Middleton Island AFS was a continental defense radar station whose mission was to provide the United States Air Force early warning of an attack by the Soviet Union.

As with all remote AC&W sites in Alaska, duty tours were limited to one year because of the psychological strain and physical hardships.

The station was expensive to maintain and was deactivated on 15 May 1963 due to budget reductions, and replaced by other AAC surveillance radar sites with more capable equipment.

In the 1990s, the station began building bird facilities in some of the towers, with glass windows allowing researchers inside to monitor nesting birds immediately outside, similar to pigeons nesting on a windowsill of a high-rise building, but purpose built with 100s of small windows all over the towers.

[1][2] Units: Assignments: This article incorporates public domain material from the Air Force Historical Research Agency