| numonex said: Russia is next door to Alaska. You must have very good eye sight to see Russia from Alaska they are separated by 3000+ miles of ocean. |
Guess Who is more ignorant, Gov. Palin, or you. I pulled this tid bit for you after 5 minutes of looking up.
In her Sept. 11 interview with ABC's Charlie Gibson, Sarah Palin had this to say about Russia: "They're our next-door neighbors, and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska." Yes. Russia and Alaska are divided by the Bering Strait, which is about 55 miles at its narrowest point. In the middle of the Bering Strait are two small, sparsely populated islands: Big Diomede, which sits in Russian territory, and Little Diomede, which is part of the United States. At their closest, these two islands are a little less than two and a half miles apart, which means that, on a clear day, you can definitely see one from the other. (To see the view of Big Diomede from Little Diomede, check out this webcam.) The Diomede Islands are often blanketed by persistent fog, which makes visibility difficult. On a clear day, though, a person standing at sea level can see a little less than three miles across the ocean. You can see farther if you go higher—at the highest altitude on Little Diomede (919 feet), you can see for about 37 miles. (Between mid-December and mid-June, when the water between the two islands freezes, an intrepid explorer can just walk from one to the other.)
The tactical importance of this proximity is debatable, however: Big Diomede has no permanent population though it does house an important weather station. Alaskans can, however, see into the future from Little Diomede since Big Diomede (or Ratmanov Island, as it's known to the Russians) is on the other side of the International Date Line.
You can also see Russia from other points in Alaska. According to a New York Times article written in the waning years of the Cold War (when the Alaska-Siberia border was known as the "Ice Curtain"), if you stand on high ground on the tip of St. Lawrence Island—a larger Alaskan island in the Bering Sea, southwest of the Diomedes—you can see the Russian mainland, about 37 miles away. The same article claims that you can see Russia from the Tin City Air Force facility at Cape Prince of Wales, which is the westernmost point of the mainland Americas. The station chief at Tin City confirms that, for roughly half the year, you can see Siberian mountain ranges from the highest part of the facility.
This message has been edited. Last edited by: Hillbilly1371,
Sun 26 October 2008 09:10
