The Indestructible UFO

To read more articles like this one please read The Alien Enigma by JP Robinson.

On February 25, 1942 less than three months after the attack on Pearl Harbour and only two days after an oil facility near Santa Barbara had been bombed by a Japanese submarine, an unknown object was spotted in the skies above Los Angeles. Five years before the Roswell incident, and five years before the beginning of the modern UFO era, the Battle of Los Angeles, as it became known, is one of the most dramatic mass UFO sightings on record.

A huge flying object which was initially sighted as it hovered over MGM Studios in the Culver City region triggered all of Los Angeles and most of Southern California into an immediate blackout in the wake of recent events. The city was blacked out from 2:25 to 7:21 a.m. and in effect reached from L.A. to the Mexican border and inland to the San Joaquin Valley.

Air Raid Wardens were quick to react to the suspicious craft and soon the UFO was lit up by the huge spotlights of the Army’s 37th Coast Artillery Brigade. Military aircraft were called to the scene and before long a relentless barrage of shots were fired from the ground at the mysterious object. Remarkably, despite the ensuing maelstrom, no airplanes were shot down and no bombs were dropped and only two people were reported as being injured by the descending fragments of anti-aircraft shells.

The incident occurred early in the morning and due to the firing of an estimated 1,400 anti-aircraft shells the whole city was alerted to the UFOs presence. Hundreds and hundreds of rounds were fired at the glowing ship by the Coastal Defence gunners, leaving few in the city asleep that night.

“It was huge! It was just enormous! And it was practically right over my house. I had never seen anything like it in my life!” recalled female Air Raid Warden Katie. “It was just hovering there in the sky and hardly moving at all”, she added. “It was a lovely pale orange and about the most beautiful thing you've ever seen. I could see it perfectly because it was very close. It was big!” Other eyewitnesses described the UFO as being like a “surreal, hanging, magic lantern”, according to newspaper reports the following day.

As the daunting sound of gunfire reverberated around the city, the Artillery Brigade landed scores of direct hits with apparently no effect whatsoever. Katie remembered the incident vividly, “It was like the Fourth of July but much louder. They were firing like crazy but they couldn't touch it.”

Los Angeles Times reporter Bill Henry watched the whole affair and wrote, “I was far enough away to see an object without being able to identify it...I would be willing to bet what shekels I have that there were a number of direct hits scored on the object.”

Incredibly the newspapers the next day did not offer a single description of the object despite the fact that it was caught in the centre of a multitude of searchlights for over 30 minutes, and was watched by hundreds of thousands of witnesses. The only description afforded to it by the Los Angeles Times stated that, “The object...caught in the center of the lights like the hub of a bicycle wheel surrounded by gleaming spokes. The fire seemed to burst in rings all around the object.

A photograph of the object amidst the beams of light was printed the following day along with the explanatory text, “Scores of searchlights built a wigwam of light beams over Los Angeles early yesterday morning during the alarm. This picture taken during blackout shows nine beams converging on an “object” in sky in Culver City area.”

Another article stated, “Taken before dawn on Feb. 25, 1942, by a Los Angeles Times photographer, this photo shows searchlights centred on a mystery target with anti-aircraft shells bursting nearby.”

One statement printed in the article which dominated the L.A. Times newspaper in the aftermath of the event, was relayed by the Southern California sector of the Western Defense Command office in Pasadena, “The aircraft which caused the blackout in the Los Angeles area for several hours this a.m. have not been identified.”

Still to this day, the object which caused such uproar and put fear into the hearts of so many nervous Californians remains unexplained. Thousands of locals used binoculars in an attempt to get a clearer view of the object which was lit up so clearly beneath the bright lights of the Coast Artillery. A stream of eyewitness reports verified the absence of any enemy planes, instead confirming the peculiar presence of a huge unidentified and indestructible object.

Excerpt taken from The Alien Enigma by JP Robinson.