- EXCLUSIVE -THE BATTLE OF LOS ANGELES- Part II -

An Eyewitness Account of the Mysterious Object that “Attacked” the Los Angeles Basin in the Wee Hours of February 25, 1942, plus a Ufological Assessment, Sixty-Four Years after the Fact

(See Part I)

By C. Scott Littleton
Professor of Anthropology, Emeritus
Occidental College
Los Angeles, CA
© 2006

- Part II -

     At first, it was widely suspected that a high-altitude, carrier-based Japanese observation plane had strayed over the L.A. area. Or perhaps one of our own military planes was the culprit—although no 1942-vintage airplane was capable of standing still in the air. The one thing we did learn after the war was that neither the Japanese nor our own military have an “official” record of any of their aircraft flying over the L.A. basin that fabled evening. Even the presence of our pursuit planes, which was absolutely certain, has been denied. Of course, all concerned could be lying—though the probability of such a lie persisting for over sixty years is remote. That is, assuming what we saw was a terrestrial craft.


In recent decades several Ufologists have suggested that it might have been one of the largest mass UFO sightings in history, as it involved well over a million people. Only the sightings over Mexico City in the mid 1990s exceed it in terms of the total number of percipients.

To be sure, no one suggested this theory at the time, as it wasn’t until five years later, in 1947, after civilian pilot Kenneth Arnold’s landmark sighting of nine “flying saucers” over Mt. Rainer in June of that year, that the notion that UFOs from other planets might be invading our skies became widespread—although if the theory that a crash retrieval occurred at Cape Giradeau, MO, in 1941 is correct, it’s quite possible that the government had at least a modicum of knowledge about the phenomenon by 1942.

Several years ago, I joined forces with Ufologist Frank Warren, who’s been fascinated by this event for many years—although he’s of course much too young to have observed it personally. With the help of well-known Navy photo-analyst and UFO investigator, Dr. Bruce Maccabee, Frank and I have pretty well determined the craft’s path before it appeared in the sky over Hermosa Beach. It was initially observed by several residents of the Pacific Palisades rising over the Santa Monica Mountains around 2:45 a.m. From there, it seems to have moved southeast across Santa Monica and West L.A. in the direction of the Baldwin Hills, which separate Culver City from Inglewood and the flatlands to the south.


A Los Angeles Times reporter living in the San Gabriel Valley, a dozen miles or so to the east, had been alerted to what was happening by colleagues at the paper. He jumped in his car and began driving west as rapidly as he could toward the sound of the guns, arriving at the northern edge of the Baldwin Hills, in the vicinity of Jefferson and La Cienega, in time to photograph the object as it rose over the ridge line. I should add that there’s been some debate over exactly where the Times reporter took his famous picture. Some have held that he caught the object flying over Palos Verdes. But all indications point to a spot on the ridgeline just east of where La Cienega Blvd. cuts through it.


I’ve investigated this aspect of the matter and am pretty sure that I’ve found the spot, despite the fact that the terrain has changed significantly in the last sixty-odd years as the area has become more and more developed.

This image, which was published in the Times on February 26, is the only picture we have of the craft, at least to date. As you can see, it’s caught in the beams of several searchlights and is surround by white dots created by exploding shells.

Several residents who lived just north of the hills in question saw the object clearly. From their reports, it was round with a slight hump in the middle of the top, that is, its dorsal side. A similar configuration can be seen in on one of the Mexico City UFOs. Moreover, a woman named Katie, who observed it from the window of her home in the Baldwin Hills, recalled that in addition to having a hump it was huge, elliptical, and glowing bright orange, although my mother and I failed to spot either the hump or, as I indicated a moment ago, the possibly reflective orange glow. Indeed, I strongly suspect that what we saw was the object’s ventral, or “belly” side, which at that altitude was simply glowing white. In any case, as the Times image clearly indicates, the anti-aircraft barrage had begun, and the searchlights were following it steadily.

From the width of the light beams at the point they reached the object], plus the knowledge that at least one of them came from a searchlight battery in Manhattan Beach, some ten miles away (the others appear to have come from Inglewood or El Segundo), Frank Warren has concluded that it must have been considerably larger, that is, around 800 feet in length, and I agree with this estimate.

