The Smoking (Anti-Aircraft) Guns (of Los Angeles, 1942)

reply to post by Arbitrageur


I just don't understand how any balloon-weather, science, or even military can stay in the air after being shelled. The shrapnel alone would be enough to bring it down.

Yes, I do acknowledge that things in the air can be mistaken for something else...However...These/This object/s were verified as being hit and and the explosive charge inside the round going off as it hit the object...

Balloons (of any kind) do not stay in the air after being hit(several times) by an Anti-Aircraft round. Much less anything else for that matter.

I just don't buy the balloon theory...IMHO

I'm not saying its ET's planet cruiser. just that I don't think it was a dang balloon--or bulletproof balloon....

Originally posted by Software_Pyrate
Yes, I do acknowledge that things in the air can be mistaken for something else...However...These/This object/s were verified as being hit

Please cite your source for that, I never saw such verification.

And they weren't mistaken for something else by the guys that released them, they were identified as balloons and they were told to shoot down the balloons! And they weren't having much luck shooting them down either. Read the eyewitness testimony:

I found this report of balloons released at 3am shortly before "all hell broke loose":
www.historynet.com...

At 3 a.m. on the morning of the raid, the 203rd launched two balloons, one from its headquarters on the Sawtelle Veterans Hospital grounds in Westwood and the other from Battery D, located on the Douglas Aircraft plant site in Santa Monica. So that the balloons could be tracked at night, a candle placed inside a simple highball glass was suspended under each balloon, whose silver color would reflect the light enough to be tracked to heights usually well above 25,000 feet. Lieutenant Melvin Timm, officer in charge of Battery D’s meteorological operations, ordered his balloon launched and had notified the filter room-also known as the Flower Street Control Center, where all planes, identified or otherwise, were tracked on a giant, flat table map-of its departure, when ‘all hell broke loose.’

By the time Timm released his balloon, the city had been under red-alert conditions for more than half an hour; searchlights were on and probing the sky; and anti-aircraft gunners, fingers on their triggers, were nervously following the searchlight beams in hopes of spotting the anticipated enemy planes. It was at this time that Sergeant George Holmes, who had launched Battery D's balloon, called Timm, saying he was no longer able to track it, that someone was shooting at it.

At regimental headquarters they were having the same problem. The officer in charge of the meteorological operations at Sawtelle, Lieutenant John E. Moore, recalled: 'As soon as [their] balloon attained altitude and was carried up the coast by the wind, searchlights came on, picked up the balloon and shortly thereafter, 3-inch anti-aircraft guns began firing. Corporal John O'Connell, in charge of tracking the balloon, ran to me and reported, `Lieutenant, they're firing at my balloon!' I went to the theodolite to verify his report and, sure enough, bursts of AA fire were exploding all around it causing it to bounce and dance all over the sky. I immediately reported to our regimental commanding officer, Colonel Ray Watson, that the guns were firing at our balloon and that there were no aircraft in sight.'

Can you see the clarity of that statement? He doesn't say "They shot down our balloon", he says: "`Lieutenant, they're firing at my balloon!' I went to the theodolite to verify his report and, sure enough, bursts of AA fire were exploding all around it causing it to bounce and dance all over the sky." That's a pretty amazing report, and I must admit I'm a bit surprised by it. But to add credibility to that report, he's not the only one and that wasn't the only balloon that wes being shot at without being shot down, at least not immediately:

www.militarymuseum.org...

At 0306 a balloon carrying a red flare was seen over Santa Monica and four batteries of anti-aircraft artillery opened fire, whereupon “the air over Los Angeles erupted like a volcano.” From this point on reports were hopelessly at variance.

Is that just a coincidence that all hell broke loose shortly after those balloons were released? I don't think so.
www.historynet.com...

I immediately reported to our regimental commanding officer, Colonel Ray Watson, that the guns were firing at our balloon and that there were no aircraft in sight

Watson sent out the order that none of the 203rd’s 3-inch guns were to fire, then notified the Flower Street Control Room of what was happening. Astonishingly, the order came back from Flower Street to shoot down the balloon.

