The ‘Battle of Los Angeles’ put the US military on alert, fighter jets were ready for battle, thousands of anti-aircraft artillery shells were fired into the sky…
Battle of Los Angeles
The 37th Coast Artillery Brigade fired a total of up to 1,400 rounds toward the unidentified flying object. (Illustration via Youtube)
The “Battle of Los Angeles” was a UFO incident that took place in Los Angeles, United States in 1942. Between 12:00 midnight on February 24 and 2:00 am on February 25, a UFO appeared over the Santa Monica area in Los Angeles.
This time was less than 3 months from the “Pearl Harbor” event. And on the 23rd of the same month, the “Ellwood Bombing” occurred, 20 artillery shells were fired at the Elwood oil field, the Japanese Navy submarine “I-17” intended to carry out a plan to bombard cities in West Coast of America . This was the first direct attack by foreign forces since the American War of Independence. The current situation is so sensitive that the US military believes that the UFO may have been an aircraft of the Imperial Japanese Army at that time, and this incident is also known as the “Los Angeles Air Raid”.
On February 24, 1942, the Navy issued a warning that an attack was possible within the next 10 hours. Flares and flashing lights were reported in the area near the defense plant that night. The anti-aircraft warning was raised at 7:18 pm and stopped at 10:23 pm
Then, Los Angeles sounded the air raid siren at 2:25 am on the 25th, and local residents received orders to control all firelights, and thousands of air raid monitors moved immediately in. their positions to wait for orders. It was 3:16 am and the fighters of the 4th Interception Command were always on alert, ready to take off at any time. Coastal Artillery Brigade 37 began firing 5.8kg anti-aircraft guns, firing a total of 1,400 rounds.
American anti-aircraft fire continued until 4:14 am, and searchlight control was stopped until 7:21 am Later, it was discovered that during the anti-aircraft attacks, many buildings and vehicles were damaged by accidental hits, 5 civilians were killed, 3 of they suffer heart because it cannot withstand continuous fire attacks for several hours.
Some media claim that there are secrets hidden in it, and some modern UFO scientists believe that the US military actually attacked alien UFOs.
US military response
A few hours after the whole incident, Frank Nass, then US Secretary of the Navy, clarified in a press conference about the incident. He said the “Battle of Los Angeles” was a “false alarm” because of war tensions. The US Army’s public response the next day also cited comments by Secretary Frank and Army General George Cartwright Marshall said: “Those unidentified flying objects may have been commercial aircraft used for distributed leaflets and carried out plans to cause panic among the public. It’s just a psychological tactic.”
Some modern UFO scientists claim that the US military actually attacked alien UFOs. (Illustration via Kompas)
When the event was recorded in 1949, the United States Coast Artillery Association determined that the weather balloon appeared at 1:00 am and was mistaken for various targets when fired.
Later in the Air Force Historical Archives in 1983, the “Battle of Los Angeles” was blamed on a lost weather balloon and the urgency of the war situation. Then flares and anti-aircraft fire made the incident even bigger.
The reason given does not explain the mystery.
Some media suggested that the military’s response was actually an attempt to cover up the truth of the mystery, an editor of the ‘Long Beach Independent’ said : “There was a mysterious silence throughout the entire incident, and media censorship to some extent, as if trying to stop discussion of the incident.”
After that, there were many speculations about the truth, some people said that Japanese submarines with aircraft carrier combat capabilities were secretly going back and forth in the offshore waters, some people thought that there was a secret base. unknown in Northern Mexico. There is even speculation that this is an event that allows the defense industry, which is located on the coast, to move inland.
Congressman Leland Merritt Ford of Santa Monica later said: “So far, the reasons given have not allowed the incident to escape the mystery.”
To this day, the Fort MacArthur Museum, located at the entrance to the Port of Los Angeles, each February hosts an entertainment event called “The Great Los Angeles Raid of 1942,” to remember this mysterious event.
