Awesome or Off-Putting is a weekly delve into cryptozoology, ufology, aliens, medical marvels, scientific wonders, secret societies, government conspiracies, cults, ghosts, EVPs, ancient artifacts, strange facts, odd sightings or just the plain unexplainable.
The Battle of Los Angeles is far more than just a tired, overly-long Rage Against the Machine Album. In fact, several decades before those delightful melodies were ever put to tape, The Battle of Los Angeles was a term given to one crazy LA night.
In 1942, you see, a UFO (or several) showed up in the California sky – and was fired upon for hours.
UFO reports don’t often get Independence Day-ish. Usually a sighting might include a private airplane getting sucked up into nothing, a presidential candidate standing on a balcony slack-jawed or a saucer crashing into a windmill a mighty long time ago.
Every now and again though, the unknown aerial objects march on major cities – like they did in DC. Don’t feel left out though, west coasters, because apparently you were invaded back in the day too. Or something. And it created quite a fervour too. It was all over the radio, people died or heart attacks – and the US military even fired on the thing – hitting it according to one witness.
Here’s what it says on the Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco:
“During the night of 24/25 February 1942, unidentified objects caused a succession of alerts in southern California. On the 24th, a warning issued by naval intelligence indicated that an attack could be expected within the next ten hours. That evening a large number of flares and blinking lights were reported from the vicinity of defense plants… Radars picked up an unidentified target 120 miles west of Los Angeles. Antiaircraft batteries were alerted at 0215 and were put on Green Alert?ready to fire?a few minutes later… Radars tracked the approaching target to within a few miles of the coast, and at 0221 the regional controller ordered a blackout. Thereafter the information center was flooded with reports of ?enemy planes, ? even though the mysterious object tracked in from sea seems to have vanished. At 0243, planes were reported near Long Beach, and a few minutes later a coast artillery colonel spotted ?about 25 planes at 12,000 feet? over Los Angeles. At 0306 a balloon carrying a red flare was seen over Santa Monica and four batteries of anti-aircraft artillery opened fire, whereupon ?the air over Los Angeles erupted like a volcano.”
And if you think that was interesting – Wikipedia has more for your reading pleasure:
“Within hours of the end of the air raid (February 25), Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox held a press conference and opined that the entire incident was a “false alarm” due to anxiety and “war nerves”. Many in the press doubted this explanation, some suspecting a cover up. An editorial in the Long Beach Independent wrote, “There is a mysterious reticence about the whole affair and it appears that some form of censorship is trying to halt discussion on the matter.”
“Knox’s comments quickly brought a defensive response from the Army that there definitely were flying aircraft and the battle was actual. The following day (February 26) Secretary of War Stimson backed them up. Citing a report from the Army Chief of Staff, Stimson said there may have been as many as 15 aircraft involved, some flying very slowly and others up to 200 miles an hour.
“Stimson then commented that, “It seems reasonable to conclude that if unidentified airplanes were involved, they may be some from commercial sources, operated by enemy agents for the purpose of spreading alarm, disclosing location of anti-aircraft positions, or the effectiveness of blackouts.” Speculation was then rampant as to where airplanes could have been based. Theories ran from a secret base in northern Mexico to Japanese submarines stationed offshore with the capability of carrying planes.”
You may have noticed that there hasn’t even been a direct mention of UFOs yet. That is so stupid & dull. By comparison murderous Japanese hot air balloon pilots actually seem quite pleasant. Well then, we better skip on over to a site called UFO Encounters to make this all so much more interesting:
“It was only in later years that the Battle of Los Angeles, as it came to be called, was regarded as a precursor to the UFO phenomenon. Photographs of the night’s events were studied and some claimed to be able to detect a classic flying saucer shape illuminated in the searchlights’ beams.
“One of the Majestic 12 documents tells of the recovery of a mystery aircraft, described as ?not earthly? and ?probably of interplanetary origin?, from the waters off the California coast shortly after the Battle of Los Angeles occurred. A secret military agency known as the Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit (IPU) was supposedly formed as a result. Several sources have confirmed that a military agency bearing this name did in fact exist, though nothing further about it is known for certain.”
Now we know you’re inquisitive, and you’d probably like to hear a first hand account of all these shenanigans. And so we present it to you. We apologise in advance for the ridiculously grotesque musical score.
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