So the other balloon is also being shot at, wiithout being shot down, and orders come back to shoot down the balloon. If it was already shot down, that wouldn't have happened.

Are you starting to get the picture? was there a coverup? apparently so based on this:

said Timm, ‘I was summoned. I was told to keep my mouth shut, and that there had been seven Japanese planes up there. I was also told that if I repeated my story about shooting at a balloon and not enemy planes, I would be put behind bars.

As for the statement that if they had shot at a balloon, the balloon would have been shot down. Possibly so, however what seems clear from that story is that the balloons STARTED the shooting. Once everyone was shooting like crazy, there didn't have to be a balloon to shoot at any more, they could be firing at previous bursts of AA fire.

What about all the witness testimony? well we know that was pretty divergent from this excerpt from the same source:

Probably much of the confusion came from the fact that anti-aircraft shell bursts, caught by the searchlights, were themselves mistaken for enemy planes.

This seems very likely since the photographic evidence supports exactly this statement, we see the spotlights focused on a barrage of air bursts, and if there's a real solid object in there, I certainly don't see it

One possibility is that the balloons reached heights over 25000 feet which was probably outside of the range of the 3 inch AA shells, they couldn't shoot that high, so the balloons would have only been vulnerable while they were still ascending and as these reports show, they might have made it since they were clearly not getting shot down right away from the witness testimony. Remember the quote "'As soon as [their] balloon attained altitude and was carried up the coast by the wind, searchlights came on, picked up the balloon and shortly thereafter, 3-inch anti-aircraft guns began firing. " well that doesn't define what's meant by "attained altitude" but we know it was normal for these balloons to attain altitudes over 25000 feet and that was too high for the 3 inch guns.

Anyway I suspect the balloons may have got shot down eventually, or they eventuallly lost sight of them, but they kept on firing anyway, at basically nothing but other puffs of smoke form other AA shell explosions, highlighted by the searchlights.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


You are for more knowledgeable on this subject than I.

It is just so hard to believe that all this was from "War time Nerves" and balloons.

This whole incident has been well known since it happened, the UFO angle was thrown in just recently. I remember hearing about it when I was a kid in the 50's. There is even a comedy film about it, Spielberg's 1941

reply to post by OldDragger

Yes nobody thought anything about a UFO in 1942 or for many years later, though I'm not sure exactly when the UFO angle to the story surfaced.

I didn't know the movie 1941 was based on this event...that's interesting. So Spielberg changed the date by one year to protect the innocent?

Originally posted by Software_Pyrate
reply to post by Arbitrageur

 

You are for more knowledgeable on this subject than I.

It is just so hard to believe that all this was from "War time Nerves" and balloons.

Thanks. I researched it a lot so I should know something about it. And the more I researched it, the easier it became to believe that it was war nerves. I don't think the balloons were even needed. Everyone had their finger on the trigger and it could have been a duck or a seagull that started the shooting as tense as everyone was. You have to remember this is shortly after Pearl Harbor and there was an attack on the California coast just prior to this event so they were expecting another one:

www.historynet.com...

A few minutes after 7 p.m. on February 23, 1942, the Japanese submarine I-17 surfaced a few hundred yards off the Barnsdall Oil Company's mile-long row of shoreline derricks 10 miles north of Santa Barbara, California. Moments later it opened fire on the giant Richfield aviation fuel storage tanks on the hill behind the beach.

That attack was only two days earlier, so keep that in mind!

reply to post by Arbitrageur


The premise of the movie is a Japanese sub off LA. It's not based on the story, but partialy inspired by it. It's tough for modern posters to realize the tension after Pearl Harbor, there was only crude radar with a very short range. Nobody knew what Japan would do, or the location of it's fleet.
Things were very different then and folks were very jittery! Thats why the west coast was blacked out for the first part of the war. Japanese subs were active just off the coast, ranging from SoCal to Canada. Ships were sunk off the Oregon coast where I grew up. A Japanese sub took a few shots at Ft. Steven at the mouth of the Columbia river early in the war, and I believe some subs actualy crossed the Columbia Bar. In San Diego on the wharf, the Ferry boat musem has a Japanese torpedo on display that was dredged up by a fishing boat. I remember a Ocean Shores Wa. tourist place that had a Japanese helmet on display that had washed ashore locally. People were ready to shoot at anything that moved!

