Battle of LA - Army Fires on UFO in 1942

Here's the text of the "Official" memo sent by Marshall to the president at the time (released through FOIA, document number included)

SECRET

February 26, 1942.

OCS 21347-86

MENORANDUM FOR THE PRESIDENT:

The following is the information we have from GHQ
at this mement regarding the air alarm over Los Angeles of
yesterday morning:

"From details available at this hour:

1. Unidentified airplanes, other then American
Army or Navy planes, were probably over Los Angeles, and
were fired on by elements of the 37th CA Brigade ( AA )
between 3:12 and 4:15 AM. These units expended 1430
rounds of ammunition.

2. As many as fifteen airplanes 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 elevations from 9000 to 18000 feet.

3. No bombs were dropped.

4. No casualties among our troops.

5. No planes were shot down.

6. No American Army or Navy planes were in action.

Investigation continuing. It seems reasonable to conclude
that if unidentified airplanes were involved they may have
been from commercial sources, operated by enemy agents for
purposes of spreeding alarm, disclosing location of antiair-
craft positions, and slowing production through blackout.
Such conclusion is supported by varying speed of operation and
the fact that no bombs were dropped.

Gen. George C. Marshall

Chief Of Staff

What a load of crap, hehe... I'd like to see this try and fly nowadays, after killing 6 civilians...

[edit on 11-2-2005 by Gazrok]

How can it be a "battle" if the enemy never fired back?
Sounds like rampant paranoia and war fever....

Well, I didn't dub it the "battle" of LA, hehe....

I can't see them firing at "paranoia" for almost an hour and with over 1400 shells... especially with no bombs dropping...

Even the next day the Army said it was not a drill, not panic, etc. but a REAL alarm.

There are historical antecentents for panic firings when there is not actual enemy, tense troop, trigger happy. Once the firing starts it could entice others to start firing as well.

The absence of any response, or attack, or even debris from the "enemy" really does make it look like a false alarm.

If it was firing for only a few minutes, I could easily accept this.

But we have:

1. many eyewitnesses and newspaper articles citing a slowly moving object that was the target.

2. a photo of an object captured in the spotlights with aaa fire around it.

3. eyewitnesses stating planes were sent, ineffective, left, and then the barrage starting (which makes sense...whereas the military story of no planes involved makes NO sense).

4. the noted radar contacts (complete with exact times)

5. that it took them an hour and 1400+ shells to not realize there wasn't anything there? c'mon...

6. even the "official" account of what "probably" happened, cites some craft being targetted...

Unidentified airplanes, other then American
Army or Navy planes, were probably over Los Angeles, and
were fired on by elements of the 37th CA Brigade ( AA )
between 3:12 and 4:15 AM. These units expended 1430
rounds of ammunition.

[edit on 12-2-2005 by Gazrok]

Wow! Look at how well the search lights light up the blimp. The soldiers operating the lights back in '42 would have definitely got a good look at the object if it was only moving at 6 mph and illuminated this well.

Originally posted by Netchicken

The absence of any response, or attack, or even debris from the "enemy" really does make it look like a false alarm.

...Or an alien craft that was invulnerable to the AAA fire.

It was no false alarm. In the pictures, the search lights are clearly fixed on one particular object. If there was nothing there, all the search lights would not be fixed on the same point in the sky. Plus the military reported in the newspapers the next day that the alarm was real.

Also what of the AAA shells exploding in the sky as if impacting some flying object and falling to the city streets killing several civilians??

Originally posted by Meteor_of_War
Wow! Look at how well the search lights light up the blimp. ...Also what of the AAA shells exploding in the sky as if impacting some flying object and falling to the city streets killing several civilians??

Good point MoW... G-rok has really made a very persuasive case for the L.A. air raid of '42, and while I had read about this in literature on the subject (Dolan?), for the first time am seriously and consciously considering the possibility.

