The Battle of Los Angeles
Date: February 25, 1942
Location: Los Angeles, California, United States
The following event has been dubbed “The Battle of Los Angeles” due to the military’s full-scale response to the observed unidentified flying objects. This event is one of the few that has over a thousand firsthand eyewitnesses, making it one of the most remarkable cases to date, and it all happened just three months after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
It was February 25, 1942, when at around 02:25 the air raid sirens went off throughout Los Angeles, warning the people that an aerial attack was imminent. Since just three months earlier the Americans had experienced the worst military attack of their history so far, everyone was apprehensive. The United States Army prepared the citizens very well in the case that the Japanese were to make an attack on American soil. Numerous drills were carried out, preparing both the people as well as the army; however, the air raid siren that went off on the twenty-fifth was far from a drill.
On that day, naval intelligence had been tracking an unidentified object on radar in Southern California. Those collecting intelligence could not identify the object nor could they communicate with it. However, due to the recent events, they assumed that it was a Japanese aircraft about to attack one of the most densely populated cities in America. As the object started approaching the city of Los Angeles, the air raid sirens went off and the residents made their way out of their houses, completely unaware that they were about to witness one of the most compelling UFO cases to date.
The military had been tracking the unidentified object for well over half an hour on radar and orders were given to intercept the aircraft and respond accordingly. Although no American military jets were scrambled, Paul T. Collins, a witness of the sighting and an employee of the Douglas Aircraft Company, later reported that military jets were actually on the runway waiting for authorization to intercept. However, that permission was not granted, and many have questioned that decision, considering an unidentified aircraft had entered the American airspace without permission just months after an attack.
Shortly after the air raid sirens went off, thousands of individuals witnessed an enormous silvery object flying high in the sky, surrounded by smaller objects, flying in a V formation. At that point in time, it became very apparent both to the army and to the thousands of witnesses that these aircraft were unlike any aircraft anyone had seen in the sky. Assuming that the aircraft were about to drop bombs, the army followed orders and started shooting antiaircraft shells at the objects. The shells of such ammunition are designed specifically to shoot down any aircraft with great precision. In a span of one hour, a total of 1,430 antiaircraft shells were fired at the objects but to no avail. The unidentified objects were completely unaffected by the ambush. The army kept shooting at the objects, leaving thousands of witnesses perplexed by what they were witnessing. How were these aircraft shielded from the ammunition? The UFOs remained in the sky for over an hour, hovering motionlessly. Although every American was expecting another attack to occur, no bombs were dropped. The awaited attack never came, leaving many to wonder if these aircraft were truly Japanese.
After an hour in the sky and an hour of nonstop bombardment, at around 04:15, the large aircraft and the accompanying smaller ones disappeared from the sky. It is unknown how these objects were able to withstand the antiaircraft ammunition. Many have speculated that the objects must have had a shield of some sort protecting them. With the newly declassified videos showing fighter jets pursuing UFOs, one of the extraordinary characteristics of these unidentified aircraft is their antigravity propulsion system. Theoretically, if an aircraft has the capability to produce its own gravitational field, a force field is certainly in the realm of possibilities.
The following day, a full detailed report written by General George Marshall was sent to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, recounting the events of the previous night:
“The following is the information we have from GHQ at this moment regarding the air alarm over Los Angeles of yesterday morning. From details available at this hour:
1. Unidentified airplanes, other than American Army or Navy planes, were probably over Los Angeles and were fired on by elements of the 37th Coast Artillery Brigade (AA) between 3:12 and 4:15 am. These units expended the 1,430 rounds of ammunition.
2. As many as fifteen airplanes may have been involved, flying at various speeds from what is reported as being ‘very slow’ to as much as two hundred miles per hour and at elevations from nine thousand to eighteen thousand 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 spreading alarm, disclosing locations of antiaircraft positions, and slowing production through blackout. Such conclusion is supported by varying speed of operation and the fact that no bombs were dropped.”
The Eyewitnesses
As stated in the beginning of this chapter, this case is one of the very few cases that includes over a thousand eyewitnesses. As with any case, the more witnesses there are, the better the credibility of the case, especially if the accounts corroborate one another. The following statements are only a few of the hundreds that were made shortly after the events came to an end in the early hours of February 25. The witnesses include regular civilians as well as high-level officials and experts.
Peter Jenkins, an employee of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, recalled seeing “a V formation of about twenty-five silvery planes overhead, moving slowly across the sky toward Long Beach.” 1 A Long Beach police officer named J. H. McClelland was on duty when the air raid siren went off. In a statement he said, “An experienced naval observer was with me using powerful Carl Zeiss binoculars and said he counted nine planes in the cone of a searchlight. He said they were silver in color. This group passed along from one battery of searchlights to another and under fire from antiaircraft guns, flew from the direction of Redondo Beach and Inglewood on the land side of Fort MacArthur and continued toward Santa Ana and Huntington Beach. Antiaircraft fire was so heavy we could not hear the motors of the plane.” 2
Collins, the employee of Douglas Aircraft Company and an expert in aerospace engineering, stated that he had observed “several unidentified red objects appearing from nowhere and then zig-zagging from side to side five miles per second.” He also confirmed that fighter jets were warming up on the runway, awaiting confirmation to pursue and intercept the UFOs. For whatever reason, however, that authorization was never granted.
