“The Battle of Los Angeles”

Have you ever heard of the Battle of Los Angeles? Only a few have. Here is the information I have found…

On Wednesday, February 25, 1942, at precisely 2 a.m., diners at the trendy Trocadero club in Hollywood were startled when the lights winked out and air raid sirens began to sound.

“Searchlights scanned the skies and anti-aircraft guns protecting the vital aircraft and ship-building factories went into action. In the next few hours they would fire over 1,400 shells at an unidentified, slow- moving object in the sky over Los Angeles."

Author Ralph Blum, who was a nine-year-old boy at the time, wrote that he thought "the Japanese were bombing Beverly Hills. There were sirens, searchlights, even antiaircraft guns blamming away into the skies over Los Angeles. My father had been a balloon observation man in World War One, and he knew big guns when he heard them. He ordered my mother to take my baby sisters to our underground room.”

"What a scene! It was after three in the morning. Searchlights probed the western sky. Tracers streamed upward. The racket was terrific."

The Anti-Aircraft Guns of 65th Coast Artillery Regiment in Inglewood and the 205th Anti-Aircraft Regiment in Santa Monica lit up the sky, even scoring several direct hits, but to no avail. The "white cigar-shaped object" just continued on its eastward flight. Some people reported seeing up to 15 silvery UFOs. Editor Peter Jenkins of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner reported, "I could clearly see the V formation of about 25 silvery planes overhead moving slowly across the sky toward Long Beach."

One Air Raid Warden reported, "It was like the Fourth of July but much louder. They were firing like crazy but they couldn't touch it."

Long Beach Police Chief J.H. McClelland said, "I watched what was described as the second wave of planes from atop the seven-story Long Beach City Hall. I did not see any planes but an experienced Navy observer with powerful binoculars said he counted nine planes in the cone of the searchlight. He said they were silver in color.

Reporter Bill Henry of the Los Angeles Times wrote, "I was far enough away to see an object without being able to identify it...I would be willing to bet what shekels I have that there were a number of direct hits scored on the object."

A young interior designer named Katie and was surprised in the early morning hours of February 25th, when here phone rang. Like thousands of residents she had volunteered for wartime duties on the home front as an Air Raid Warden. When she answered her phone she found It was the Air Raid supervisor in her district notifying her of an alert and asking if she had seen the object in the sky very close to her home. She immediately walked to a window and looked up. "It was huge! It was just enormous! And it was practically right over my house. I had never seen anything like it in my life!" she said. "It was just hovering there in the sky and hardly moving at all." With the city blacked out, Katie, and hundreds of thousands of others, were able to see the eerie visitor with spectacular clarity as the Army Air Corps lit it with searchlights. "It was a lovely pale orange and about the most beautiful thing you've ever seen. I could see it perfectly because it was very close. It was big!"

At 2:21 a.m., Lt. Gen. John L. DeWitt issued the cease-fire order, and the twenty-minute "battle of Los Angeles" was over.

What was the object or objects? Well, at the end of the war, the Japanese stated that they did not send planes over the area at the time of this alert so it really beats me, but the above old photo sure makes it look like they were shooting at a UFO! I invite you to keep an open mind and keep walking in this big weird world of ours!

I’m Average Joe

email: OurWeirdWorld@gmail.com