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Here’s an interesting thread re the Los Angeles UFO ‘attack’ and counter attack with anti-aircraft guns in 1942

on ATS:

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread329188/pg1

posted on 24/1/2008 @ 17:30

The Smoking (Anti-Aircraft) Guns (of Los Angeles, 1942)

Hello fellow ATS members, thanks for stopping by this thread.

I assure you that your time here will not be wasted.

First and foremost, I have a {THEORY} that the ‘Battle of Los Angeles’, once properly investigated, will provide everyone with at least ONE case of a truly Unidentified Flying Object, where the most likely explanation that fits the given evidence is that it was a vessel from somewhere outside of Earth.

To prove this theory, I’ll first be introducing evidence supporting the reality of the event. This will consist of my (as of now incomplete) report on the event, formatted in the usual style of my Compilation posts, so that everyone can find everything I’ve found so far.

I will then ask for ATS members assistance in several ways:
1) Following up the spots in the report where the text [NEED DATA] occurs. The items of evidence (and sources) I have not yet been able to acquire will need finding. I’m going to keep on this case until I have the data for all of these blanks. It is my hope that some of you will join me in the pursuit of this data.

2) Debunk the crap out of all of it please. That’s right, I’m asking for all of the skeptics here to step up and weigh in on the evidence, once posted, in this thread. I think that every possible explanation needs to be considered, and there is no better team of individuals fit to analyze this data that the collective group of skeptics here at ATS. Perhaps one of us will come up with some rational earthly explanation for this event, to date I haven’t been able to do so on my own, and I’d like help from the pros!

3) There are several questions that have never been properly answered pertaining to the details of this event, and I believe that ATS members can work out the values for these variables. These questions will no doubt surface on their own throughout the thread, but here are a few to start:

A) How big is the UFO?
I believe that we can find out, using math, if we can get values for other variables...
B) Where is the Original LA Times Picture taken?
I believe that we can find out, using math and maps, if we can get values for other variables...
C) What are the specs on the AA guns? The Lights? etc.?
I believe that we can find out, by researching, and through teamwork.

I think you can see where this is going.
To date (January 24th, 2008) this event has not been explained, and in fact, I’ve yet to even see a place where ALL of the data is actually assembled for a thorough investigation. There have been many attempts at analysis by individuals, each only going so far.

I feel that with our collective resources and determination, we at ATS, skeptics and believers alike, can work together to assemble ALL of the data on this event here in this thread. I further feel that once the data is fully assembled, like any puzzle, the picture revealing the true events of February 24th-25th, 1942 will begin to come clear.

Thanks for your time, stay tuned for my report to date. I need to upload all of the images I’ve acquired so far to Imageshack, so please be patient. I plan to have the entire report (it’s lengthy) up at some point today. As always, the links to pertaining ATS threads where this event has already been discussed (I’ve scoured them for data already) will conclude the report.

-WFA

Evidence Description:
The Battle of Los Angeles is one of the most well documented UFO Cases of all time, and one of the first with direct involvement by the United States Armed Forces. The term UFO (as is always the case in my posts) is defined herein as: Unidentified Flying Object.

In researching this case I found seriously heated debate from both ‘believers’ and ‘skeptics’, ranging widely over a series of ATS Threads. I also found extensive external sources, mostly at odds over details of the documented event.

This report seeks to combine all of the data relevant to the case into a single comprehensive report, with an easily navigable source indexing. It is the opinion of this author that the comprehensive report allows for comparative analysis of a more productive sort, utilizing a shared database for the sourcing of evidence.

This article further seeks to expand the scope of the investigation into this case to date, by providing detailed maps of the area in question, with the relevant locations and observations plotted accordingly. Further analysis will be provided in the form of specifications for the equipment used by United States Armed Forces during this event. Finally, this thread will provide confirmation where possible, of eye-witnesses to (and victims of) the event, in the form of official documentation issued by the United States Federal Government.

Any of this evidence found lacking in the initial report will be followed up in this thread by myself (and hopefully others).

The History of the 4th AA Command, Western Defense Command, (Also linked below as an ‘Internet Article’): cufon.org...

