Revisiting "The Battle of Los Angeles": 70 years of cover-up

Originally posted by ArMaP
I don't think of them as witnesses, I think of them as part of the problem.

If they were shooting at balloons then the people that released the balloons were in a special position to know what they were

That's my point, they were in a special position to know what they were looking at, because they launched them. And they reported to the command that their balloons were the targets of the gunfire. I'm not sure how that makes them part of the problem, except that they inadvertently started the shooting when they released the balloons. They weren't the ones pulling the trigger on the guns though.

Originally posted by ArMaP

Originally posted by Greensboro1978
actually there is film of this event.

I don't think there is any film of the event.

The conditions of use of the movie cameras from that time were not compatible with the conditions during this event, during a blackout it would be very hard to get any useful images, even if there was any cameraman that wanted to try it.

Not convinced you can claim that as there's loads of original WWII night footage on youtube, and much of it actually appears clearer than that shown in the OPs find, surprising when you consider LA was a centre for movie making.

Interesting story & one I was completely unaware of. Not sure what amazes me more: the story or the fact the army failed to down a weather balloon with 1,400 rounds, incredible.

Originally posted by chocise
Not convinced you can claim that as there's loads of original WWII night footage on youtube, and much of it actually appears clearer than that shown in the OPs find, surprising when you consider LA was a centre for movie making.

There's a difference between having things prepared for a night scene and being surprised by what was supposed to be an attack with a blackout.

Studio cameras are not easy to prepare in the middle of the night during a blackout to film a anti-aircraft barrage, besides being very expensive.

Originally posted by ArMaP
There's a difference between having things prepared for a night scene and being surprised by what was supposed to be an attack with a blackout.

Agreed, but I very much doubt the vast majority of the WWII archive was 'prepared' to any greater extent than that shown in the footage of the OP's clip. Probably less so, as much of the footage is shot under true combat conditions.

Studio cameras are not easy to prepare in the middle of the night during a blackout to film a anti-aircraft barrage, besides being very expensive.

For sure, and I very much doubt they had them on the Western Front, or during the night bombing raids.

My grandfather told me about this event long before I ever saw anything on the television about it, long before household internet. I love this story.

this has always been an interresting case, but i do not like that jose escamilla is trying to milk it.

So this has been dead a few weeks - I'd like to retouch on this since this one is one my favorite things to pull out and mull over every now and again.

A balloon under enough to pressure to present a 30m sphere would shred on puncture. If it even took a single shrapnel hit, or enough pressure waves, it would rupture too. the likelihood of 1400 rounds firing on it would have holed it at least once. If not shredded, then deflation and that fun 'watch it squirt away' should have occurred, possibly with gargantuan farting sounds, too ( )

Those balloons did not fully inflate until under reduced pressure conditions, they look like half inflated droopy balloons at low and middle altitudes. If it was high enough to be fully inflated, then it should have been too high to shoot at - the angle of lights triangulating on the object will tell you its heights through geometry. If multiple sites lit it up, they had two of the three triangle sides to solve for the height. Since this is shown in the newspaper photo, simple math between the distance between two light sources and the angle they are intercepting the object with light with should tell you its height and range. Middle school math does this all the time.

Can anyone explain why the Army would shoot a balloon that was out of range, anyway? The altitude weather balloons ascend to are much higher than AA battery fire can fire to.

Originally posted by MagoSA
Since this is shown in the newspaper photo

I don't see any balloons in the newspaper photo. I see smoke. So I think that's what they were shooting at, smoke from previous AA shell explosions. There's no doubt in my mind the balloons started the shooting but they were probably shot down before that photo was taken, or else if not shot down due to being out of range, simply drifted away while the gunners continued firing at puffs of AA smoke.

Those balloons did not fully inflate until under reduced pressure conditions,

You may be right about that.

they look like half inflated droopy balloons at low and middle altitudes.