After crossing the Baldwin Hills, the object appears to have turned westward toward El Segundo—directly over the aircraft plants located there, including Douglas, North American, and Lockheed, which makes one wonder if the craft was specifically interested in them.

When it reached the coast, it rose to a higher altitude and slowly followed the edge of the ocean due south to the point where we first saw it. Then, as I indicated earlier, it veered southeastward over Redondo Beach, blithely ignoring everything we were throwing at it, and soon disappeared from sight behind the town’s low hills.

However, we can now tentatively pick it up over Redondo. Another possible eyewitness, who claims to have lived in Redondo Beach and to have been five years old at the time, has recently come to my attention. He—I’ve yet to discover his name—says that he recalls watching the craft descend as it passed slowly over his family home on Irena Street, which is about a mile back from the ocean. The man also claims that his father at first thought it was coming in for a landing, perhaps at the nearby Lomita airstrip, and that the latter and several neighbors jumped into a pickup truck and tried to follow the object. But apparently it soon regained altitude and passed over the Palos Verdes Hills to the south. He also recalls noting that the “stern” of the craft was rectangular, with rounded edges, ands very thick.

While this account, gleaned from the Internet, is extremely shaky, and there are reasons to question some other assertions made by the same “eyewitness,” the fact that my mother and I lost sight of the object as it descended in the direction of Redondo Beach does lend some credence to this report.

As I said, it’s now pretty certain, from eyewitness accounts collected years after the fact, that something did in fact crash-land on South Vermont Avenue that morning, and that it was almost certainly an American pursuit plane, forced down either by the object itself or by “friendly fire.”

click on image to enlarge

According to one account, it was immediately hauled away on a flat-bed truck under a tarp, as the military apparently didn’t want the public to know that it had shot down one of its own plans. However, the witness in question caught a glimpse of the markings on the fuselage before it was covered up. They clearly indicate that it was one of ours. (What happened to the pilot is unknown.). I should add here that add Frank Warren tells me that he’s come across an eyewitness account of another possible plane crash that morning, this time in Hollywood somewhere. Again, the downed aircraft seems to have been hauled off almost immediately on a flat-bed truck. The witness claims to have seen “Japanese letters” on the fuselage, although this is extremely doubtful. The Japanese used Arabic numbers on all of their WWII planes, and he may simply have assumed that it was a Japanese plane, and then perceived the rest of what he saw in terms of that assumption. If a second plane did crash in Hollywood somewhere, it was also almost certainly one of ours.

It’s recently been suggested, on the basis of what in my opinion is some pretty shaky evidence that the craft itself ultimately crashed in the ocean off San Diego and was recovered by Navy divers.


This might possibly explain its apparent descent over Redondo Beach. Perhaps the object had in fact been wounded by the intense anti-aircraft fire and, after nearly crashing into Redondo Beach, eventually lost control, and went into the sea. Yet another recent assertion, equally shaky, is that it landed more or less intact on San Clemente Island, in those days a Navy bombing range, and was commandeered by either the Navy or the Marine Corps, presumably along with its occupants, assuming they survived the landing. If there’s any validity to these theories, the military may already have had a fair amount of evidence in hand by the times of the Roswell crash in 1947, in addition to any it might have garnered prior to 1942.

As far as civilian casualties were concerned, there was only a handful. According to the Times, five people died from heart attacks and automobile accidents, and there were some injuries from falling shrapnel. There was also some minor property damage, again mostly from shrapnel. Yes, there were a great many jangled nerves that morning, but the overall impact of the event was slight compared to other disasters—earthquakes, fires, floods, etc.—the region has experienced over the years.

Although there’s never been a definitive, “official” explanation of this episode, a great many unofficial ones have been advanced over the years, including an errant barrage balloon that had lost its tether over one of the El Segundo aircraft plants, a lost Army weather balloon (shades of Roswell!), or an off-course private pilot, perhaps in a vintage Piper Cub—although civilian aircraft had been firmly banned from the skies over Southern since the outbreak of the war. It’s even been suggested that the whole thing was caused by a flock of high-flying sea birds. But none of these explanations comes anywhere close to being satisfactory. Indeed, from most reports, as well as the Times photograph, the object appears to have been a huge, glowing, saucer-shaped object with a distinct protuberance on its dorsal side. To be sure, unlike the witnesses who observed it in at a much lower level in Culver City and the Baldwin Hills, my mother and I saw only a bright, shimmering lozenge caught in the glare of the searchlights.

