In parallel to the fireballs over the Canadian Parliament, a similar military scare occurred over Los Angeles in 1942. Known as the “Battle of Los Angeles,” many people witnessed odd lights and objects, some flying in formations of 10 or more, on the night of February 24 to 25. Because of the war raging at the time, and since this was only a few months after Pearl Harbor, the reports led to antiaircraft artillery fire being shot into the sky.
Because of war jitters, people were anxious about a possible attack from across the Pacific. They were somewhat justified, as just the night before, on February 23, 1942, a Japanese submarine surfaced about a mile offshore and shelled an oil refinery near Santa Barbara. Around 7:15 p.m., almost 20 shells were shot at the shore, yet little damage was actually done. Some shells landed well off target, but the bold attack created a fear of an invasion along the west coast of North America. Eyewitness reports suggested the sub may have been heading further south, towards Los Angeles.
So, when unidentified lights were reported over Los Angeles the next night, air raid sirens sounded throughout Los Angeles County and the entire area was blacked out. At 3:16 a.m. on February 25, the 37th Coast Artillery Brigade began firing more than 1,400 anti-aircraft shells into the air at the lights. The “battle” lasted more than an hour.
One witness noted: “I could clearly see a V formation of about 25 silvery planes overhead… they were moving slowly across the sky toward Long Beach.” An experienced Navy observer watched with powerful binoculars and said he could count nine silver aircraft when they passed into the beam of a searchlight.
The objects flew in and out of view as searchlights played across the sky, all the while under fire from the big anti-aircraft guns, which unfortunately were so loud no one could tell if the aerial objects were making any engine noise. Gunners were certain that their shells must have hit their targets, although there was no evidence that this was so. An “all clear” was finally sounded at 7:21 a.m.
Although the supposed enemy aircraft didn’t fire on any targets, there was some damage — from friendly fire! Several buildings were hit by stray American shells, and three civilians were killed! Three other people died of heart attacks because of the stress of watching the battle rage in Los Angeles’ skies.
While it was assumed that the unidentified aircraft were Japanese bombers or perhaps kamikaze pilots, it was learned after the war that the Japanese had not been able to stage an attack on American mainland until some time later when they reached Alaska in mid-1942. It was possible that this was simply a case of war nerves, although enough witnesses thought they had actually seen something.
One suggestion put forth in later years was that the Los Angeles “incursion” was caused by some Japanese fire balloons. It is known that in 1944 and 1945, the Japanese army had launched more than 9,000 incendiary balloons, knowing that they would be carried eastward to North America via the jet stream. The idea was that they would reach land and set fire to buildings, crops and forests, disrupting American livelihood. It is estimated that approximately 300 of these fire balloons did reach America, but they had much less of an effect than was expected. A few people died when their curiosity got the better of them and they examined a landed balloon too closely, and one forest fire was thought to have been caused directly by one of the balloons. It is thought that at least some of the balloons made it as far inland as North Dakota and Saskatchewan.
The prevailing opinion of historians as to the cause of the Battle of Los Angeles was that it was a weather balloon that had gone astray. However, some writers on the subject of UFOs have suggested that the objects were extraterrestrial craft of some kind.
European ufological history began before Kenneth Arnold saw his crescent-shaped objects over Washington in the United States in 1947. Starting early in 1946, residents of Scandinavian countries reported seeing strange “ghost rockets” zooming and flashing through the skies. Many of these were fireballs, bolides, and large meteors, but others were seemingly of more unusual objects.
An interesting CIA document dated April 9, 1947, was located by researchers investigating early UFO accounts. It listed several reports of “rockets and guided missiles” seen over Norway and Sweden. It noted: “A strange object flying through the air was observed at noon today (July 13, 1946) by workmen in Stockholm. The object was round, and appeared to be rather small. It sent out a strong blue-green light, but no sound could be heard.” Another citation reads: “It is reported from Hudiksvall that railway workers this morning saw an object a few meters long and with backward-sloping wings flying towards the north at a height of about 150 meters. They heard a sound resembling that of an outboard motor.”
DID YOU KNOW?
UFOs seen
at night are classified as Nocturnal
Lights (NLs).
Some of the ghost rockets flying over Scandinavia were said to have been detected on radar, and there was speculation that they were of Russian origin. Certainly, the Russian base at Peenemünde could be considered suspect in this regard, except that these odd missiles were said to also have been mystifying the Russians as well. Indeed, even after British bombing of that base in 1943, a V-2 from Peenemünde crashed in Sweden in June 1944 and was appropriated by the British.
In December 1944, work on a winged version of the V-2 rocket was underway and there was a successful flight on January 24, 1945, reaching an altitude of about 80 kilometres. In May 1945, at the war’s end, the Soviet Army occupied the base but very little was found to indicate it had been in operation. Later, at least one historical record noted: “Western intelligence is convinced that the Soviets conducted missile tests from Peenemünde in the late 1940s (the Scandinavian ‘ghost rockets’). But Russian historical sources available after the downfall of the Soviet Union do not support this belief.”
On August 16, 1945, Jose Padillo and his friend Remigio Baca were riding their horses near Walnut Creek in a remote area of New Mexico. Although Jose was nine and his friend was only seven years old, they were very comfortable in the saddle. Both had been riding horses from the time they were barely able to run, and growing up on ranches, they were used to being out on the range. They had been sent out in the morning to look for a cow that had wandered away from the Padillo Ranch.
UFOS AND ALIENS IN LITERATURE
In 1934, a landmark story titled “A Martian Odyssey” (there’s that Martian theme again!) by Stanley Weinbaum featured an encounter with an ostrich-like creature called Tweel, who was sentient and able to communicate with visiting astronauts on its home planet. In other words, Tweel was an alien who wasn’t out to destroy the Earth, nor was it something to be overcome. It was truly alien in the sense it didn’t look or act human, yet possessed qualities that we would recognize as intelligent and civilized. This trend in science fiction stories would continue in the 1930s and 1940s.
Only a month earlier, the first atomic bomb had been detonated at Trinity Site in New Mexico. In a matter of weeks, bombs were dropped on Hiroshima. But something else happened not that far from Trinity Site, and Padillo and Baca were witnesses to it. They kept quiet about what they had seen for decades as they lost track of one another as they grew up and apart. Then, after a chance meeting, they renewed their friendship that had been tested back in 1945 and finally came forward with their story in 2003. They described a bizarre event.
The two boys had entered some uneven ground along a dry creek bed, and the horses were having difficulty — their hooves were not able to get a good foothold on the rough chunks of mud. They decided to leave the horses and proceed on foot. Padillo tied up his horse on a cactus branch and his friend did the same with his own animal.
Off in the distance, Padillo had seen a mesquite thicket, a good place for a cow to hide. They went in its direction,