However, I must also clarify, that in regards to the exploding AAA shells, most AAA shells were in fact designed to explode, thus sending out flying shards of shrapnel intended to damage target aircraft. The return of such shrapnel would be a natural result of AAA fire of this nature.

However, I must also clarify, that in regards to the exploding AAA shells, most AAA shells were in fact designed to explode, thus sending out flying shards of shrapnel intended to damage target aircraft. The return of such shrapnel would be a natural result of AAA fire of this nature.

Still, you've got eyewitness testimony (including military officials) that state many direct hits (as you'd expect from firing at a large object, moving at 6mph, and with 1430+ shells fired at it over almost an hour period)

EDIT: Adding the clarification that MoW's images seem to be from the recent re-enactment of the event, put on by a group I linked to in an earlier post in this thread....(i.e. the Sanyo blimp)

[edit on 13-2-2005 by Gazrok]

Originally posted by Netchicken
There are historical antecentents for panic firings when there is not actual enemy, tense troop, trigger happy. Once the firing starts it could entice others to start firing as well.

The absence of any response, or attack, or even debris from the "enemy" really does make it look like a false alarm.

True true, its Americans we are talking about here

There is an UFO report involving a fisherman on boat firing upon a UFO and thrashing its search light. After that a hatch opened and an alien peeked out and yelled "Stop shooting at us you idiot!". Yes that IS an actual UFO report!

We're not talking about some yokel in a rowboat in a backwater pond....

We're talking about the trained officers and soldiers of the US military responding to radar blips and visual confirmation, firing on an unidentified target/s, as witnessed by both military and civilian observers, and as reported in several local newspapers, and then confirmed by an FOIA released memo from Marshall to the President for pete's sake!

It is a real shame the photo is not colour, it is hard to make anything of it apart from a white blob. I did research this years ago, but found it impossible to come to any real conclusion. Interesting story non the less.

Good job Gazrok! It is difficult for me to understand why this event is not public knowledge. To the extent that other of this type are.
Is this not a major event in history?
Roper

Oddly enough, it's the largest combat operation during WWII on American soil (not withstanding Pearl Harbor of course). This event was also the catalyst for the detaining of numerous Japanese American citizens (not our finest hour). Much of the reason the coverup of this was successful, was that people had other things to worry about at the time, and generally trusted their government to do the right thing, without much question.

Some questions were raised, such as those cited by members of the press who knew they were being whitewashed.... Still, it was a different time, and the press was more inclined to give the govt. the benefit of the doubt in those days. Remember, this was in Feb. Pearl Harbor had JUST occurred in Dec. and people were just getting used to the idea of air raid sirens, etc. It was easy for most to just accept that there might have been planes, and to question the military at that time was very unpatriotic.

I'd love to see a high profile researcher resurrect this as a special, similar to how Roswell was dug up...

Originally posted by yellocake
I keep thinking about the possibility of an early military 'holographic projection' exercise. The 'thing' materialized over MGM studios in Culver City - I don't know exactly why, but the mention of a major movie studio in the article makes me wonder. Also, eyewitnesses say the shells fired at it had no effect, and seemed to pass right through the thing. Thirdly, the air raid sirens were sounded, and the city was blacked out - if this was a holographic exercise, a black out would have helped focus a projected image in the sky.

So, possibly a special ops hologram team was testing this technology with an image of a "classic" flying saucer, which would soon be introduced into society with a variety of sightings. They used the ruse of an air raid to see if the regular army and coastal defense would actually see the thing and believe it real enough to shoot at it. They did. Success - regular folks on the ground bought it - even reports to the president said, "looks like a UFO to me, sir".

Apart from it being very unlikely 'holographic projection' technology existed
at that time, the search lights would have rendered any "projection" invisible.

The 3 dimensional displays we have today rely on special configurations
of optical lenses near the image source in order to work. Yes, you could
project an image onto cloud cover but I think it would have been pretty
obvious, even to the people of that day. Perhaps with computer controlled
lasers you could make a convincing image on a cloud but they had neither
lasers nor computers at that time.

