illusion,” by Joseth Moore. StoryStar-version. Copyright @2022.

Environmental scientist grad student Maka noticed some kind of light on a tiny island just off the Aleutians. Problem is the island does not appear on any of the online search engines’ maps! She and a friend go over to investigate not just the light, but the very island itself, which is between the United States and Russia.

…Among the Western Aleutian Islands; Present Day…

“See the Russian government’s hypersonic missiles coming yet?” Halona Hansen, Maka Chee’s immediate supervisor, joked upon catching the young grad student checking for something with her binoculars once again.

Maka chuckled a bit with the slightest of annoyance, as she pulled down her binoculars. “Sorry, Ms. Hansen, but I’m certain I saw some lights on that clumping of land…” Maka raised her binoculars to her eyes, yet again. “But that patch is so small we can’t really call them islands.”

This time, Halona stopped what she was doing and actually took time to consider the long, shallow berg of a tiny island that was a few miles out from their island’s shore. Deep in the background of the expansive natural scenery were a few other islands of the Aleutian chain of big bergs of land that arced southward between the United States and Russia, just north of the Pacific Ocean.

The two women worked for a small ecological company, EcoService. They were, conversely, eco-scientists cleaning up various local environs, but using more natural “equipment”–such as sped-up breakdown of some chemicals via applied enzymes, to even old-fashioned picking up litter with trash bags. Some in Alaska called EcoService glorified eco-janitors…

“Didn’t you say your grandmother claims she’s never seen this island before, until recently,” Halona asked as she put away the last of their cleaning supplies into their van.

Maka was already nodding at Halona’s question before responding. “Yeah…old-school Alaskan Native. Runs deep in our family and she said my uncles and aunts also don’t remember anything about that island from the Chee family…after I clock out with Eco’ I’m going over.”

The Gen-Xer gave her young assistant a look. “You think that’s wise, Maka? Don’t forget about the geopolitics we’re in these days…how do you know it’s not Russian government agents spying on this end of America?”

Maka gave a sarcastic chuckle. “Ms. Hansen, they have hacking for that these days! I’ll be fine…probably just some litter that tourists left behind…”

Maka closed the back-double door to the company’s van. They were done for the day, so Halona knew she couldn’t keep Maka from her planned excursion, but she did not like the idea one bit!

“I’d go with you, but I’ve already made a commitment to watch my grandkids. My kids wouldn’t understand the change in schedule! How about I call Sesi and see it he can–“

“–I appreciate what you’re trying to do, Ms. Hansen. But I’m not that young! Don’t worry, I’ll livestream it from my phone–kind of like one of those paranormal investigation groups you and I talk about!”

That did not assuage her boss. Halona began shaking her head. “I’m sorry, Maka. I’m pulling the Listen to Your Elders-card on this one…I’m serious. Please don’t let me text your parents about this.”

Now it was Maka who gave a disapproving look! She thought for a bit. “Alright, I’ll call Uki, then.”

The barest of a smile was then found on Halona’s face. Despite the immense geography of Alaska, especially out in the Aleutians, much of society of the state was still mostly a small-town aspect to it. Halona knew Uki and felt she could trust the relatively precocious friend.

The two women did their last look-over of their client’s property that they had just cleaned. Satisfied of the results of their work, Halona and Maka boarded the work van and vacated the client’s land.

Later…

It was dusk by the time Maka and her friend, Uki, reached the tiny island-patch with Maka’s own motor-boat. The boat had been in the Chee family for years, a vestige from the old days of the fishing industry that her grandfather used to work in when there were far more fish in Alaska and the surrounding ecosystems. Like she told Halona earlier that day, Maka livestreamed her adventure with her smartphone–as did Uki with her own phone.

“Ok, folks,” Maka said as she clumsily did her intro, for despite being a Gen-Zer she did not do a lot of livestreaming and it made her a bit nervous to know that potentially hundreds of viewers were watching her! “This is my good friend, Uki…” Uki, also a late-teenager, dressed warm, and with glasses, gave a two-fingered peace sign. Maka continued with her streaming. “Well, it was suggested to me to make sure to tag this stream with main subject matters–Aleutian Islands, Mysterious, Island, Patch…I have it all there, folks!”

The livestreaming video bumped around a lot as the two young women jumped out of Maka’s boat and finally touched ground on the tiny island. It had a shore, of sorts. A mere twenty feet at its longest width!

“Ethal from Germany said to touch the soil to see how firm the ground is,” Uki said while reading off from various comments in the streaming platform.

Without a comment, both Maka and Uki reached down to the ground of the island-patch and touched the ground, some of its vegetation, rocks…

“That’s kind of weird,” Maka commented– her voice being heard, though her face was out of the shot while she livestreamed with her phone, “the soil is pretty dry! These parts of the Aleutians usually have more moisture this season. Kind of reminds me of Arizona!”

They both proceeded and cautiously walked further inland of the island-patch. The two voyagers were using modern, tiny flashlights that were held by one’s fingers and they checked the comments section as they surveyed the land.

“You wrote in your tags something about a light,” Uki read from one of the comments. “That’s from David–Florida.”

“Yeah,” Maka responded, this time turning her phone where she could video her face while they walked slowly on the island-patch, “it was hard to tell if the light was more of a glint–you know; light reflecting off a shiny object. Or was it kind of blinking…”

“It’s dark enough now that we should be able to see any light on this island,” Uki threw in.