Nevertheless, despite the Redondo Beach man’s atypical—and perhaps skewed—recollection (after all, he claims to have been five year-old at the time), what we saw, together with the majority of the descriptions Frank and I have collected, as well as the object caught in the Times reporter’s photograph, all jibe closely with literally tens of thousands of eyewitness accounts of UFOs in this country and elsewhere that have come to light in the course of the last six decades. (For a magisterial account of that history, I heartily recommend a book that I’m sure many readers are already familiar with: Richard M. Dolan’s UFOs and the National Security State: Chronology of a Cover-up 1941-1973, the second edition of which was published by Hampton Roads in 2002.)

The aspect of this episode that clinches the extraterrestrial theory here, at least in my opinion, is the fact that the object was able to resist the impact of over 1,400 rounds of high explosive, antiaircraft shells. No contemporary aircraft, let alone any World War II planes, could have withstood that barrage. I suspect that the object was surrounded by an electromagnetic force field of some sort, which deflected the shells and caused them to explode harmlessly. This EMF field could perhaps have caused our planes to lose control and crash when they flew too close to it.

To be sure, in the postwar era, after we’d obtained the technology to build sophisticated air-to-air rockets from captured German scientists, it was another story. At that point, it appears that we did have the capability to shoot down UFOs, at least occasionally, which in part explain the spate of UFO crashes—including, perhaps, the ones at Roswell and Aztec—in the late 1940s and early 1950s. But not in 1942.

That the whole business has been covered up by the government for the past sixty-four years seems almost certain. Indeed, most Ufologists are convinced that a similar cover-up has been in place regarding the Roswell crash since 1947, to say nothing of what’s been going on at Area 51. Perhaps they—that is, the government—had a model based on their response to the February, 1942, incident that it brought to bear in hushing up later episodes. Or perhaps they’ve simply been in denial for the past six decades. Extremely doubtful, but remotely possible.

Maybe someday the truth about the “Battle of Los Angeles” will finally come out, along with the truth about so many other anomalous phenomena that so many people all over the world have seen—and continue to see—in the sky, both before and after 1942. Then again, it just may prove to have been a remarkably flack-resistant barrage balloon that our gunners simply couldn’t bring down. But I certainly wouldn’t bet a bundle on that possibility!

In sum, in light of the evidence, that is,

• The object’s purposeful, intelligently controlled flight pattern;

• Its invulnerability to an intense anti-aircraft barrage;

• Its size (perhaps 800 feet in diameter);

• Its bright white (and, in some accounts, orange) glow, which was evident even in the searchlight beams;

• Its configuration (oval, with a protuberance on the dorsal side);

• Its probable EMF impact on our pursuit planes that flew too close;

• And the absence of any post-war Japanese record of one of their planes being over Los Angeles that night,

I submit that the most efficient explanation for the object that triggered the “Battle of Los Angeles” in the early morning hours of February 25, 1942, is that it was a genuine, honest-to-God, unidentified flying object that came from beyond this planet. In other words, I’m convinced that what I witnessed that night when I was eight years-old from in front of 2500 Strand in Hermosa Beach was a classic UFO episode, one that must be ranked among the most important episodes in the history of this remarkable phenomenon, if only because it was witnessed by more than a million anxious Southern Californians, all of whom prayed—successfully, as it turned out—that it was not the harbinger of a Japanese attack.


Unfortunately, the probability that the object in question reflected something far more profound than that has only begun to surface after the great majority of those who saw it have passed on to their rewards. However, Frank Warren and I are hot on the trail of several more key eye-witnesses and/or their progeny, as well as some additional photographs. So please stay tuned!

