Mysterious waves in western Alaska.

The day started with crystal clear conditions. The water was still and the wind was calm. Locals say ice remains offshore and they hadn't seen any waves coming in before yesterday.

Denise Fernandez has lived on the island her entire life and says she's never seen waves like they did on Monday.

"It gave us some kind of scared adrenaline rush because we had not seen something like this happen to our home, Shishmaref," Fernandez said.

Denise was biking with her cousin early in the morning when they heard waves crashing on the beach, they went down to check it out, but said the water was "glass calm." They watched the ocean for about five minutes and nothing. They went back to biking when they heard the waves again. 

They decided to sit on the seawall and watch, and sure enough, about five minutes later, Fernandez said the ice started to move. 

"We start seeing huge ice start moving really fast about quarter to half a mile out and then a super long wave was approaching, the whole wave was covered with white as it started rolling towards our seawall rocks and made a decent size splash," described Fernandez.

She said the whole ocean then began to sway left to right and about five minutes later an even bigger wave rolled in. "As I was recording I got scared because it was bigger than the last wave that hit and I started running," said Fernandez.

Dennis Davis also lives on the island and described the event as quite concerning for many people, wondering if they should be prepared for additional waves or flooding. 

There were no injuries from the waves, or major damage reported but at least one boat and snow machine were hit by the waves.

Thomas Pootoogooluk's shared these photos of his boat, which was in the ocean at the time but was pushed on-shore by the waves. He also had a snow machine parked nearby that was flooded by the run-up of the waves. It seems the force of the water broke the windshield. When he found it, water was inside the engine and seaweed on the handlebars. 

Thomas Pootoogooluk

It's still unclear what could have caused the waves. The Tsunami Warning Center said late Monday there were no earthquakes large enough to produce tsunami waves in the area at the time. The National Weather Service says a storm came in later in the day but confirms conditions were calm in the morning. The Alaska Department of Natural Resources Division of Geological & Geophysical Surveys is also looking into the event. 

Fernandez and Davis both hope to have answers about what could have caused the series of waves that seemed to come out of nowhere. 

https://www.ktva.com/story/42281245/strange-waves-concern-people-in-shishmaref