{B-5} “The Army Air Forces in World War II,” was prepared under the editorship of Wesley Frank Craven, and James Lea Cate. v.1, pp. 277-286, Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History: For sale by the Supt. of Docs., U.S. G.P.O., 1983.

Next up are the Newspaper Articles detailing the event, I appreciate your patience, as the formatting takes time...

WATCHERS SHIVER

The fire seemed to burst in rings all around the target. But the eager watchers, shivering in the early morning cold, weren’t rewarded by the sight of a falling plane. Nor were there any bombs dropped. “Maybe it’s just a test,” someone remarked. “Test, hell!” was the answer. “You don’t throw that much metal in the air unless you’re fixing on knocking something down.” Still the firing continued, muttering angrily off toward the west like a distant thunderstorm. The targeted object inched along high, flanked by the cherry red explosions. And the householders shivered in their robes, their faces set, watching the awesome scene.

Many of the links also show an alleged memo from Marshal, explaining that the Army doesn’t know the origins of the attacking craft. This document is still in dispute, but last I checked, majesticdocuments.com, a UFO doc research group, had it listed as high confidence it was authentic.

I’ve seen different debunking attempts, with the two primary ones being a weather balloon (which wouldn’t hold up, due to the reported size of the object, nor would it survive AAA fire that even came close to hitting it) or a small group of Japanese planes (which wouldn’t hold up, again due to the size of the object, as well as the slow movement reported, nor standing up to the AAA fire).

There incidentally, was a Japanese sub attack on the US that night (this was shortly after Pearl Harbor), but it was not of the “carrier” sub type, so this is ruled out as a source for the planes hypothesis anyhow, even with the other reasons ruling out planes.

While I don’t believe it’s mentioned thoroughly in the article, there are some other articles from other local papers, citing that multiple objects were sighted in a V formation along with a larger object.

I’m still digging into this one, but as above, it’s fascinating that this story never really got a lot of attention. I’m supposing that this is because it was technically before the modern UFO era truly began (with Arnold’s sighting in ‘47 generally considered to be the start), but there were some interesting things going on in ‘42 with UFO’s....

FROM:

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread118193/pg1

VIDEO LINK:

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread287069/pg1

ON MSNBC:

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread269781/pg1

EYE WITNESS ACCOUNT:

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread326975/pg1

Around 3:15 a.m., I awoke to the sound of what I initially assumed was distant thunder. But as I came fully awake, I realized that the guns were firing again. At first, I thought they were simply doing another drill, though it seemed awfully late. Moreover, there was something about the rate and intensity of the bombardment that just didn’t seem right, especially after I glanced at my clock. Scotty Littleton’s House on The Strand During 1941 My small bedroom, which was directly over our front door, faced south, and thus my view of the ocean was oblique. However, the sky, or what I could see of, it was filled with blinding searchlights and the bright flashes of exploding rounds. I was, of course, thoroughly familiar with both, thanks to all the target practice I’d witnessed. But heretofore, the searchlights and the explosions had always been well out over the ocean and for the most part invisible from my bedroom windows, at least when I was in bed. This time everything seemed much closer.

SOURCE:

http://www.theufochronicles.com/2006/10/exclusivethe-battle-of-los-angeles.html

I soon heard my parents talking in the hall, and poked my head out. My father, who was an air raid warden, looked worried and said it didn’t make any sense. He tried to get through by phone to Civil Defense headquarters, but there was no answer (we later learned that the alert had been called at 2:25 a.m., although nobody had bothered to get the word out to local air raid wardens). So, he put on his gear, and went outside to see what was happening.

He soon returned, looking even more worried, and told my mother to get me, my paternal grandparents, who lived with us at the time, and my recently widowed maternal grandfather, who’d been staying with us for a couple of weeks, down to the basement bomb shelter my father had begun building in the afternoon of December 7, ASAP.

Normally, my maternal grandfather was slower than the Second Coming of Christ in his personal habits, that is, in dressing, shaving, etc. But when my father said, “Mr. Hotchkiss, I think this may be the real thing,” he was down in the basement in thirty seconds flat!

