What Happened on February 25, 1942
Less than three months after Pearl Harbor, and a day after a Japanese submarine shelled an oil field near Santa Barbara, Los Angeles was braced for an air raid. Just after 2 a.m. on February 25, 1942, radar picked up an unidentified target approaching the coast; air-raid sirens sounded across the county, a blackout was ordered, and at 3:16 a.m. the 37th Coast Artillery Brigade opened fire on something in the searchlights over Santa Monica and Culver City.
For nearly an hour the batteries fired roughly 1,400 anti-aircraft shells into the night. No bombs fell, no aircraft was shot down, and no wreckage was ever found. The shrapnel and the panic did the damage: several buildings and cars were hit by falling ordnance, and five civilians died, of heart attacks and in blackout traffic accidents.
What the Government Said
The official accounts contradicted each other within hours. Navy Secretary Frank Knox called the whole thing a false alarm brought on by "war nerves." Secretary of War Henry Stimson said that as many as fifteen unidentified aircraft, possibly commercial planes flown by enemy agents, had been over the city. The Japanese later said they had flown no aircraft over Los Angeles that night.
The considered verdict came decades later. A 1983 study by the Office of Air Force History concluded that a lost meteorological balloon, drifting into the searchlights, most likely started the shooting, and that the "aircraft" seen afterward were smoke, bursting shells, and the expectation of an attack. That explanation satisfies the timeline; it has never satisfied everyone.
The Photograph
The image that keeps the case alive appeared in the Los Angeles Times on February 26: searchlight beams converging on a pale object with shell bursts around it. It looks, to a modern eye, like a saucer caught in the lights. The original negative, examined by the Times itself in 2011, shows that the published print was heavily retouched, as was routine for newspaper reproduction in 1942: the beams were painted brighter and the "object" is where they cross, which is what searchlights converging on smoke look like.
The retouching does not prove nothing was there. It does mean the photograph cannot be used as evidence that something was, and that the object at the beams' intersection is an artifact of both the lights and the darkroom.
Why It Endures
The Battle of Los Angeles predates the flying-saucer era by five years, which is part of its appeal: nobody in 1942 was primed to see a spaceship, and the Army still fired. Ufologists cite the sheer volume of shells, the lack of any downed aircraft, and the conflicting official statements. Historians point to a city expecting bombers, a gun crew that fired first, and every other crew joining in.
The event inspired Steven Spielberg's comedy 1941 and the 2011 film Battle: Los Angeles, and is the earliest entry in most timelines of American UFO history. For the WWII sightings that followed it in the skies over Europe and the Pacific, see foo fighters.
Frequently asked questions
What was the Battle of Los Angeles?
An anti-aircraft barrage fired over Los Angeles in the early hours of February 25, 1942, at unidentified targets that were never found. About 1,400 shells were fired, no enemy aircraft was hit, and five civilians died in the blackout and falling shrapnel.
Was the Battle of Los Angeles a UFO?
There is no evidence it was. The Air Force's 1983 historical review concluded a lost weather balloon in the searchlights most likely triggered the shooting, with smoke and shell bursts sustaining it. The famous photograph was retouched for print and cannot settle the question either way.
Did the Japanese attack Los Angeles in 1942?
Not by air. A Japanese submarine shelled the Ellwood oil field near Santa Barbara on February 23, 1942, which is why the city was on alert, but Japan flew no aircraft over Los Angeles that night.