Originally posted by carewemust
What irks me about this event is the lack of media from that day.
An event over the 2nd largest city in the USA should have had world
wide press coverage and there should have been hundreds of cars
and roofs damaged from all the ordinance falling over the city. Could
this have happened in the mountains NEAR Los Angeles and not over
the city itself? There should be many photos, stories, and TV news
videos. This is not something from the 1800's we're talking about.
This isn't 1842...but it's also not 1982. It's 1942. I know I'm stating the obvious, but you need to think back a bit...or check a history book. The first commercial television broadcast licenses were only issued in mid 1941. There were no 'on the scene' reports in 1942. There were barely any news reports, period. Television was still a *very* new thing, and was very much confined to studio work.
Photos weren't easy either. Ever work with an old flasbulb Polaroid? I have, and to give the Devil his due, they were and are fine cameras...but they were heavy, expensive, and slow-loading...in short, not something you just carried around on the off-chance that 'something good would happen'. I'm a little surprised that we actually got film coverage of the event.
Also, remember that news didn't move as fast then as now. Telegraph / telegram was still a common method for some messages, telephone required a live operator for most (if not all) calls, and radio was spotty.
Another thought that came to mind is that this "UFO" could have been
some kind of image projected up to the clouds by a prankster on an
Army base. Due to the high alert level at the time, the Army just
choose to blast that image with everything it had. Also, does anyone
find it strange that there doesn't seem to be any military aircraft
intercepting and firing on this slow-moving UFO? They certainly had
the time to scramble a few jets. A military pilot who engaged this
object would be able to give a good close-up eyewitness account.
I'm sorry but there's too many missing pieces, considering that this
event occured right over L.A., supposedly.
Hey.. I just had a thought. Could the image have been projected
onto the clouds (or into the sky) on purpose by the military to give the
gunners practice, in case the Japanese choose to hit our mainland from
the air, like they did Pearl Harbor? Los Angeles would have been a very
ripe target for Japan since it's big and right there on the Pacific. If this
were an Army exercise for the gunners, that would explain why no
fighter planes were involved.
-cwm
Scramble a few jets?
What's a jet? We didn't have any in 1942. We did have fighters, but night intercepts without radar were a major problem...and guess what? We didn't have any great number of radar sets available either. The ones we did have (and most of the planes, too) were being placed in areas that were under more serious threats. The Japanese weren't capable of doing anything of lasting importance to the West Coast in 1942...the Kido Butai was already operating at the end of its logistical rope prosecuting the campagn in the Solomans.
As for a training exercise, they already had those, and conducted them fairly often...they didn't use 'magic lantern' shows, they used towed targets...and they certainly didn't fire in directions that would have expended rounds dropping into LA.
