Battle of Los Angeles UFO incident (not the sci-fi film)

[vger]

For some reason this old thing just crossed my mind. It actually amazes me that events such as Roswell get so much attention when it seems so much easier to debunk as a genuine alien craft incident. Still intriguing as a cover-up story, but not as an "X-File." In all the U.F.O. paraphernalia I read in my teens, I never came across this story - only stumbling upon it by accident on the web one day last year.

Granted, this happened in 1942 just after America entered WWII, so it's likely that this would be from an enemy nation and not from space. But then consider the fact that over 1000 shells were fired at the darned thing, for over 30 minutes, and it just sat there and grinned back at the pitiful weaponry. The entire city saw this happening. The cannons destroyed no target, though managed to accidentally kill a few people on the ground, along with causing some considerable property damage.

One of the explanations is laughable - always the classic go-to explanation for any U.F.O. "Weather Balloon." Goodness, that's one tough weather balloon. Alien or not, it survived a barrage that would have taken out a bomber in under than a minute. One of the most basic "UFO mistakes," being that it could be a star, satellite (even though none existed yet), or other object much higher than it seemed, can't apply here. With so many search lights converging on it, its true altitude would have been very easy to determine.

Any thoughts on what else it could be?

Edited April 13, 2015 by vger

[kenbobo]

Maybe a time travelling human starship from 3000?

[Kibble]

Never heard the story, but it could bee some kind of classified military training exercise.

Maybe a time travelling human starship from 3000?

Haha perfect ref!

[kenbobo]

Well it's possible... i saw activity the moment i promised myself I would travel back in time to if it existed.

[Kryten]

It looks like a small cloud, to be honest. Also fits perfectly with the observed behaviour.

[PakledHostage]

It looks like a small cloud, to be honest. Also fits perfectly with the observed behaviour.

"Take care, sir," cried Sancho. "Those over there are not giants but windmills."

- Miguel de Cervantes

[Leszek]

Lets consult the Air Force Identification chart:

Hmm, looks like a weather balloon. Case closed.

In reality I can't see anything from that picture. But Americans in WWII were known to be quick on the trigger. Latter in the day after Pearl Harbor, American defenses shot at American Navy planes. In the battle over Europe, US fighter pilots escorting US bombers learned to stay away, once things started heating up American Bombers were notorious for shooting at their own fighter cover. During D-Day, the Allies used the P-38 lightning almost exclusively over the beach landings because the shape was so distinctive. They made sure every gunner in the fleet knew what one looked like. They painted the planes with "D-Day" stripes that were conspicuous. They still lost planes to friendly fire.

When war broke out people reported German periscopes all over the place in areas a uboat just wont go. By the time the first 5 German Uboats arrived in operation Drum Beat, US intelligence was swamped with hundreds of false reports every day. (They also had reliable reports but chose to ignore those. Long story.)

In this environment, it is not hard to imagine that something as simple as a cloud (mentioned above) or a flock of birds would set the guns a blazen.

Disclaimer, I am not bashing Americans here, ALL the combatants during WWII were known for some not so flattering stuff. The British for example liked to bomb their own submarines. At least some of those P-38's during D-Day were probably not shot down by American Friendly fire but someone else's friendly fire. My point is however that Americans where known to be trigger happy, more so than others.

[Kryten]

To add to the above, the 'battle' took place when invasion paranoia on the west coast was in full swing, a day after a Japanese submarine had shelled a Californian oil installation. Reports that the sub had shone 'signal lights' at the shore were widely circulated, fueling rumours about impending major attacks and Japanese-American fifth columnists.

[Bill Phil]

It' a UFO. Probably not a cloud (if it was, it would be ONE STRANGE cloud...), and definitely not a weather balloon.

Maybe an airship of sorts? The Germans had plenty, and during the interwar period the USA had a few as well.

[Leszek]

After reading about the incident, it seems that a weather balloon is in fact the most likely cause.

The balloon itself just started the whole mess, the first aircraft spotted was a balloon. After things erupted it was all just confused from there. The OP's original statement that "that's one tough weather balloon", is misleading as the balloon itself was almost never the target and only the spark that set things off. After that shots were fired at almost anything in the sky including smoke from previous anti aircraft bursts. Reports of groups of planes (not one) were common. The photo linked to is just one incident at one target. The picture itself was retouched by the news paper to improve contrast. (Not that it matters that picture doesn't really show anything.)

The OP leaves the impression that it was one object that was the focus of multiple search lights for some time when in fact it was many transient objects spread out over hours.

[Bill Phil]

After reading about the incident, it seems that a weather balloon is in fact the most likely cause.

The balloon itself just started the whole mess, the first aircraft spotted was a balloon. After things erupted it was all just confused from there. The OP's original statement that "that's one tough weather balloon", is misleading as the balloon itself was almost never the target and only the spark that set things off. After that shots were fired at almost anything in the sky including smoke from previous anti aircraft bursts. Reports of groups of planes (not one) were common. The photo linked to is just one incident at one target. The picture itself was retouched by the news paper to improve contrast. (Not that it matters that picture doesn't really show anything.)

The OP leaves the impression that it was one object that was the focus of multiple search lights for some time when in fact it was many transient objects spread out over hours.

However, a lot of the spotlights were focused on just one thing, which then gave off light that would imply an object.

