The Battle of Los Angeles 1942 : New Light on the Original Picture?

originally posted by: Reallyfolks
So not a single officer has the thought after a few minutes , 20 minutes, to call for a cease fire and assess?

A soldier who was tracking a weather balloon told his commanders that what the AA gunners were firing at was weather balloons, and the timing of when the shooting started coincides perfectly with when the weather balloons were released, so there's not much doubt in my mind the weather balloons started the shooting by gunners with very itchy trigger fingers.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

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.'

After that the commander knew they were firing at a weather balloons. His orders? Keep firing at the balloon! While that might not make sense sitting calmly at your desk, it probably makes more sense when you factor in "war nerves". I get annoyed with monday-morning quarterbacks who try to deem that everything that happened must have been logical. First, we humans aren't always that logical even in the best of circumstances, and sitting on the edge of your chair with war nerves aren't the best of circumstances.

Once the shooting started, it didn't really matter if the balloons were still there or not. There were plenty of puffs of smoke in the sky which could seem like targets to shoot at so they could have easily been firing at the smoke from previous AA shells. In addition, not that it matters much, but the ceiling of the weather balloon is higher than the ceiling of the 3" AA shells, so it's entirely possible that no matter how hard they tried, they couldn't shoot down a weather balloon at an altitude greater than the maximum altitude of their shells, but I don't really consider that a significant factor either way. It wouldn't have mattered if they did shoot down the balloons, they could still keep firing at puffs of smoke. Some admitted they were firing into the air even though they couldn't see anything.

a reply to: mirageman

they also tracked the object on radar travelling across the coast as well, the other argument to that is how early the radar equipment was and it could have easily been a flock of birds.

If you look at the date then you could say that the military would be leaky at that time about UFO'S ,taking the 1947 roswell incident into account.
And if you think about H.G. Wells war of worlds program four years before this incident. why talk about a saucer crash years later and keeping this one into silence?

Likely what they said about the planes could be the real story. I don't know if lenticular clouds could be drifting over Washington ?

a reply to: Arbitrageur

If that's the story you like run with it.

a reply to: Reallyfolks
What other story is there?
Have you got sources where Corporal John O'Connell doesn't say `Lieutenant, they're firing at my balloon!' , or where when this is reported to the commanding officer, he says to stop shooting because it's just balloons?

a reply to: Arbitrageur

There are varying reports out there from what I understand. I'm sure I could link but I'm not here to try and say this is what it was and come off as I know. I don't. Wasn't there. I simply don't buy weather balloon and I laid out why. If you do run with it.

Assuming war jitters off hand seems rather dismissive of all the people that experienced/participated in this.

The Battle of LA image is to Ufology what the Roger-Pat Bigfoot photo is to Bigfootology. Both are well known legendary photos.

a reply to: 111DPKING111

Its really hard to gauge how seriously people in the ufo community take this case(scale of 1-10) or any other for that matter.

I dont recall seeing it the most believable thread or Isaac's list of best cases from the "experts"

Wait, Isaac has it 95 on his top 100 list.

Bruce Macabee did a long analysis of the picture, but I believe it is also the wrong negative. Ive had it in the maybe bucket.

Btw, the new sig more than makes up for the last one, very nice.

Yes excellent point actually. I am trying to remember when I first heard about this and I don't think it was until the days of the late 1990s.
If I recall some of Isaac's methodology was to use references in UFO literature, And despite this being one of the oldest dated UFO stories it seems (as seen earlier in the thread) that it didn't get picked up by Ufology until the late 1980s.

So other stories from the 1950s - 1980s have probably shared more whitespace in UFO literature. So maybe it isn't as well known as I claim it to be. Perhaps the the plethora of post-millennial UFO docudramas have made it some more important a case than it ever was or indeed is.

Oh and I haven't changed my signature just the avatar

originally posted by: Reallyfolks
a reply to: Arbitrageur

There are varying reports out there from what I understand. I'm sure I could link but I'm not here to try and say this is what it was and come off as I know. I don't. Wasn't there. I simply don't buy weather balloon and I laid out why. If you do run with it.

Yes you do have a point here.

One thing we haven't really discussed (that was presented in the documentary) are the reports that something was shot down. Especially at 180th Street and Vermont Avenue.






The program speculates that it may have been a top secret allied aircraft.

a reply to: mirageman

And something like that I would find to be much more plausible than a weather balloon. All I'm saying. Not fighting to say it was an alien type ufo. I just don't buy weather balloon

originally posted by: clt1994
a reply to: mirageman


Speaking of IPU documents, is there any in existance that have been verified by people who work on old documents?

Now that's a very interesting question.

For those that don't know the IPU = Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit.

It's sort of true that the IPU was confirmed to exist in a FOIA document somewhere back in the 1970/80s. But what it actually stood for was in some question and it seems it was based on the memory of a senior member of the military.

Kevin Randle details it well here : kevinrandle.blogspot.co.uk...

The whole IPU/MJ12 thing is probably something that takes you nowhere and part of the toxin introduced into the UFO narrative during the Reagan years.

a reply to: Reallyfolks

Yes I don't rule this out at all totally either. That could explain why the negative held at UCLA does not appear to be from the original LA Times stock and is actually only a copy of the original. All very conspiratorial. But also plausible if you need to hide a secret aircraft from featuring in a newspaper headline.

You got me thinking now.

originally posted by: mirageman
One thing we haven't really discussed (that was presented in the documentary) are the reports that something was shot down. Especially at 180th Street and Vermont Avenue.

