BATTLE OF LOS ANGELES 78th Anniversary

#25thfebruary1942,#Aliens,#anniversary,#battlelosangeles,#battleoflosangeles,#contact,

#UAPs,#UFO,#Ufology

Feb. 25, 1942. The retouched version of searchlight photo after work by Los Angeles Times artists (Los Angeles Times Archive/UCLA)

Today marks the 78th Anniversary of an incident that happened over Los Angeles during WWII which would quickly become widely known the world over as'Battle of Los Angeles'.

I am going to make my way through this post by giving you facts. Facts from newspaper articles, as well as quotes from military sources, police sources and even the every day Joe Blogs like you and I.

I will give a timeline of what happened, and I will cap the post off with what the military (Navy and Army) declared it to be and what I personally believe.

So, let's delve in...

December 1941- Japanese attack Pearl Harbor

Several military personnel were killed (this included 2,008 navy personnel, 109 marines, and 218 army. Added to this were 68 civilians. This made the total number of 2403 people dead. Of these, 1,177 were from one ship, the USS Arizona.)

Feb. 23, 1942- Japanese submarine was spotted, and an attack launched on The Ellwood Oil Field, near Santa Barbara, the damage was minimal.

Feb. 24, 1942- Naval Intelligence received reports that an attack could be expected once more in the next ten hours. This put the southern California coast on Yellow Alert. Three hours later it reverted back to white.

Feb. 25, 1942

• At 01:44am three separate radar stations reported an unidentified flying object approaching the coast of California, towards Los Angeles.

• At 02:00am the still unidentified flying object was roughly two kilometres offshore. It was at this time the AA (Anti-Aircraft) were put on 'Green Alert' - ready to fire.

• At 02:25am the "UFO" to within five kilometres of the city of Los Angeles. It was at this stage the alarm was sounded, and the city was ordered to Black Out. It was reported it was at this time radar controllers lost contact and sight of the object. But searchlights stationed along the coast and on high ground were locked on it and followed it along its flight path. 

• At 03:07am the AA units were given the order to open fire. Witness reported the skies over Los Angeles "...erupted like a volcano". The AA fire was erratic due to multiple conflicting reports ranging from one UFO and multiple seen over the city skyline. Some witnesses even reporting up to 200 High Altitude Bombers. All of this while some people reported seeing nothing at all.  

• The barrage of AA ended shortly after 04:00am - Army officials declined to comment on what the object was. More than 1,400 rounds of artillery had been fired at the object.

• The object moved slowly down the Pacific Coast from Santa Monica before disappearing south of Long Beach.

• The blackout was maintained until dawn.

• Five people died as a result - three in vehicle accidents and two others had suffered massive heart attacks which were put down to the stress of the events. There was also substantial damage to buildings and vehicles from the fall out of artillery debris.

Motorcycle Officers B. H. McLean, left and Bobby Clark guard a roped-pff zone on Maple Street in Santa Monica while a dud shell is dug up. This photo appeared in Feb. 26, 1942, Los Angeles Times. (Los Angeles Times)

There were over 100,000 reported eyewitnesses to the events that unfolded in the early hours of Feb. 25. They ranged from the public, police officers right up to military personnel. But we will soon discover that eyewitness reports are not very reliable. 

Here are some I was able to dig up:

H.C.:

"...I was 14 at the time, living in the Adams and Crenshaw area of Los Angeles. My family and I observed the entire episode through the large bay window of our home facing west.

The air raid sirens awoke us at 2 AM. There was a period of silence following that, then the thumping of antiaircraft fire. The northwest sky was lit up with bursting shells and searchlights. The action was moving south along the coastline. I remember distinctly the convergence of searchlights reflecting off the bottom of some kind of slow moving objects, apparently flying in formation. They seemed to be completely oblivious and impervious to the shells exploding around them.

 ...I was surprised in the days that followed to discover that with all that aggressive firepower there was no evidence that we had brought anything down.

We were looking in a westward direction from our large living room bay window which gave us an unobstructed panorama of view facing the northwest, west and southwest. We then went to our south-facing kitchen and porch windows to observe the action where it culminated in the south. Ergo, the action followed the coastline. It could have been two, or three, or up to six miles away, I can't recall exactly since it occurred so long ago. But I strongly remember the searchlights converging on the bottoms of the reddish objects flying in formation."

Scott Littleton:

"I was an eye-witness to the events of that unforgettable February morning in February of 1942. I was eight-years-old at the time, and my parents lived at 2500 Strand in Hermosa Beach, right on the beach. We thus had a grandstand seat. While my father went about his air-raid warden duties, my late mother and I watched the glowing object, which was caught in the glare of searchlights from both Palos Verdes and Malibu/Pacific/Palisades and surrounded by the puffs of ineffectual anti-aircraft fire, as it slowly flew across the ocean from northwest to southeast. 

It headed inland over Redondo Beach, a couple of miles to the south of our vantage point, and eventually disappeared over the eastern end of the Palos Verdes hills, what's today called Rancho Palos Verdes. The whole incident last, at least from our perspective, lasted about half an hour, though we didn't time it. 

...I spend the next morning picking up of pieces of shrapnel on the beach; indeed, it's a wonder more people weren't injured by the stuff, as we were far from the only folks standing outside watching the action. In any case, I don't recall seeing any truly discernable configuration, just a small, glowing, slight lozenge-shaped blob light-a single, blob, BTW. We only saw one object, not several as some witnesses later reported. At the time, we were convinced that it was a [Jap] reconnaissance plane, and that L.A. might be due for a major air-raid in the near future. 