As you can imagine, I was equal parts scared and excited and desperately wanted to know what was going on. By this time, my father was back on the street and, belatedly, over the continuing gunfire, we heard the air raid siren finally begin to wail. My mother escorted her in-laws and father down to shelter, which consisted of two small dressing rooms protected by cartons of beach sand stacked in the open basement on either side, and I followed along, despite the fact that I was eager to poke my head outside and watch “the real thing.”

My mother felt the same way. As she said later, after about ten minutes in such cramped quarters—the benches upon which we sat also contained survival items such as a first-aid kit, water bottles, and some canned food—and surrounded by the halitosis exuded by the older generation, she was ready to brave a Jap bomb or two. Indeed, our first thought was that an enemy squadron was overhead, as we began to hear the roar of aircraft engines over the din of the barrage. But they later turned out to our own pursuit planes.

When she exited the basement through the door that led to the beach, I followed close behind her. Although my mother was, of course, apprehensive about my safety, at the same time she understood why I was dying to see what was going on and let me stay.

The two of us stood side by side in front of the house, huddling together in the chill night air and staring up into the sky. The planes we’d heard were not in sight, but what captured our rapt attention was a silvery, lozenge-shaped “bug,” as my mother later described it, that was clearly visible in the searchlight beams that pinpointed it. Although it was a clear, moonlit night, no other details could be discerned, despite the fact that, when we first saw it, the object was hanging motionless almost directly overhead. Its altitude is hard to estimate, especially after all these years, but I’d guess that it was somewhere between 4,000 and 8,000 feet. This may explain why we didn’t see the orange glow reported by several eyewitnesses in Santa Monica and Culver City, where the object was apparently much lower. (One witness suggests that this glow may simply have been the reflection of shell bursts against the object’s “silvery” body.)

BOLA (Cropped In Frame)In any case, anti-aircraft shells were bursting all around the mysterious craft. The noise was almost deafening. And each time a bright red flash occurred, the acrid odor of cordite became more pronounced. Shrapnel was also falling on the beach, and my mother and I backed up against the house to avoid being struck. (The next day we kids salvaged boxes of the stuff off the sand and turned them in for scrap.)

However, between shell bursts, the craft emitted no sound whatsoever. Nor was it acting aggressively.

As we watched, open mouthed, the object, apparently none the worse for the plethora of rounds directed at it, began to move slowly to the southeast, descending over Redondo Beach, where we lost sight of it. Indeed, either our gunners were absurdly inept, despite all the practice they’d had in recent weeks, or it was invulnerable to attack. Years later I read that over 1,400 rounds were fired at the object that evening. The official tally, from the Army’s after-action report, is 1430 rounds, but this figure is probably way too low. Could the Japs have come up with some secret weapon that deflected flack? The thought was scary to the max!

The object later appeared over San Pedro and Long Beach before finally disappearing over the ocean somewhere off southern Orange County or northern San Diego County.

Shortly after my mother and I lost sight of it we once again heard the unmistakable sound of aircraft engines. By then the bombardment had almost petered out, and several Army Air Corps interceptors, P-38s that were probably based at Mines field (today the site of Los Angeles International Airport), approached from the northeast and buzzed off to the southeast, apparently chasing the object.

At that point, it was almost 4:00 a.m. Precisely how long we’d stood there is anybody’s guess, though I suspect that the whole episode, that is, from our leaving the shelter to meeting my father as he returned to house after both the object and the chase planes had disappeared, lasted about twenty-five minutes.

As I recall, the firing ceased shortly thereafter (the “all clear” didn’t actually sound until 7:30 a.m.), but nobody went to bed that night. The next morning’s edition of the Los Angeles Examiner, the local Hearst newspaper, which I still have tucked away safely, came out with a screaming, banner headline: “Air Battle Rages over Los Angeles,” followed by “One Plane Reported Downed on Vermont Avenue by Gunfire” in smaller type. This, of course, seemed at the time to be pure fantasy, typical Hearst yellow journalism, as no bombs fell, nor, apparently, was any plane, Japanese or otherwise, shot down anywhere in Southern California that night. However, in retrospect, the Examiner seems to have been right about one thing. As we’ll shortly see, there’s compelling evidence to support the contention that at least one of our planes did in fact crash (or crash-land) on South Vermont Avenue that morning

But what precisely had we witnessed?