I think you're wrong about that. You might be thinking about something like a skyhook type balloon, but the balloons that started the shooting weren't skyhook balloons, but standard meteorological balloons as far as I know. Here's a more modern meteorological balloon, underinflated as you suggest, it's not droopy at all and will expand to at least 78" and bursts at 96":

www.toreuse.com...
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/a7894b4f9ef3.jpg[/atsimg]

Standard Inflated Diameter: 78″
Burst Diameter: 96″

Obviously it's nowhere near 78" diameter in that photo so it's quite underinflated, and not droopy or saggy at all. I don't have any reason to believe the standard weather balloons that started the shooting would have looked any droopier than that photo, but if you know something I don't please fill me in.

Can anyone explain why the Army would shoot a balloon that was out of range, anyway? The altitude weather balloons ascend to are much higher than AA battery fire can fire to.

They might have been within range during the launch phase as they were ascending. But your question exposes a huge problem, they had no idea if it was out of range or not out of range, the gunners had no idea what the altitude was, so how would they know? You can't visually estimate the distance of an unknown object in the sky, especially at night. Some people seem to think they can, but they can't, unless it's closer than 100 feet and they have exceptionally good vision in which case the stereoscopic capabilities of the separation of the two eyes can help determine distance. But obviously the distance was far too great for stereo vision to help, so they had no clue and could only guess. They couldn't even tell what it was they were shooting at.

The short answer is, their nerves were on a knife's edge, and they would have shot at anything that moved (and that's what they did). Heck some of the guys didn't see ANYTHING, and they shot anyway! Explain that! (They did it just because other people were shooting).

reply to post by MagoSA

It's so funny. The explanation we have here is balloons and smoke (no swamp gas in LA?) being fired at.

We're ignoring some of the testimony. This explanation may be right, but there may well be other explanations. It's just so standard cover story, I can't help but raise this again. And why do people always believe military stories anyway? And in this case ones that match an official explanation? We have evidence that the British and US military were hushing up the UFO phenomenon so their evidence is questionable imho.

Originally posted by Pimander
And why do people always believe military stories anyway?

I don't always believe them, and in this case, the military told one of their own that they were supposed to say they were shooting at enemy planes and if they told the truth about what they were shooting at they'd be put in jail. So which military version? The one that wanted to tell the truth? Or the command version that told people to lie as a cover-up story?

It proves your point that you can't believe the military.

Regarding ignoring some of the testimony, there are so many different versions of what happened, the only rational conclusion is that they can't all be right, since many of them contradict each other. It's not so much ignoring it, as recognizing that the conflicting reports disagree with each other so we can't trust them.

There was more then one battle we fought against a mystery force...

The battle of the pips

books.google.com... &hl=en&ei=5PxnTaLGHpH6sAOkz9ymBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10&ved=0CF4Q6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=Battle%20of%20the%20Pips%E2%80%99&f=false

Hi all

There have been suggestions that an Australian UFO report, 26 February 1942, Timor Sea, witness Methorst, is somehow linked into the Battle of Los Angeles. However, a recent piece of research by myself casts doubt on this link. Please take a look at:

ufos-scientificresearch.blogspot.com...

reply to post by keithb

So it happened the very next day, and that's the only link? That doesn't sound like much of a connection.

Your research is interesting. It's really hard to research cases that old when so many are dead.

But one thing confused me. If the Tromp was a cruiser of the Royal Netherlands Navy, would it not have had a Netherlands crew and if so then why were you searching for the crewman in Australia? Were only the officers from the Netherlands or something?

Sorry, I have no idea how the Netherlands ships were staffed in 1942, so I'm not being critical, just asking for clarification. Thanks.

Reply to 11/5/11 post by arbitrageur

The witness, Methorst, was living in Australia in 1957 when he first reported the 1942 event to a UFO group in Melbourne, in the state of Victoria, Australia. I therefore searched Australian records to see if I could find it he, or any direct relatives were still alive and living in Australia. The search was widened to the Netherlands for me, by individuals named Methorst in Australia, who checked with their relatives in the Netherlands.