See part I

See Also:

EXCLUSIVE Lights Over Los Angeles

EXCLUSIVE Lights Over Los Angeles (II)

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EXCLUSIVETHE BATTLE OF LOS ANGELES

click on any image to enlarge

By C. Scott Littleton
Professor of Anthropology, Emeritus
Occidental College
Los Angeles, CA
© 2006-2009


- Part I -

An Eyewitness Account of the Mysterious Object that “Attacked” the Los Angeles Basin in the Wee Hours of February 25, 1942, plus a Ufological Assessment, Sixty-Four Years after the Fact

      Let me begin by stating unequivocally that I don’t by any means consider myself to be a full-fledged Ufologist. Until very recently, I’ve never systematically investigated a contemporary UFO sighting or debriefed an abductee. Much of my concern with the UFO phenomenon has come from a lifetime of studying world mythology and folklore, and the extent to which it appears to have been strongly colored, if not actually engendered, by the perception of and/or interaction with alien beings, from New Guinea to ancient Mesoamerica and Mesopotamia

I’m also very much interested in the extent to which what I call the “war of the gods” theme, which is well nigh universal, may reflect the “collateral damage” caused by a devastating colonial war between two high-tech alien civilizations for hegemony over this planet some 8,000 or 9,000 years ago

But the forgoing might be the subject of a subsequent presentation. To introduce the subject at hand, I should tell you that I’ve had three personal experiences that appear to have involved UFOs, in addition to the one that’s the focus of this talk. In 1937, four years before my family moved to Hermosa Beach, when we lived in the Highland Park district of Los Angeles, I saw what I later came to think of as a “flying French horn.”

Although I was supposed to be taking an afternoon nap, it was a bright day, the curtains of my nursery window were open, and I was definitely wide awake during the thirty seconds or so it took the strange craft to pass slowly—and soundlessly—across my field of vision. I never mentioned what I’d seen to my parents, and it apparently didn’t cause any stir in the neighborhood. (And, no, I don’t think I was abducted, but who knows for sure? Maybe someday I’ll be brave enough to undergo hypno-regression. . . .) Of course, this event occurred a decade before the expressions “UFO” and “Flying Saucer” came into existence, so I had no frame of reference.

More recently, in May of 1990, off the southern tip of Baja California, I watched a bright point of light perform exotic, right-angle maneuvers over the ocean at approximately 3:00 a.m. It was clearly not a plane or a helicopter.

And in 2003, while driving north on the I15 north of Lake Ellsinore in Southern California on a bright summer afternoon I watched a curious, doughnut shaped object emerge from behind a hill, move west across the highway at a slow speed, and then simply vanish. It was only evident for about ten seconds. My wife also glimpsed it fleetingly after I called her attention to it. I should add that few other motorists appeared to notice the peculiar object, although a couple of cars did slow down appreciably shortly after it disappeared.

But the sighting I’m concerned with here, what has come be known as the “Battle of Los Angeles,” was witnessed by over a million other people in Southern California in the wee hours of February 25, 1942, less than three months after Pearl Harbor.


At that time, especially in communities like Hermosa Beach, California, where we’d moved in the spring of 1941 to a house that directly faced the beach, the threat of invasion was still palpable, and a great many folks—including the military—still expected us to be bombed in the near future. For that reason, the whole of Santa Monica Bay from Malibu to Palos Verdes was soon ringed with anti-aircraft batteries and searchlight brigades. The guns banged away almost every night, shooting at targets that were towed across the sky over the ocean by specially designed planes. The targets would be pinpointed by the searchlight beams, which also illuminated the exploding shells. It was a grand show that usually lasted about half an hour and rarely if ever continued much after 10:00 p.m.

At first, we kids would watch the action with great fascination, but after a few nights in early January the noise of the guns and the exploding shells soon became routine, as predictable as the sound of the waves in the winter. Most people learned to sleep through the cacophony with few problems. Indeed, it gave us a sense of security; our brave anti-aircraft gunners would quickly save us from any attempts by the nasty Japanese to penetrate our airspace.

In any case, the early evening of February 24 was unremarkable. The guns fired a few practice rounds and then fell silent well before 10:00 p.m. I remember going to bed shortly thereafter, reading for a few minutes by the light of a small flashlight I kept hidden under my pillow, and then falling asleep.

