I don't trust Russia either, but are you certain that's a real memory? I'm not aware of any confirmed incidents in which USSR bombers actually flew within sight of Fairbanks. They routinely tested our defenses but they didn't penetrate that far into US airspace.

I wish I had a photograph. I’ve been told before that this was impossible by others. I’ve also been told by others that were there that yes, it happened. It may not have been , however, an aggressive incursion, I have no way of knowing that part for sure.

Having fighters scramble from Eilison was not unusual at all, and when hunting out in that area with my father we saw a few of those. It was pretty distinct from the training and combat training they did, so it wasn’t that hard to distinguish the intentionality and risk tolerance that was reserved for that kind of urgency.

Anecdotally, I’m pretty darn sure that I saw a bear flying overhead just a few miles east-southeast of Fairbanks. I watched it be turned by 3 F4 phantoms. I was with my father and a few of his friends, as well as my brother that would have been 13 at the time. Everyone there remembers the event, and it was talked about for days in Fairbanks, we even had a subsequent training the next week in my elementary school on survival in the event of a nuclear attack lol.

Perhaps it was some kind of clandestine fuckery, perhaps it was an authorized flight, or perhaps it would have been to embarrassing / inflammatory to make it an event of record? I’m sure the answers are quietly sitting somewhere in a musty filing box.