Battle of Los Angeles - UFO or what?

[DiscoPrawn]

Hello all, sorry if this has been posted before but I can’t search as a guest. I looked through the first four pages of GQ, though, and couldn’t find anything in the archives.

I’ve been hearing about the “Battle of LA” for a while. When I first heard about it I thought the guy was referring to the Rodney King riots, but apparently not. The story goes that a UFO appeared over LA in 1942 and was peppered with AA fire for over an hour before disappearing. Reports seem to be conflicting, though, and to the best of my knowledge this was before the whole UFO craze so maybe it didn’t get the attention then that it would today.

Here’s Wikipedia’s take on it:

Battle of Los Angeles

http://img422.imageshack.us/img422/6643/300pxlaairraid0gr.gif

The West coast air raid (sometimes refered to as the Los Angeles air raid or The battle of Los Angeles) was an unidentified flying object encounter which occured on February 24, 1942.

In the late evening of February 24 and the early morning hours of February 25, 1942. Several unidentified aircraft were reported over Los Angeles.

Air raid sirens were sounded throughout Los Angeles county at 2.25 a.m., and a total blackout was ordered. Thousands of Air Raid Wardens were summoned to their positions.

At 3.16 a.m. the 37th Coast Artillery Brigade began firing 12.8 pound antiaircraft shells at the unidentified objects, which were sometimes illuminated by bright spotlights.

After the air raid warning began, the pilots of the 4th Interceptor Command prepared their airplanes to fly, but no such order ever came, and the planes remained grounded. The artillery fire continued occasionally for nearly an hour, ceasing at 4.14 a.m. The objects were said to have taken about 20 minutes to have moved from Santa Monica to Long Beach. The all-clear was sounded and the blackout order lifted at 7.21 a.m.

In addition to several buildings damaged by the friendly fire, three civilians were killed by the antiaircraft fire, and another three died of heart attacks attributed to the stress of the hour-long bombardment. The incident was front-page news along the U.S. Pacific coast, and earned some mass media coverage throughout the nation. One Herald Express writer who observed some of the incident insisted that several antiaircraft shells had struck the one of the objects, and he was stunned that the object had not been downed.

Secretary of the Navy Knox announced that the entire incident was a false alarm due to anxiety and “war nerves”. The press was outraged by this explanation: some suspected a cover up: 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.” Others speculated that the incident was a ruse designed to give coastal defense industries an excuse to move further inland. And if there truly was nothing to the incident, the possibility that Navy personnel had fired heavy artillery shells for nearly an hour at nothing at all–killing three civilians in the process–seemed to suggest that the men of the U.S. Navy were dangerously incompetent.

In 1974, due to a Freedom of Information Act request, a memorandum regarding the incident was released. Written by General George C. Marshall for President Franklin Roosevelt, and dated February 26, 1942, the memo contradicts Knox’s assertion that the incident was due only to “war nerves,” and proves that officials took the event seriously.

Some documents, perhaps of dubious authenticity, have suggested that the Los Angeles Air Raid inspired the formation of the Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit (IPU). While the IPU undoubtedly existed (official U.S. Military sources have confirmed its reality), little is known of the unit, and any connection to the Los Angeles Air Raid must be regarded as unproved.

So what’s the deal here? Was it aliens or a government conspiracy or what?

[yBeayf]

Was it aliens or a government conspiracy or what?

I vote “what”.

[Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor]

The term “UFO” stands for “Unidentified Flying Object”

Early 1942 was a scant few days after Pearl Harbor, & everybody had “Invasion Jitters”–they all thought the Japanese would wade ashore & invade.

However, the wartime mindset hadn’t sunk in well. Blackout conditions, mandated by law, were violated. Radio stations were rather careless, still broadcasting, live, call-in shows, which could have been used to send coded messages by enemy spies.

That “UFO” was simply unidentified! It could have been a military patrol, flying off course. It could have been a cloud! Or anything! The anti-aircraft boys were so scared, they’d have shot Santa Claus.

My money is on a drunk, flying his private plane, & ignoring the wartime regs. He’s lucky that nobody knew what happened, or they’d have tossed his kiester in slam, but quick!

[David_Simmons]

Quite possibly a panicky reaction to this which was real and only one day previous to the Battle of Los Angeles.

For non-Californians, Goleta is just west of Santa Barbara and about 60 miles west (approx. 285[sup]o[/sup] true. WEST not NORTH, do you read me?) of Los Angles

[David_Simmons]

@David Simmons

Quite possibly a panicky reaction to this which was real and only one day previous to the Battle of Los Angeles.

For non-Californians, Goleta is just west of Santa Barbara and about 60 miles west (approx. 285[sup]o[/sup] true. WEST not NORTH, do you read me?) of Los Angles

And it’s Los Angeles. Do you read me?

[Shagnasty]

The number of famous UFO sightings that are centered in areas with high military activity never ceases to amaze me.

Area 51, sightings around bases in England. It goes on and on.

For many, the conclusion seems obvious: Aliens are really attracted to military bases that have fancy planes and things.

[Rick]

As Dave pointed out, the night before there really was an attack by a Japanese submarine on Goleta.
In addition the night of the 24th Naval intellegence issued an warning that an attack could come in the next 10 hours.
an alert was called at 7:18PM and lifted at 11:23 PM. A second alert was sounded at 2:15 AM and the anticraft batteries were put on Green alert ready to fire.
All that and more from here
The upshot is that the primitive radar of the day picked up something, or thought they did. The guns were told to be ready to fire. A gunner thought he saw something and opened fire. Then it went downhill from there as everybody else opened fire, panic breeds panic as everybody thought that this was Pearl Harbor version 2.0