Around 3:15 a.m., I awoke to the sound of what I initially assumed was distant thunder. But as I came fully awake, I realized that the guns were firing again. At first, I thought they were simply doing another drill, though it seemed awfully late. Moreover, there was something about the rate and intensity of the bombardment that just didn’t seem right, especially after I glanced at my clock. My small bedroom, which was directly over our front door, faced south, and thus my view of the ocean was oblique. However, the sky, or what I could see of, it was filled with blinding searchlights and the bright flashes of exploding rounds. I was, of course, thoroughly familiar with both, thanks to all the target practice I’d witnessed. But heretofore, the searchlights and the explosions had always been well out over the ocean and for the most part invisible from my bedroom windows, at least when I was in bed. This time everything seemed much closer.

I soon heard my parents talking in the hall, and poked my head out. My father, who was an air raid warden, looked worried and said it didn’t make any sense. He tried to get through by phone to Civil Defense headquarters, but there was no answer (we later learned that the alert had been called at 2:25 a.m., although nobody had bothered to get the word out to local air raid wardens). So, he put on his gear, and went outside to see what was happening.

He soon returned, looking even more worried, and told my mother to get me, my paternal grandparents, who lived with us at the time, and my recently widowed maternal grandfather, who’d been staying with us for a couple of weeks, down to the basement bomb shelter my father had begun building in the afternoon of December 7, ASAP.

Normally, my maternal grandfather was slower than the Second Coming of Christ in his personal habits, that is, in dressing, shaving, etc. But when my father said, “Mr. Hotchkiss, I think this may be the real thing,” he was down in the basement in thirty seconds flat!

As you can imagine, I was equal parts scared and excited and desperately wanted to know what was going on. By this time, my father was back on the street and, belatedly, over the continuing gunfire, we heard the air raid siren finally begin to wail. My mother escorted her in-laws and father down to shelter, which consisted of two small dressing rooms protected by cartons of beach sand stacked in the open basement on either side, and I followed along, despite the fact that I was eager to poke my head outside and watch “the real thing.”

My mother felt the same way. As she said later, after about ten minutes in such cramped quarters—the benches upon which we sat also contained survival items such as a first-aid kit, water bottles, and some canned food—and surrounded by the halitosis exuded by the older generation, she was ready to brave a Jap bomb or two. Indeed, our first thought was that an enemy squadron was overhead, as we began to hear the roar of aircraft engines over the din of the barrage. But they later turned out to our own pursuit planes.

When she exited the basement through the door that led to the beach, I followed close behind her. Although my mother was, of course, apprehensive about my safety, at the same time she understood why I was dying to see what was going on and let me stay.

The two of us stood side by side in front of the house, huddling together in the chill night air and staring up into the sky. The planes we’d heard were not in sight, but what captured our rapt attention was a silvery, lozenge-shaped “bug,” as my mother later described it, that was clearly visible in the searchlight beams that pinpointed it. Although it was a clear, moonlit night, no other details could be discerned, despite the fact that, when we first saw it, the object was hanging motionless almost directly overhead. Its altitude is hard to estimate, especially after all these years, but I’d guess that it was somewhere between 4,000 and 8,000 feet. This may explain why we didn’t see the orange glow reported by several eyewitnesses in Santa Monica and Culver City, where the object was apparently much lower. (One witness suggests that this glow may simply have been the reflection of shell bursts against the object’s “silvery” body.)

In any case, anti-aircraft shells were bursting all around the mysterious craft. The noise was almost deafening. And each time a bright red flash occurred, the acrid odor of cordite became more pronounced. Shrapnel was also falling on the beach, and my mother and I backed up against the house to avoid being struck. (The next day we kids salvaged boxes of the stuff off the sand and turned them in for scrap.)

However, between shell bursts, the craft emitted no sound whatsoever. Nor was it acting aggressively.

As we watched, open mouthed, the object, apparently none the worse for the plethora of rounds directed at it, began to move slowly to the southeast, descending over Redondo Beach, where we lost sight of it. Indeed, either our gunners were absurdly inept, despite all the practice they’d had in recent weeks, or it was invulnerable to attack. Years later I read that over 1,400 rounds were fired at the object that evening. The official tally, from the Army’s after-action report, is 1430 rounds, but this figure is probably way too low. Could the Japs have come up with some secret weapon that deflected flack? The thought was scary to the max!