One thing we have no shortage of from that incident are false reports. OK I wasn't there, so how do I know they are false? Simple: There are too many contradictory versions of events for all of them to be true, so most must be false.

This news broadcast claims that American planes were scrambled to chase the UFO. As far as I know this never happened:

The Real Battle of Los Angeles 1942 CBS News Report (Attacking UFO)

In that broadcast they speculate that the UFO might have been a blimp based on its speed being too slow for an aircraft, but again I think some of this information is not really good speculation. In the "fog of breaking news" there are often many errors in reporting, even when there's no conspiracy. Of course this does nothing to rule out any conspiracy theory, but it does help to remember that initial wrong information is common even without a conspiracy.

If the 77th street police station observed something fall, my guess it was the remains of the anti-aircraft shells, which left some pretty big chunks, such as the 3" diameter base of the shells apparently didn't disintegrate, and this report mentions him seeing something falling from the explosion in the sky, but doesn't mention what hit the ground:

www.saturdaynightuforia.com...

A desk sergeant at the 77th Street station informed headquarters he had seen two planes fall from the cone of the searchlight beams after strenuous anti-aircraft activity.

Chunks of metal were falling from the sky, that is true without a doubt...the remnants of the AA shells. Reading that report I think those falling chunks of metal is the most likely explanation for what was seen falling, and an observer might assume the chunks of metal were from a destroyed aircraft.

In the end, the only thing that can be safely stated is that if there was something up there then what was then called in war parlance an 'unidentified aerial target' was the first modern, well-reported incident of what is now known as an 'unidentified flying object', or 'UFO'.

Actually the only thing that can be safely stated is that we had at least dozens of different eyewitness reports of what happened, and since they contradict each other, we know that almost all of them must be wrong and this eyewitness accounts of an event such as this cannot be trusted. It's impossible to conclude otherwise. Since the "downed plane" report apparently wasn't a "downed plane" but was instead "falling debris", I think it's reasonable to attribute that to the falling debris from the shells. I posted pictures of the shell fragments in the other thread and I was surprised at how large they are.

I believe this was a Japanese Fire Bomb balloon.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

Good theory

there is a bit of a problem,


IN that 30 second film of the UFO non alien or Alien
showing the Attack in L.A. shows the shells sporadically bursting near the object
and at the object, hence an AA flack , and does flack smoke travel 25 miles in a half an hour ?
I wouldn't think so . maybe IDK

Hmm This could be very well be CGI or someone manipulated it, in this youtube film
who knows, its interesting tho claiming a sphere in motion. Sounds to me like a ! aka Foo Fighter
like what was seen in the Montana 1950 ufo incident film perhaps ?
probably fake vid or it was just illuminated flack

www.youtube.com...



and here we have old Jim boy our favorite UFO Debunker here on ATS James Oberg

Capital U Capital S Capital O Capital U Capital F Capital O Classic JIM!

www.youtube.com...



And lets hear what some of the witnesses have said about the incident
as some of them described, what CBS reporter Bryan Palmer has said
as one guy named c scott littleton said it looked , long & oval and later on
it then started to loose altitude and heading towards the area of redondo beach
Then Littlton said he saw a flight of planes 3 to 5 interceptors that was
following the track of the object ?

Then littleton mentioned , about the weather balloon ordeal
He claimed that it would of had to go over a mountain to there area where the object was seen
,and from what he saw, was right near his parents house , The rumors he heard was that the navy recovered the object
after it crash in to the local waters, Then he claims & believes, that it may be the reason why the
military was so quick on the Roswell crash as they had an idea of what they may have

( then again, he was like 9 years old ! )

www.youtube.com...




but there is One thing that it Legit of what MR Littleton has said.

Mr Littleton said there were a flight aka group of planes
following ( tracking ) the Object but Littleton said it never reported ..

Apparently he never head the CBS Report by Bryon Palmer

According to CBS Reporter Bryan Palmer that there were
Planes that went up to see the Object
and he said that the Army will not confirm until a full report ,

From CBS Reported Bryon Palmer

US Army planes quickly took to the dark skies but whether they contacted the object has not been announced. Army officials say they will not comment until they receive a full report on the action. Although some watchers say they saw airplanes in the air, semi-official sources say they probably were the US Army’s pursuit. Several observers say they saw one or more planes spotlighted by 20 or 30 searchlights.

It was a "weather balloon."
Here is the definition of "weather balloon."
Weather Balloon - a large VTOL disc-shaped craft, utilizing a volatized mercury vortex core as a power supply, developed by Germany based on ancient Vedic technology.
See, "Vimana."
May have been sold to/shared with the Japanese."

Just kidding, of course.
Bullets can't shoot down a weather balloon! Our military in the '40's was like REALLY inept.
The bullets bounced off it and killed people on the ground, because rubber bullets were standard during WW2, and of course those were used to shoot down our own weather balloons, because, our military is stupid. So yea, that's the official story.

It's really totally normal for a foreign invasion to happen like this - happens all the time. I mean, look at how the giant planes on 9/11 eluded the radar of the no-fly zone at the Pentagra - oops I mean Pentagon.

And we most certainly did NOT invite those who built this "weather balloon" to come found NASA!
Confused yet?
You just don't worry about it, oK?

a reply to: Wolfenz
Do you have the original source for that film?
Because there was no video of the incident.

a reply to: CT_Flyboy

I believe this was a Japanese Fire Bomb balloon.

Fugo-a-go-go?

Those things came a couple of years later. The first launches were 1944.

Dupe