“Planes of the Fourth Interceptor Command were, in fact, warming up on the runways, waiting for orders to go up and intervene the unknown intruders,” Collins said. “Why, everybody was asking, were they not ordered to go into action during the twenty-one-minute period between the first air raid alert at 02:25 and the first artillery firing at 03:16.” 3
As we shall see in later chapters, when an unidentified object infiltrates a nation’s airspace, military jets are immediately scrambled and are ordered to pursue and intercept the unidentified aircraft. When we take into consideration that the United States was still recuperating from the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor, it becomes even more illogical that the air force did not authorize the military jets to scramble. Could it be that the air force knew the UFOs were not Japanese, but were something far superior and advanced, and it would have been futile to scramble military jets?
The final witness statement comes from an American anthropologist named C. Scott Littleton, who believes that the objects in the sky were extraterrestrial and interplanetary in origin. Littleton states, “The most efficient explanation is that it is what we’d call today a UFO: something not of this world.” 4 Such a hypothesis does make sense when we take into consideration the fact that these objects withstood antiaircraft ammunition for over an hour and then disappeared into thin air.
The Unidentified Flying Objects
It must be reiterated that the fact that hundreds of individuals were eyewitnesses to the event proves that these events did truly happen.
The classified memorandum written by General Marshall states that there were “as many as fifteen planes.” The eyewitness reports describe one enormous main object that was surrounded by smaller ones flying beside it in a V formation. The movements of the smaller UFOs were erratic, zig-zagging from side to side. On the other hand, the main object remained stationary in the sky. It is interesting to note that the UFOs were described as being noiseless, although it could have been the case that the firing of the ammunition was overpowering the noise being emitted from the objects.
The most interesting aspect of this event is the fact that these UFOs were able to withstand the ammunition being fired at them for over an hour. So much ammunition was fired that several surrounding properties were damaged. Wesley Craven, a historian who wrote extensively on the Army Air Force in the Second World War, stated that due to the chaos of that night, one individual lost his life due to heart failure.5
After withstanding the ambush for over an hour, the UFOs were left completely unaffected and proceeded to disappear from the sky. The objects were no longer tracked on radar and no more visual contacts were reported. The UFOs had completely vanished, leaving everyone to wonder what they had just witnessed.
The Army’s Explanation
“As far as I know, the whole raid was a false alarm and could be attributed to jittery nerves,” said Frank Knox, the navy secretary.6 Knox stated that the events did not occur the way hundreds of individuals had reported. In fact, he said the whole event was a delusion caused by the trauma the American people felt after the attack on Pearl Harbor. This statement implies that the hundreds of eyewitness reports made by civilians as well as high-level officials must have been inaccurate and mistaken, and that the army had spent an hour shooting at objects that were simply not there.
Such a statement is questionable for many reasons. When we take into consideration the facts, this statement simply does not hold true. Firstly, naval intelligence had tracked the unidentified objects on their radar. If, as Knox stated, the event was the result of jittery nerves, then the targets would not have showed up on radar. Following this contradiction, the Coast Artillery Association stated that they had released a weather balloon at 01:00, which was what the thousands of individuals must have witnessed in the sky. This statement still does not match up with the events and witness statements. Even if it is true that a weather balloon was released in the sky, if the army had shot over a thousand antiaircraft shells at a weather balloon, it most certainly would have been shot down. Apart from that, the description given by the eyewitnesses does not match up with that of a weather balloon. The shape, color, and maneuvers of the reported UFOs contradict those of a weather balloon.
After these explanations were repudiated by the public, Knox provided a third explanation that remained the main explanation for the case. Knox stated that the UFOs were, in actual fact, Japanese commercial aircraft sent to cause psychological distress. During the Second World War, the Japanese did actually make use of hydrogen balloons (known as the Fu-Go balloons) to instill fear amongst their enemies. However, if what was in the sky was truly a commercial aircraft then how come it was not shot down? Once again, why weren’t any American fighter jets scrambled? Even if an attack did not actually occur, why was the United States Army completely defenseless and unable to protect its civilians?
Conclusion
Three statements were provided by officials and none of the three statements hold true. It is evident that the military does not want to disclose to the public what was truly in the sky on the night of February 25, 1942. Is this because they believe the truth will cause panic, or is it because they themselves do not know?
When we compare the characteristics and capabilities of the UFOs to terrestrial aircraft, it is evident that the UFO technology is far superior to ours.
1. Jim Marrs, Alien Agenda: Investigating the Extraterrestrial Presence among Us (New York: Harper Paperbacks, 1998), 63.
2. Marrs, Alien Agenda: Investigating the Extraterrestrial Presence among Us, 63.
3. Paul Collins, “World War II UFO Scare,” FATE Magazine 40, no. 7, issue 448, July 1987.
4. Kevin Burns, producer, “The Return,” Ancient Aliens, May 25, 2010, A&E Television Networks.
5. Wesley Frank Craven and James Lea Cate, The Army Air Forces in World War II, vol. I (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), 284.
6. Marrs, Alien Agenda: Investigating the Extraterrestrial Presence among Us, 63.