The object later appeared over San Pedro and Long Beach before finally disappearing over the ocean somewhere off southern Orange County or northern San Diego County.

Shortly after my mother and I lost sight of it we once again heard the unmistakable sound of aircraft engines. By then the bombardment had almost petered out, and several Army Air Corps interceptors, P-38s that were probably based at Mines field (today the site of Los Angeles International Airport), approached from the northeast and buzzed off to the southeast, apparently chasing the object.

At that point, it was almost 4:00 a.m. Precisely how long we’d stood there is anybody’s guess, though I suspect that the whole episode, that is, from our leaving the shelter to meeting my father as he returned to house after both the object and the chase planes had disappeared, lasted about twenty-five minutes.

As I recall, the firing ceased shortly thereafter (the “all clear” didn’t actually sound until 7:30 a.m.), but nobody went to bed that night. The next morning’s edition of the Los Angeles Examiner, the local Hearst newspaper, which I still have tucked away safely, came out with a screaming, banner headline: “Air Battle Rages over Los Angeles,” followed by “One Plane Reported Downed on Vermont Avenue by Gunfire” in smaller type. This, of course, seemed at the time to be pure fantasy, typical Hearst yellow journalism, as no bombs fell, nor, apparently, was any plane, Japanese or otherwise, shot down anywhere in Southern California that night. However, in retrospect, the Examiner seems to have been right about one thing. As we’ll shortly see, there’s compelling evidence to support the contention that at least one of our planes did in fact crash (or crash-land) on South Vermont Avenue that morning

But what precisely had we witnessed?

See Also:

L. A. Guns Shell Mystery Aircraft!
Object of Fire is Military Secret
2-25-1942

- Strange Craft Unidentified -
Battle of LA
1942

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L. A. Guns Shell Mystery Aircraft!Object of Fire is Military Secret2-25-1942

- click on image(s) to enlarge -

By The Modesto Bee
2-25-1942

Editors Note-In an ongoing effort in marking the 67th anniversary of the Battle of Los Angeles, here is another article pertaining to the event that was published the very next day.

See Also:

- Strange Craft Unidentified -
Battle of LA
1942

Los Angeles 1942: Some Witnesses Describe UFO as "Giant Butterfly"

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EXCLUSIVELights Over Los Angeles (II)

By Caitlin Hammer
© Sept. 2006-2009

Part II

     The threat had materialized over the ocean an hour before. Since January, all of San Diego’s best hilltop makeout spots had been reclaimed by Boy Scouts and volunteers with night glasses. Little escaped them. A volunteer in one of these eyries had probably buzzed a filter center between San Diego and Los Angeles with the coordinates of the unidentified aircraft. Shortly thereafter the thimble-shaped lights on the air raid sirens up and down the coast blinked blue. Something moved in the sky towards the city. It was only minutes away.

***
The wail of the sirens gave Warden Raymond Angier the damnedest surprise ever. He couldn’t sleep through it if he’d wanted to. He dashed outside and scanned the area for lamplight. The block was a black corridor when the fireworks started up.

Up on the roof, Raymond had a panoramic view of the city. Orange smoke belched from gun batteries positioned along the coast as bright white and red shells shattered the black morning sky. The moon had vanished, and in its place were the thick white beams of eight huge Sperry searchlights, clawing at the haze over the city, trying to grab the target of their search. Raymond’s eyes flicked between the strobes’ bright fingers, and saw about seven luminous dots organized in a recognizable V-shape. The constellation of objects moved as though locked together, levitating at an altitude he estimated at 20,000 feet. With his training as an aircraft engineer at nearby Douglas Aircraft, Raymond could calculate with some accuracy the trajectory of the strange targets. When he first spotted them they were 60 degrees above the horizon, give or take five degrees, rising from the northwest shore area.

***
Municipal police had no suave official response prepared when the phones began ringing. They hardly had men enough to take down the reports. Officers dimmed their headlights and navigated the shadowy streets in response to alleged “Fifth Column” sightings –espionage in action. Prostitutes and gangsters could have the key to the city tonight; most of the regular patrol cops already knew where to find their suspects: Venice Beach, Terminal Island, Little Tokyo.

