Battle of Los Angeles
Battle of Los Angeles was the conspiracy to coverup foreign aerial surveillance being conducted over Los Angeles in 1942.
Conspiracy
Events of Pearl Harbor having happened just three months prior put the US military, outfitted in Los Angeles, on high alert. On February 25 1942, unidentified foreign objects were reportedly seen crossing Los Angeles skies. Following an air-raid alarm, a heavy bombardment ensued which resulted in six casualties—none inclusive of the passing foreign objects.
Since alien invasion had been on people’s minds after the Orsen Wells radio drama, The War of the Worlds, which aired only 3 years prior, many people believed that the foreign objects were alien in nature.
Timeline
On February 25 1942 in Los Angeles, California, air raid sirens began going off at around 2:25 AM and a county wide blackout occured. At 3:16 AM the U.S. military began firing artillery at Unidentified Flying Objects. This fire lasted until 4:14 AM as the objects moved from Santa Monica to Long Beach. At 7:21 AM the aircraft had left and the all clear was given. It is believed that at least one of the objects was hit but continued to fly. 6 people died as a result of the bombardment, 3 from direct hits and 3 from stress induced heart attacks.
Cover Up
The US government reported that the hour long bombardment was simply a "false alarm". Researchers question why the U.S. Navy would waste 12.8 pound artillery for an hour if there was nothing there.
Aftermath
The press reported the incident the next day and some extraordinary images of converging searchlights converging over the city were printed. No one at the time talked about UFOs. The Japanese were the prime suspects. Some speculated that the aircraft might have been launched from a nearby submarine. Secretary of the Navy Knox was quoted as saying that the whole thing was a false alarm caused by “jittery nerves”. The local Air Force, however, maintained that there had indeed been anomalous aircraft in the sky that night.
It was only in later years that the “Battle of Los Angeles”, as it came to be called, was regarded as a precursor to the UFO phenomenon. Photographs of the night's events were studied and some claimed to be able to detect a classic flying saucer shape illuminated in the searchlights' beams.