[edit on 17-5-2010 by OldDragger]

Originally posted by Arbitrageur
reply to post by OldDragger

 

Yes nobody thought anything about a UFO in 1942 or for many years later, though I'm not sure exactly when the UFO angle to the story surfaced.

I am so severely disappointed in you Arby.

This is a flat out lie. WOW.

I'm so angry at your mis-representation of the facts presented in this thread, that my face is bright red at the moment. Congrats!

I'm in SHOCK that on page 24 of this thread, you are still trying to convince folks that this whole incident was caused by a weather balloon (that was launched AFTER the initial radar contact!).

I'm in AWE that you've ignored the fact that the object was tracked on radar, moving at over 300mph, by 3 separate Radar units (one being REGIONAL F*CKING COMMAND!)

I'm baffled that you've overlooked the actual citations disclosed via the Freedom of Information Act, that show AA Gunners reporting direct hits on the object.

I'm perplexed that you even bother to continue posting in this thread... It's quite clear that you aren't paying any particular interest to the details of the case, and how those details fit in context of the event itself...

I'm AMAZED that you've ignored outright my analysis of the original LA Times Photograph, showing the object caught in multiple searchlight beams, and completely surrounded by AA Flak!

I'm DUMBFOUNDED that you would argue any of the points you've presented since I took a break from ATS.

I suppose you must have thought me dead? Surely to post such obvious obfuscation in an otherwise extremely well-researched thread would suggest that you thought me dead, and/or not willing or able to respond to such out and out mis-information?

Did you even read the FOIA report?

Wow. Just WOW.

I really thought that tracking down the LA Times Photographer's original location would allow you to do the math on your own Arby. A lot of folks who visit this site aren't capable of complex geometry, (no offense to anyone) but YOU are...

So I'm left with two options here, after reading what you've posted in this thread...

Option 1) You are deliberately overlooking data in order to 'debunk' this case, and hoping that readers buy your 'debunking' and forget about the pages of data the preceeded it... (or skip the majority of the thread...)

Option 2) You're simply incapable of putting it all together.

Both options are disappointing.

And both make me feel like a failure, in my attempts to liberate the details of this case into the public domain. Details backed by the United States Government...

I'm going to step away again for a while now...

I'm not dead. Though it may take me a while, I will return here to clarify this situation...

-WitnessFromAfar

Originally posted by WitnessFromAfar
I'm in SHOCK that on page 24 of this thread, you are still trying to convince folks that this whole incident was caused by a weather balloon (that was launched AFTER the initial radar contact!).

I'm in AWE that you've ignored the fact that the object was tracked on radar, moving at over 300mph, by 3 separate Radar units (one being REGIONAL F*CKING COMMAND!)

I never said the object tracked offshore was a weather balloon. Nobody knows what that object was.

I think it's a stretch to say it's the same object. Basically what happened was, they tracked something offshore on radar, then they lost it. Then nothing happened until they launched the weather balloons and that's when all hell broke loose when they started shooting at the weather balloons, and some people were just firing into the sky because everyone else was shooting, I cited a quote from people admitting that.

I think the offshore radar contact is an interesting mystery, but there's no evidence that whatever was tracked on radar offshore, is the same thing they were shooting at onshore. You seem to assume it's the same object and I don't assume any connection, and certainly no connection has been proven, even the circumstantial evidence for a connection is shaky at best.

Nice to see you back though, we missed you.



[edit on 28-7-2010 by Arbitrageur]

reply to post by Arbitrageur

Are you aware that the Japanese submarine which shelled Goleta, California on February 23, 1942 carried a recon aircraft?

reply to post by PhageYou mean like this one?
www.combinedfleet.com...
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/880e6f2d7fae.gif[/atsimg]

The Aichi M6A1 Seiran had the performance of carrier-based bombers, yet it was operated from a submarine.

