Shemya Island

Cobra Dane [52 44 14N, 174 05 30E]

The Cobra Dane Radar is located on Shemya Island, Alaska. It's a phased-array radar approximately 95 ft. in diameter facing northwest toward the Russian missile ranges near Kamchatka. Shemya is both pretty and bleak. My first visit was in July, 1985. It was sunny and 57F when we landed -- I was promptly told that this was one of the half-dozen days of sunshine they would have each year (and I never saw the sun again for the remainder of the week, nor on a subsequent trip in December). It was also one of the warmest (with 63F claimed as the all-time high temperature on the island). I also saw a few bluebonnets and lots of blue foxes. Hard to believe bluebonnets would grow under those conditions, but they did. I had been told about the blue foxes by my grandfather, Julian Bullock, a Navy Seabee who had built the first runway on Shemya during WWII. Turns out that the foxes had become tame over the years from being around people (once the island became a military base during WWII). The first sight I saw as I went down the back stairs of the Reeve Aleutian Airways 727 Combo (freight and passengers) was a blue fox looking up the stairway. During the week, I got a tour of the Cobra Dane Radar facility. They had me sign their guestbook for "official visitors". The most recent visitor (from the prior week) had been William J. Casey.

original runway on Shemya Island...new one at lower right