... We all expected "them," that is, the Military, to tell us what was really up there after the war. But that never happened, either..."

 Volunteer Air Raid Warden:

"It was huge! It was just enormous! And it was practically right over my house. I had never seen anything like it in my life! It was just hovering there in the sky and hardly moving at all. It was a lovely pale orange and about the most beautiful thing you've ever seen. I could see it perfectly because it was very close. It was big!

They sent fighter planes up and I watched them in groups approach it and then turn away. There were shooting at it but it didn't seem to matter. It was like the Fourth of July, but much louder. They were firing like crazy but they couldn't touch it. 

I'll never forget what a magnificent sight it was. Just marvelous. And what a gorgeous color!" 

Newspapers initially reported that there were rumours and eyewitnesses of multiple planes being shot down. One such report was from a desk sergeant at the 77th Street Station.  He reported seeing two planes fall from the sky, having witnessed it through the glare of the searchlights. But upon investigation, this was proved false. Nothing was found but fallen shrapnel.

Western Defence Command announced, "No Bombs Dropped, No Planes Downed."

But with all of the hoopla coming from "eyewitness" and the newspapers, the public hoped that the military would give a clear answer on what had actually happened, but that too would become unclear and confusing. Both the Navy and the Army giving conflicting statements after the spectacular event.

Franklin Knox, Secretary of the Navy,gave a statement:

"It was just a false alarm. There were no planes over Los Angeles last night, at least, that is our understanding." 

 This was contradicted when that same day a statement was released by Henry L. Stimson,Secretary of War, Army:

"As many as 15 planes may have been involved, flying at various speeds from what is officially reported as being 'very slow' to as much as 200 mph, and at an elevation of from 9,000 feet to 18,000 feet."

He went on to suggest that the craft flown by enemy agents may have been from commercial sources (Feb. 26, 1942).

So instead of clearing up the events of that night, the military along with the help of the newspapers made the whole thing even more confusing. But with the events unfolding as the war waged on the night of Feb. 25 was soon pushed to the back of the publics minds.

Unbeknownst to the public the military, clearly wanting to get to the bottom of what had happened, carried out an extensive investigation into the events and on March  22nd, 1942, released an official statement:

"It has been definitely ascertained that the blackout and antiaircraft firing [...] were caused by the presence of from one to five unidentified airplanes. While it is possible that these airplanes were launched from a Japenese submarine, it is more likely that they were civilian or commercial planes operated [by] unauthorised pilots."

This explanation was believed throughout the government and the public. The events once again drifted to the back of people's minds. The everyday American got on with life, and the war effort waged on. It was accepted and the whole thing put to bed.

But when the Japanese surrendered in 1945 declassified documents came to the fore and once more the Battle of Los Angeles was again in the spotlight. These documents stated the army investigation in 1942 shortly after the blackout had ended along with military and civilian testimonies had detailed several things, but most importantly it had highlighted that they had not believed the object/s seen in the night sky were planes.

The report stated the following:

• At 02:43am a gun officer had reported unidentified planes between Seal Beach and Long Beach.

• At 03:06am a balloon carrying a red flare was reported over Santa Monica. After firing 482 rounds at the object "dirigible", there was no visible result.

Meaning there did not appear to be any damage. This report has now introduced something new into the theory of what happened that night. This would later be compounded with a document released in 1948 stating that two meteorological balloons had been released in Hollywood in the early hours of Feb. 25.

Getting whiplash yet? I know I am. It is at this point in the research of this event that I began to form my own theories into what had happened that night. This was fortified when I discovered Japan, upon surrender, had declared that it had not launched any attack on the west coast on that particular night (as it had on other nights).

There are other contradictory reports but it was pointless to post them here as they simply regurgitated what I had mentioned above. We also need to keep in mind when researching and dealing with statements from eyewitnesses the validity of these given the errors in human recollection as well as how personal perception plays into such reports. But so many corresponding stories have to play a role in this mixed-up tale.

There is proof to support the weather balloon theory such as the speed of the objects, the path they took, and the fact that the only debris found on the ground was from the antiaircraft artillery. But equally, there is conflicting evidence such as the radar signal from four separate locations stating the object came from the direction of the sea and moved inland.

(purported letter or memo of communication, between then U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the U.S. Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall, dated February 27, 1942)

This memo was two days after the UFO over Los Angeles, where FDR refers to "atomic secrets learned from the study of celestial devices." The date by most is considered coincidental (but I don't believe in coincidences). Dr Bush referred to in the memo, by the way, is Dr Vannevar Bush, the chairman of FDRs National Defense Resource Committee (NDRC), who oversaw the invention and development of atomic weapons for the war effort.

It is impossible as a researcher to make a definite ruling on what actually happened that night going with the facts as presented as they are exceptionally contradictory to the point of ridiculous. It is safe to say the attack on Pearl Harbor along with the attack a day previous on the Elwood Oil Field, that the public and the military were on tenterhooks. Was this enough to create this tangled web of confusion and muddied reports? Or did something really happen that fateful night that could not be explained to the public and was kept hidden with disinformation by the military? Who knows, but I will leave you with this quote from, Captain Robert Salas, U.S. Airforce (retired):

"These objects have been seen in recorded history. There is no question we're being visited by something we don't understand."

(above left, documentary - middle and right, book links) Affiliate links are used here on this blog. When you use one to make a purchase Amazon pays Weirdly Paranormal for advertising. As always, all thoughts and opinions expressed within this blog are my own.