The Battle of Los Angeles
In the early weeks of the war, Los Angeles fired more than a thousand anti-aircraft shells at something in the night sky.
What was reported
Two days after a Japanese submarine shelled an oil field near Santa Barbara, radar picked up an unknown target off Los Angeles in the early hours of 25 February 1942. Air-raid sirens sounded, the city blacked out, and anti-aircraft guns fired over 1,400 shells into the sky for about an hour.
Witnesses described a large object caught in the searchlights that seemed to sit unharmed under the fire. A retouched newspaper photograph of searchlights meeting on a bright shape is still shared as a picture of a UFO.
Explanations offered
No bombs fell and no aircraft were shot down. The Secretary of the Navy called it a false alarm caused by war nerves; a weather balloon released that night, and the gunners firing at their own shell bursts, are the usual explanations. The famous photograph was heavily retouched.
- When
- 24–25 February 1942
- Where
- Los Angeles, California, USA
- Witnesses
- Thousands of residents and the army
- Status
- False alarm
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.