Regarding a link to the Battle of Los Angeles, others have made this e.g.

www.ufoinfo.com...

Which includes the following:

"The interesting thing about this sighting is that it took place the same day--February 25, 1942--as two other well-known UFO events. The first was the "Battle of Los Angeles," in which nine silvery white UFOs overflew the southern California city (see UFO Roundup, volume 3, number 8 for February 22, 1998, "1942: Army gunners fire at UFOs over Los Angeles.") The second was the encounter between a Royal Australian Air Force Bristol Beaufighter and a bronze UFO over the Bass Strait south of Melbourne, Australia (see UFO Roundup, volume 3, number 7 for February 15, 1998, "1942: The Brennan Dogfight.").

That makes three UFO incidents recorded at different points around the planet Earth on a single day--February 25, 1942. Who knows? Maybe it was Alien D-Day. (For more on the strange cruise of the Tromp, see the book The Flying Saucer Story by Brinsley LePoer Trench, Ace Books Inc., New York, N.Y., 1966, page 69. Also Flying Saucer Review , volume 3, number 6 for November-December 1957, page 8.)"

Personally, I do not see any link in the Tromp case and the Battle of Los Angeles, apart from the closeness of the dates.

Regards

Keith.

Originally posted by Arbitrageur
Here is the photo after adjusting the gamma/brightness/contrast:

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/d667d02cf9a8.jpg[/atsimg]

it really doesn't look like an object after the enhancement, but instead, puffs of smoke, and you can't "bring down" puffs of smoke and it appears to me that's exactly what they were firing at (after the balloons which started the shooting were gone).

Except we now know that that photograph is an enhanced version anyway so isn't really any use. Scott Harrison has found the original that hasn't been touched up by an artist.

The Battle of L.A., 1942 [updated] Posted By: Scott Harrison

I made this post UFO Spheres revealed in old Battle of LA footage here on ATS about some new discoveries I made in the old Battle of LA footage, but the tread was closed and I couldn´t reply to what I think was a misunderstanding.

After some peoples opinion, the whole thing is fake, but that´s not my opinion, because why should there be small gray-black un-discovered UFO spheres in the old footage?

I made this blogpost UFO Spheres found in the old Battle of LA 1942 footage, but I don´t really think people saw the pictures I have there. The pictures shows a cluster of spheres that I first thought was a "streak" in the picture of an object that was in motion, but then I magnified the picture, this was what I saw..:

Magnification 200%


Magnification 400%



Magnification 800%

reply to post by Howtosurvive2012


This has to be my favourite and the most credible in my opinion. I loved reading about this.

Thanks for the post

reply to post by fatpastyhead

That ATS member hasn't been online in over a year so I seriously doubt they will see your post.

Some of you are thinking that the night the military were shooting a weather balloon !? Are you serious? It was an aircraft, whatever it was.

reply to post by Imtor


Well, you do have to consider everything. For starters, radar wasn't in wide use, so didn't confirm any targets that way. It was just the naked eye, and that's it.

This kind of barrage isn't guys firing at identified targets, it's sweeping the sky and hoping you get whatever is up there.

Part of me likes the common sense explanation of one guy thinking he sees something, firing, and then others joining in.

However, that same common sense then says to me, "Why would they keep doing this for nearly an hour, if there wasn't anything actually seen?"

Unfortunately, the eyewitness reports are all over the map. Some saw a slow moving craft, others saw planes, others say it was balloons. Over half a century later, I'm sure of only one thing....we'll never really know.

I tend to think they definitely saw something, and shot at it.

As dubious as the Majestic docs are, it's interesting to note that this event (largely pretty ignored at the time the docs came out) seems to coincide with the start of the whole program. So, if they actually did shoot something down in '42, and the foundation of Majestic came to happen in '42, it's just a neat coincidence....of course, this involves believing what is in at least some of the documents.