Yes and the speed estimates of the offshore object vary a bit, but some of the speed estimates don't seem outside realm of capabilities for an aircraft of the time. So I wouldn't rule out a Japanese reconnaissance plane though I have no idea if it might have been that one or another model. The Imperial Japanese Navy actually had 7 different types of subs capable of carrying aircraft according to this:

www.combinedfleet.com...

However I never found a submarine picture much better than this one:

I-400 beside submarine tender USS Proteus after the war. Note the large hangar and forward catapult.

It would be interesting to get a closer look at the engineering of the hangar, like how wide it is and how it manages to stay watertight with presumably large hangar doors. I'm guessing that big thing on top of the forward third of the sub is the catapult.

Well we are on a role now aren't we... ?

The first production examples of the Seiran were completed in October 1944. Deliveries were slowed by an earthquake near Nagoya on 7 December 1944, and by an American air-raid on 12 March 1945.[13] Construction of the STo submarines was stopped in March 1945, after two submarine aircraft carriers had been completed and a third finished as a fuel tanker.

So now the Japanese have time travelling aircraft?

Knew it would come back to me. The airplane on board the submarine was almost 100% certain, a Yokosuka E14Y with a top speed of about 150 mph. Its' cruise speed was about 100 mph.

reply to post by FireMoon

Correct.
www.abovetopsecret.com...

reply to post by FireMoon
reply to post by Phage

Originally posted by FireMoon
The airplane on board the submarine was almost 100% certain, a Yokosuka E14Y

Well I guess even you have some doubt or you wouldn't have inserted the word "almost" in that statement. If the offshore radar returns had anything to do with that plane, the radar based speed estimates had to be off, not impossible considering the poor training of the radar operators. But with the speed discrepancy (I think the low end of the radar based speed estimates was about 260mph), it's not a slam dunk either, which brings us back to my original statement:

Originally posted by Arbitrageur
I never said the object tracked offshore was a weather balloon. Nobody knows what that object was.

So I'm still saying nobody knows for sure what it was. I'm not ruling out a Japanese plane but I really don't know how likely that possibility is. I will say it's not unlikely enough for me to rule it out. For one thing the speed estimate doesn't really hold up to scrutiny:

www.historynet.com...

When an air raid defense radar picked up a mysterious contact shortly before 2 a.m. on February 25, the unknown contact was approximately 100 miles southwest of Los Angeles.

Anti-aircraft guns from the IV Interceptor Command opened fire at 3:16 a.m.

If it was really traveling at somewhere between 260-330 mph as I have seen various estimates claim, then why would it take over an hour to go 100 miles? Even according to the Army's report, the thing they were shooting at was barely moving, not going 300 mph so I still don't see why some people connect the offshore radar contact with the later shooting, the speed profile doesn't match, and the radar tracking was lost 3 miles offshore when it should have been the strongest return.

But I'm not sure it's critical to this case to even identify the offshore radar contact, as I don't think it came onshore based on the above observations.

www.militarymuseum.org...

A careful study of the evidence suggests that meteorological balloons—known to have been released over Los Angeles —may well have caused the initial alarm. This theory is supported by the fact that anti-aircraft artillery units were officially criticized for having wasted ammunition on targets which moved too slowly to have been airplanes. After the firing started, careful observation was difficult because of drifting smoke from shell bursts.

Whatever they were shooting at wasn't moving at 300 mph, I think everyone agrees with that. So why does anyone think the object they shot at was the same object that was supposedly traveling offshore at 300 mph (if that figure is correct and that's a big IF)?

[edit on 28-7-2010 by Arbitrageur]

I thought this tied it up rather nicely.

Originally posted by Tikiman
I thought this tied it up rather nicely.

I think he's right about pretty much everything except why the balloons didn't pop the first time they were fired at. He refers to characteristics of blimps getting holes in them and not falling out of the sky which is true. However I don't think meteorological balloons would have the same tendency to stay aloft as a blimp after being pierced with shrapnel.

