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The West coast air raid (sometimes referred to as the Los Angeles air raid or The battle of Los Angeles) involved an unknown object (or objects) reported over Los Angeles in February, 1942, that triggered a massive anti-aircraft artillery barrage because of fears of Japanese attack. The target was later officially declared to be a lost weather balloon, although this was never confirmed. Some believe this to have been an early unidentified flying object or UFO incident.
Unidentified objects were reported over Los Angeles during the night of February 24 and the early morning hours of February 25. 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 searchlights.
After the air raid warning began, pilots of the 4th Interceptor Command readied their aircraft but an order to fly was never given so they 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 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 one of the objects, and he was stunned that the object had not been downed.
Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox announced that the entire incident was a false alarm due to anxiety and "war nerves". The press queried this explanation, some suspecting 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 U.S. Navy was dangerously incompetent.
Causes of the event have included misidentification of weather balloons and Japanese fire balloons * but the latter did not exist in 1942. Multiple objects were reported by some people, not a single object like a weather balloon which likely could not have survived such a massive bombardment.
An image (this page) published by the Los Angeles Times purported to show an object caught in searchlights as artillery shells exploded in the vicinity. The searchlight beams all stop at a central point, not projecting beyond as they normally would, suggesting the image was created by an artist and was not a photograph.
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. Marshall wrote that "unidentified airplanes, other than American Army or Navy planes, were probably sighted over Los Angeles" moving from "'very slow' to as much as 200 MPH and from elevations of 9000 to 18,000 feet."Because the objects did not seem to be part of any attack, Marshall speculated that the craft might have been commercial airplanes used as a sort of psychological warfare to generate panic. [http://www.sfmuseum.net/hist9/aaf2.html
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.
The incident was part of the inspiration for Steven Spielberg's World War II comedy 1941.
See also
Sources
- Timothy Good; Above Top Secret 1988, Quill/William Morrow; ISBN 0688092020
External links
"West coast air raid"