The night of February 24-25, 1942, has become a defining moment in the history of UFO sightings, marking an incident that blends wartime anxiety with unexplained aerial phenomena. Dubbed the “Battle of Los Angeles,” this event saw the city of Los Angeles plunged into darkness and fear as anti-aircraft artillery fired upon unidentified objects in the sky. While initially believed to be a Japanese air raid, no enemy aircraft were ever found, and the incident has since become one of the most mysterious and debated encounters in the annals of UFO history.

INCIDENT SUMMARY

The incident began late on February 24, 1942, when air raid sirens began blaring across Los Angeles, and the city was plunged into a blackout. At 2:25 AM on February 25, radar detected an unidentified object approximately 120 miles west of Los Angeles, moving towards the city. The object then disappeared from radar, but visual sightings soon followed, prompting the military to spring into action.

By 3:16 AM, the military had ordered a citywide blackout, and anti-aircraft batteries were alerted. For over an hour, the skies above Los Angeles were lit up by searchlights and the muzzle flashes of anti-aircraft guns. The barrage continued as the object(s) slowly moved across the sky, with shells reportedly falling to the ground throughout the city.

Despite the intense military response, no enemy aircraft were shot down, nor were any found in the aftermath. The following day, the U.S. Navy and the War Department attributed the incident to a false alarm, possibly triggered by weather balloons or mass hysteria. However, the lack of physical evidence and the numerous conflicting eyewitness accounts have led many to believe that the military was engaging something far more mysterious.

DETAILS

  • LOCATION: Los Angeles, California, USA
  • DATE: February 24-25, 1942
  • TIME: 2:25 AM PST, February 25
  • EVENT DURATION: Approximately two hours
  • NUMBER OF OBJECTS: Varying reports, from one to multiple objects
  • OBJECT(S) SHAPE: Descriptions range from large, glowing, round objects to smaller, indistinct shapes
  • DESCRIPTION OF THE OBJECT(S): Witnesses described the main object as a large, glowing sphere that moved slowly over the city of Los Angeles. Despite being struck by multiple rounds of anti-aircraft fire, it seemed to sustain no damage. Accompanying this main object, witnesses reported seeing several smaller objects, although descriptions varied widely—from flying discs to blimp-like shapes. The lack of uniformity in these descriptions has added to the event’s enigma, with some even suggesting that the witnesses were not all observing the same phenomenon.
  • CE CLASSIFICATION: CE1 (Close Encounter of the First Kind):
  • Visual sightings of an unidentified flying object, seemingly less than 500 feet away, that shows no interaction with the environment.

WITNESSES

  • COLONEL JOHN MURPHY: A U.S. Army Air Corps officer who was present at one of the anti-aircraft batteries. He described the object as “unaffected by the barrage, almost as if it were impervious to our shells.”
  • FRANCES “FRANKIE” PATRICK: A civilian who witnessed the event from her rooftop in Long Beach, California. She reported seeing a “massive, glowing object” that moved “slowly and deliberately” across the sky.
  • SERGEANT WILLIAM “BILL” TANNER: An Army radar operator stationed near Santa Monica. He tracked the object on radar and later visually confirmed a “large, indistinct shape” moving across the sky.
  • LIEUTENANT CHARLES “CHARLIE” O’BRIEN: An anti-aircraft gunner who participated in the barrage. He later recounted how “the shells just seemed to bounce off this thing, whatever it was.”

CONCLUSION

The Battle of Los Angeles remains one of the most perplexing and unexplained events in American military history. The combination of wartime jitters, radar technology in its infancy, and the sudden appearance of an unidentified object (or objects) in the skies over a major city has led to a rich legacy of speculation and debate. Official explanations have done little to quell the mystery, and many still believe that what occurred on that fateful night was not merely a case of mistaken identity or mass hysteria but an encounter with something truly out of this world.

As the years have passed, the Battle of Los Angeles has taken on an almost legendary status, with ufologists and historians alike continuing to search for answers. Was it an enemy aircraft, a weather balloon, or something else entirely? The truth remains elusive, hidden in the shadows of history.