Also, the reports of many direct hits on the object contradict the idea
that it was a projections of some kind.

It seems obvious from the reports that the witnesses didn't really know
what they were looking at. Wasn't this event even before the terms 'UFO'
and 'flying saucer' even came into existence?

Wasn't this event even before the terms 'UFO'
and 'flying saucer' even came into existence?

Yes, Kenneth Arnold's famous sighting wouldn't be for another 5 years...

At first, a balloon explanation almost seems plausible, but when one considers the size reported by observers, how well it would have been lit up by searchlights, and the fact that even ONE AAA shell or it's fragments would have obliterated a balloon (remembering that 4300 shells were fired), we're truly left with a mystery here...and one that defies any current explanation....

Woah, I had never heard of this event before. Definitely interesting stuff. Perhaps they were testing us. There's one thing that we proved though. Our weapon systems are far too primitive.

[edit on 26-2-2005 by _Anubis_]

Here is an image enhanced version of the photo that was taken during the "battle".

The saucer shape is clearly visible.




Can anyone with experience with such things estimate the size of the craft?

I put quite a bit of research into this a while ago when onlyinmydreams brought it to my attention, especially when I read that it was sighted over (MGM from recollection?) studios.
I was hoping to find that there was some form of UFO movie out that year, and that maybe they used a blimp or something of the sort to drum up interest in the movie, then it just went horribly wrong so they never came forward with it.

I knew the UFO craze in movies didn't take off until the 50's but I was hoping that maybe there were one or two about before hand. I contacted someone at MGM and alas they told me that no such movies were released prior to the 50's of such sort, and I have never found anything else close in any of my searches. Of course it may have been for a war movie (of which there were a few), but that really wouldn't explain the shape of the object so I decided not to go down that path.

However, if my (complete speculation of course) theory were true then it'd be likely they just shelved such a movie after the incident to avoid further embarrassment after the mis-hap.

To be honest I've never really come up with any other answers other than that one, which is a complete guess, so it looks like it'll remain a mystery. Must've been quite a sight though...

[edit on 26-2-2005 by John Nada]

You'd still have the problem of how a blimp or other prop could have remained intact after an hour of AAA fire and over 4300 rounds and shrapnel. Quite simply, nothing we possess could. Whatever the object was, there are some facts that cannot be ignored....

1. The object was moving VERY slow. This makes it an excellent target.
2. The object was large (according to witnesses, and the photo), again a great target.
3. The object was well lit by the searchlights. When combined with the above, this makes a hit almost a certainty.
4. Witnesses saw direct hit after direct hit and NO effect on the object.
5. The firing went on for almost an hour and 4300 rounds were fired at it (this is from the military itself).

There are only TWO conclusions one can logically come to....

1. All 4300 shots missed the target, despite all of the conditions being optimal for a hit...for if even one got close, any blimp or balloon would have gone down.

OR

2. That the object was impervious to the barrage.

That's it. Period. So one must choose between them....

Well not really, it was 1942 and other than the odd pieces of information there really isn't much to confirm anything other than a crap photo and a bunch of 2nd hand recollections.

The reason my first thought was the MGM studios was because they'd have all manner of special effects houses there (some may argue they weren't that advanced, although I say I'm still impressed with the effects in The Wizard of Oz ) and it may have simply have been an illusion. Don't forget, David Copperfield can make the Statue of Liberty disappear.
I mean come on this is LA, these people are paid to be dramatic.

Maybe they were eve used by the military as an exercise in paranoia/ propaganda in the wake of the WWII. I believe Roswell was such an exercise, although certainly more than this...anything I say here is just a complete guess.

Maybe it really was a genuine alien craft, I truly hope it was, but considering how shy they were from then (and possibly before?) it seems a bit out of character does it not?

[edit on 27-2-2005 by John Nada]