One of the Most Amazing UFO Stories You Probably Haven't Seen

The real Battle for Los Angeles is a shocking story, then or now...

This is a newspaper photo viewed as a negative, it strongly brings out the shape of the unidentified object that hung around LA one night, it was fired at for over an hour.

(SALEM) - There are an endless number of so-called 'UFO' sightings recorded throughout history, but one unidentified flying object that defies all explanation to this day, launched as the 'Battle for Los Angeles' on 25 Feb 1942, and it represents a turning point in the whole discussion.

That night, in the South Bay area of Los Angeles, something was spotted in the sky that set off the nerves of a population literally on edge due to the very recent attack on Pearl Harbor that suddenly thrust the nation into WWII. Californians had no way of knowing if they would be the scene of the next major attack, many preparations were made by the government for this very purpose.

The object that was spotted in the sky, drew the attention of coastal gun commanders and soon guns lit up the night, with tracer rounds streaking through the sky, seemingly striking this UFO a great number of times. The U.S. Army fired more than 15,000 anti-aircraft rounds at the object hovering over Los Angeles, reports the History Channel program, Ancient Aliens: The Series. Jose Escamilla, a Filmmaker and UFO Researcher who has spent a great deal of time investigating the historic event, places the number of rounds fired at the UFO at 1,500. Both numbers are significant.

This flying object apparently moved to the Santa Monica / Culver City area at one point, and could be seen from downtown LA, more than 15 miles away. Witnesses living today describe the sounds of sires blaring and the guns firing and firing.

Clipping from El Paso Herald Post 25 Feb 1942

Six people are said to have died as a result of the attack, They reportedly died from car accidents and from falling shrapnel. I am very intrigued by the last part. People gawking at the action from their moving cars could have easily resulted in the fatal motor vehicle crashes, but falling shrapnel? I have a military background and I've covered the two most recent U.S. wars overseas, but I don't know how an anti-aircraft round leads to shrapnel, unless contact was made by the round itself.

I know flack is designed to be fired into the sky and it will explode at a certain altitude. I do not believe that is a characteristic of the anti-aircraft round, and I hope one of our readers who knows more about this will add what they know in comments below. According to reports, the UFO that night moved from Hermosa Beach, to Redondo Beach. It also reportedly passed over Huntington Park, California. This is the place where I was born and raised.

I can tell you that you can draw a line west and that takes you to Hermosa Beach, and the area where LAX planes take off. CBS Radio reported that it took 30 minutes for the object to travel 25 miles. After leaving Huntington Park, the object then went south to the Long Beach. It reportedly was in south Long Beach about an hour after it was initially sighted, a little after 2:00 a.m.

From Long Beach, the object reportedly headed toward Santa Monica, the guns had paused firing for about 20 minutes, and the firing resumed. Then it reportedly headed back over Downtown LA and then back west, where it apparently disappeared after beading to the ocean.

I suppose that if the guns were being fired at the UFO while it flew over Huntington Park, then we would have coastal guns firing east at that point, and it would explain how and why so much shrapnel fell onto Los Angeles, though it leaves many questions.

More than a million people are reported to have witnessed this flying object, as the photos show, it looks very much like the common description of a 'flying saucer'.

There is also a report that whatever it was, it was actually shot down and recovered from the ocean by the U.S. Navy. It is a very interesting story, like Roswell a few years later, the government would claim it was a weather balloon, however 15,000 highly potent military anti-aircraft rounds would have brought a weather balloon down in tatters. There were reportedly U.S. military aircraft flying near the object that night, though the government has never admitted to that. Again, there were only a million witnesses or so.

Tim King in 2008, covering the Iraq War

Tim King: Salem-News.com Editor and Writer

Tim King has more than twenty years of experience on the west coast as a television news producer, photojournalist, reporter and assignment editor. Tim is Salem-News.com's Executive News Editor. His background includes covering the war in Afghanistan in 2006 and 2007, and reporting from the Iraq war in 2008. Tim is a former U.S. Marine.

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