There are other explanations more plausible to me about that. The shells may have simply been exploding too far away from the balloons for the shrapnel to pierce the balloon. For one thing the balloons could go over 25000 feet and the AA shells couldn't, so I don't know the altitude of the balloons but if they were over 25000 feet they'd be out of range. Even if the balloons were at 19000 feet and the shells were exploding at 15000 feet, they wouldn't pop. Even if the balloons were at 19000 feet and the shells were exploding at 19000 feet, that's over 3.5 miles away, how accurate is a 3.5" shell at a distance of 3.5 miles? It seems to me you got lucky and guessed the right altitude, you could STILL miss a target 3.5 miles away. You don't have to hit it exactly, but you do have to be within some radius of the target.

Even if you're within a reasonable radius, what is the dispersal pattern of the shrapnel from the shell? Is it like a hand grenade with a finite number of shrapnel pieces defined by the thickness of the grenade? And a hand grenade has a limited range too right? I tried to research the dispersal pattern of shrapnel from a 3" AA shell compared to say, something like a hand grenade, but wasn't able to find anything documenting the shrapnel dispersal pattern from a 3" AA shell, or how close the shell had to be to the target when it exploded for shrapnel to hit it.

Let's say the 3" shell explodes 30 meters or 100 feet from a weather balloon (which isn't such a bad accuracy firing at something 19,000 feet away). What's the likelihood of a piece of shrapnel hitting the balloon at that distance. 10%? I don't know, but I feel pretty confident it's significantly less than 100% whatever it is.

Based on the description by the people that released the balloons and watched them being fired on, it sounds to me like the shrapnel from the 3" shells was missing the balloon, which seems entirely possible to me, for at least several rounds. They may have shot the balloons down eventually but definitely not within the first several shots according to the people that released the balloons who saw them NOT getting shot down but fired at.

So tell me this.....Is it at all possible..that this spaceship above California, was headed for Mono Lake? Recently I have been trying to do some research about the possibility that at some point, a UFO has visited that lake...which looks to be a couple hundred miles North of LA.

Why the speculation?

Tomorrow, Dec 2, 2010, NASA is going to release information in a press conference regarding the discovery of a possible new life form in Mono Lake, found to incorporate Arsenic as replacement for Phosphorus in its DNA and ATP. Scientists believe it could be proven that this organism is not a adaptation of a previous organism, but is separate from our life completely...

Just a thought

reply to post by Plan2exist18
We'll know more at 2PM, but I'm not sure exactly what you're suggesting/asking/thinking.

Scientists have claimed that opposable thumbs and intelligent brains are part of the reason humans can build complex objects like spaceships, but since these microbes wouldn't appear to have those qualities I'm not sure why you'd associate them with a spaceship.

Besides, out of the hundreds of eyewitness accounts, did anyone actually report a spaceship? I thought they all reported either the light from the weather balloon, or varying numbers of planes, or even some other things, but I don't recall any spaceship reports.

Someone invented the spaceship idea years after the fact, but I don't recall that being reported by any eyewitnesses from the accounts I've read.

www.theairraid.com...

Jack Illfrey, a young P38 pilot assigned to the 94th aero squadron stationed at Long Beach Airport reported, "We pilots prayed to the good Lord above that we wouldn't be sent up in that barrage, enemy or not. Most everyone saw or imagined something – Japanese Zero's, P34's, Japanese Betty bombers. We were not sent up". So not even American interceptors were sent up that night, thankfully, as they may likely have become victims of "friendly fire"...

Experienced observers like Peter Jenkins, a staff reporter with the evening Herald Examiner, could not be counted as a reliable witness, as he reported that "I could clearly see the 'V' formation of about 25 silvery planes overhead moving slowly across the sky towards Long Beach". Even Long Beach chief of police J. H. McClelland claimed to have witnessed planes inbound towards Redondo Beach...

Since the 1970's some have proffered that this was caused by extraterrestrial beings flying over the coast of Los Angeles. They usually point to a famous photograph showing search lights and spots as proof. These spots are probably the detonation of Anti-Aircraft projectiles...

Originally posted by NephraTari
this is one of my all time favorite cases because it is so damn hard for them to try and brush it away like the rest.

This is the one case that even the hardest skeptics have trouble discounting.

Yeah, well with that new movie coming out, the truth will be buried underneath the fiction!

www.youtube.com...