[Leszek]

However, a lot of the spotlights were focused on just one thing, which then gave off light that would imply an object.

Yes they were. Like I said, the photo was retouched.

In the retouched version, many light beams were lightened and widened with white paint, while other beams were eliminated. In earlier years, it was common for newspapers to use artists to retouch images due to poor reproduction  basically 10 shades of gray if you were lucky. Thus my conclusion: the retouching was needed to reproduce the image. But man, I wish the retouching had been more faithful to the original. With our current standards, this image would not be published.

Source: Scott Harrison The Battle of L.A., 1942 updated latimes.com, March 10, 2011

My Source: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Battle_of_Los_Angeles

Though I just pulled this up now, I originally read other articles when I made my post.

[Bill Phil]

Improving contrast makes it easier to see. That's the point. But there is a difference from improvements, and changes.

It doubt it's a weather balloon, because weather balloons weren't really used very heavily at the time (due to poor instruments according to what I've read).

There were balloons the Japanese had that were white and carried bombs, hundreds or thousands. They rode the airstreams to the USA. Maybe one of those?

[Kibble]

Kryten's cloud theory seems very strong.

On a related note, low-altitude clouds parallaxing against each other is a very strange sight. You never think of them as being three-dimensional objects in the air.

[Leszek]

Improving contrast makes it easier to see. That's the point. But there is a difference from improvements, and changes.

It doubt it's a weather balloon, because weather balloons weren't really used very heavily at the time (due to poor instruments according to what I've read).

There were balloons the Japanese had that were white and carried bombs, hundreds or thousands. They rode the airstreams to the USA. Maybe one of those?

From the wrong part of the war, those were later. And yes they used weather balloons in the area. Not used heavily is not the same as not used.

[Bill Phil]

From the wrong part of the war, those were later. And yes they used weather balloons in the area. Not used heavily is not the same as not used.

Not used often means the likelihood is less. It also says nothing about where.

And maybe it was a test flight? Perhaps the only DOCUMENTED flights of the fire balloons were late in the war. It's a possibility. As is a weather balloon. As is a cloud. As is a flying saucer.

No one really knows 100% what it was. But it probably wasn't aliens. That's a low likelihood scenario.

There are luminescent clouds.

The point here is that many things are fairly likely, it probably was a balloon of sorts. But there are more balloon types than weather balloons. (It seems that they say weather balloon too often, and not just balloon, which would make it less conspicuous. Weather balloon is pretty specific.)

[Brethern]

However, a lot of the spotlights were focused on just one thing, which then gave off light that would imply an object.

If you have a powerful enough light you can illuminate a cloud. Perhaps someone had an itchy trigger finger and got done binge reading a pulp fiction series and though he saw something. It would only take one gun firing to cause everyone to start shooting.

[Nuke]

all i see is a bunch of spot lights reflecting off of the clouds and a few aa shell explosions. it probibly had something to do with one watch station reporting that they thought they saw something, then all the other stations pointing their lights at the spot. then all the gun crews opened fire in the confusion.

Edited April 13, 2015 by Nuke

[Darnok]

Looks like

[Nibb31]

It actually amazes me that events such as Roswell get so much attention when it seems so much easier to debunk as a genuine alien craft incident.

Why assume that UFO = alien? It is just as likely to be leprechauns, ghosts, time travellers, or a divine manifestation. It is however much more likely that it was something man-made or a physical manifestation that was simply misunderstood by the observers.

At any rate, before going into debunking the whole story, I'd like to see it from some reputable source. There is so much crap out there on the internet, especially on UFO sites, that you can't assume that a story actually happened.

[DaMichel]

This was on a TV show about UFOs recently. It was actually quite informative.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2ZuCTtTk6Y

They bring up two interesting points: Could it have been an (experimental) aircraft? I figure, it might have been lost in bad weather and ended up over LA. Note, that it was claimed in the show that something might have been shot down indeed.

The light cones seem to be reflected off of something. It appears as though they change direction when they hit the convergence area. Does anyone have an idea if this could be true or is it an illusion due to the perspective or something else?

[Darnok]

Why assume that UFO = alien? It is just as likely to be leprechauns, ghosts, time travellers, or a divine manifestation. It is however much more likely that it was something man-made or a physical manifestation that was simply misunderstood by the observers.

At any rate, before going into debunking the whole story, I'd like to see it from some reputable source. There is so much crap out there on the internet, especially on UFO sites, that you can't assume that a story actually happened.

Yea what people are calling UFO was/is probably prototype. Google about Coanda effect it is known since 1800, so in 1942 it could have first working prototype http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coand%C4%83_effect

For me it is like helicopter, invented during WWII by Germans, so why they couldn't build helicopters with rotors inside craft body

Edited April 13, 2015 by Darnok

[Majorjim!]

The truth is, we don't know what it was. We never will. We can apply logic to the problem though. It is most likely to be something of earthly origin. And given how jumpy people would be during wartime they would shoot at anything.

[Kryten]

Those images are the heavily retouched version, which started all this nonsense about it being a classic 'flying saucer'. We know exactly what it is-it's paint. The image in the OP is from the original negative; nothing more than a fuzzy blob.

[lajoswinkler]

You're talking about 1942 and you're talking about the military. Not really the branch famous for intellect.

Is it surprising to expect savage, trigger happy behaviour towards a cloud considering these factors? I don't think so.