“Yeah, but that’s just it,” Maka said, “this time I don’t see any lights…” She, then, took her beam of light and swept the entire tiny island-patch, which ran the length about a whole soccer field. “Even if it was just litter, we should be seeing light reflected from my flashlight right now!”

“Huh…that’s weird. Maybe the wind swept it away?”

A simple questioning shrug from Maka.

“Did we double-check with any of the online-search engines’ maps to make sure?, asks Hibo from Djibouti,” Maka read aloud. “Yes, Hibo…we searched from three sources and none of them showed this island on their maps. Even when we enlarge the online maps, the island-patch simply does not exist on their maps.”

“Here’s a good one,” Uki said excitedly. “Chris from London asked if this is one of those floating piles of trash that’s been in the news…Chris,” now it was Uki who showed her face on her own phone’s livestream–which was separate from Maka’s, but of the same event, “the fact that we’re standing right now, and have not fallen through the surface shows that this is a solid land-surface. But excellent question my friend.”

For a little while, Maka and Uki remained silent as they continued to walk the patch. They let the online comments come in while they swept the island’s grounds with their flashlights. The only vegetative life on the tiny island was that of grass– not a single tree to be found!

“No trees…no animals,” came Maka’s voice back on the livestreaming video, “and, most importantly, no litter! Just a flat, very small island with nothing but grass that’s big enough to play football or soccer, and right in the middle of all these huge Aleutian Islands–and only noticed just within the last couple of months!”

“Is it human-made?, Elizabeth from Canada asked,” Uki mentioned.

“You mean like what the Chinese government did in the South China Sea,” Maka responded. She shrugged. “I’m a grad student in the environmental sciences program, so I have some knowledge what goes into an ecosystem. I would say this looks completely natural…would be helpful if we had an engineer’s eye–“

“Maka,” Uki volunteered, “I’ll walk around the edge of the shore so if anyone with an engineering background is watching can tell if it looks manufactured, please comment!”

“Good idea, Uki!”

Approximately fifteen minutes had gone by, and the duo still did not find any human-made objects nor anything else that would suggest the origins of the island-patch. The comments in the live-feed were starting to slow down and the viewer-numbers was slowly dropping. Maka took this as a hint.

“Uki, anything else on your end?”

Uki had just gotten back from walking the entire miniature coastline of the patch and shook her head in a negative response.

“Ok, folks,” Maka continued, “I guess that’s a wrap on our–first?–livestream investigation! I’m sorry we didn’t have anything exciting to show–“

“Maka,” Uki interrupted; a hand on one of Maka’s shoulders.

Uki knelt down and picked up a very rusty piece of flat metal–a placard. Not shiny in the slightest. It could not have reflected much sunlight, much less light from the young women’s flashlights. Uki had to rub hard at the rust and dried dirt to get a better look at the metal, all the while Maka streamed her friend as she did so.

“Ha,” Maka guffawed! “Maybe my boss was right…that’s Cyrillic–Russian language! This is the new Cold War, friends! This patch is in the United States…why would Russia have people–“

“That is not Russian; Budimir from St. Petersburg, Russia…” Uki read that as she looked at Maka with confused eyes, for she, too, thought it was Russian!

Uki gestured with her own phone that they should both video-stream the piece so everyone watching–live at that moment, or when up as a recording later–could see that writing on the old-looking, metallic square plate. They streamed it for a good three minutes or so. While doing so, Maka noted to Uki how their viewership shot up at the most since they had started streaming: fluctuating around one thousand views! Sometimes well-beyond that.

“…so if anyone from any country recognize what nation or culture this is from, we sure would like to get your input,” Maka said a couple of times, due to so many new viewers jumping into the live-feed.

“And we were already told this is not Cyrillic, from our friend out of St. Petersburg,” Uki noted to the viewers. “So, does anyone else know what language this is?”

Uki looked at Maka and noticed her frowning as she was reading a comment. Maka relayed it. “Did you two noticed that there was an image at the bottom of the plate, under the rust/dirt?…No, Marsha from Hong Kong…thank you, we’ll check this out now!”

Uki took the initiative and began scrubbing at the rust and dirt on the bottom of the placard. Maka noticed how her friend just suddenly stopped! But Maka, who was holding Uki’s phone, continued to livestream from both phones as she held a phone in either of her hands.

“What’s wrong, Uki?”

Uki continued to look at the plate before turning it over for the live-feed for the world and her friend to see. “It looks like this island-patch was designated as an airstrip a long time ago!”

There were confused reactions in the comment section of the livestreaming! Indeed, Maka had a confused look to go with the viewers’ postings!

“Airstrip? What kind of plane could takeoff on such a tiny piece of land?”

“Helicopter, maybe,” Uki guessed as she kept the old placard facing the phones for the livestream.

“Uki,” Maka said as she looked at the exploding comments on the live-feed, “that graphic you just uncovered is not a plane, jet, or a helicopter…”

Both Gen-Zers looked at each other with, now, concerned faces!

Maka drooped her head down to read a comment. “Oh, yeah; we have several of those vintage placards where I’m from…”

Uki waited to hear more from Maka, as she continued to hold up the plate. “Well, who’s it from?”

Maka looked away with questioning eyes. “An anonymous retired scientist from southern Nevada…”

fin

(Public Domain Pictures)

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