Three Ohis were at home on Ocean Front Drive in Venice Beach when the police arrived. A helpful neighbor had noticed that their apartment was much brighter than the shuttered café below. Mrs. Ohi and her two grown sons would have exchanged the look worn by many Issei and Nisei these days when the police goaded them towards the patrol car. An expression that said, shikata ga nai –“can’t help it”– we’ve got an Oriental face. And when the Venice police were through with them, the F.B.I. would take up their case. Smiling, the white men might ask, So, you had your lights on during a blackout. That usually means one thing...you probably got some buddies in the planes overhead. Am I right?

Of course, neither the police nor the F.B.I. yet knew what it was the Army outposts along the coast were trying to bring down from the sky. Reports from Angelenos conflicted. Some people heard the drone of plane engines but could see nothing but exploding shells and searchlights. One police clerk at a West Los Angeles station ran outside and saw something resembling a butterfly flitting high above the range of the ack-ack guns. And then at about 3:15 A.M. the 77th Street police station received a call from a civilian who’d seen an aircraft crash near the intersection of 180th and Vermont.

***
Shells burst all around the glowing triangle without ever seeming to hit it. The spectacle filled Warden Tom and his awakening Hollywood neighbors with patriotism all the same. Hollywood hadn’t been so lit up since Sid Grauman’s Chinese Theatre opened in ‘27. Tom joined the sleepwalkers as they sang snippets of “The Star-Spangled Banner” –it helped to keep him alert. As he made his rounds, Tom noticed that the faces in the gathering crowd were calm and cheerful. The only sour faces he met were the motorists he’d ordered to pull over and cut the headlights. Drivers had pushed various ID cards under Tom’s flashlight. Look, Mister Warden, I’m an -----, I’ve really got to be going. I’m due in five minutes...Don’t you know who I am? But only Tom’s ID card gave him authority under these circumstances, cheery as they felt.

Some folks remained ornery; the postman switched off his lights and kept going.

***
Back on the roof, Raymond continued to follow the movements of the strange lights. The formation hovered over the opposite horizon now at about 15 degrees. Momentarily deafened by the whistle and crack of the incendiary shells, he concentrated on the dots that had at first looked to him as separate and circular lights, as clear as the planets closest to earth. Now, they appeared to him as one diminishing light. Raymond lost sight of it as it moved towards the coast southwest of the city.

***
Some people would have to do without dairy this morning. Just before the guns opened fire on the gleaming objects spotted by the two air wardens, the radio stations signed off and the Civil Defense Alert System changed from blue to yellow to crimson. If Goldie had sought advice from the local AM news channel, she may have felt abandoned. Air wardens paced their blocks in Arcadia, and yet no one was briefed on how long the blackout would last, or what had invaded the city sky.

Perhaps it was one of the many shells falling with the warble of a firecracker that spooked her. Errant shells –having missed or been repelled by their intended target– rained down on the sleeping neighborhoods. Police began receiving reports of the three-inch incendiaries landing on beds whose pyjama-clad occupants had just risen to take in the light show outside. At least two motorists suffered heart attacks after a shell struck the road in front of them.

At about the halfway point of her delivery route, Goldie’s truck collided with something. It was a car. Milk bottles crashed and spilt. Blood and glass glittered in the street. The car’s driver stirred but the passenger had died on impact. With the ambulances in short supply in the dark city, Goldie’s truck probably served as a makeshift hearse, carrying the body to one of the hospitals still operating under dim safety bulbs. Pregnant women had been pouring into the hospitals since the war began, many with “Kilroy was here” scrawled in lipstick on their bulging bellies. But tonight there was an added urgency –the excitement of an apparent blitz on Los Angeles would induce a dozen births before the sirens ceased.

***
Dr. Fujikawa and his wife stood rigidly on their porch. They looked towards the greater metropolitan area, past Fort MacArthur’s cannon-like guns that were still blazing –still so very near now– at fifteen after 3 A.M. As the explosive shells streamed red and orange around a target they couldn’t make out, worry hardened in the doctor’s stomach.

Just hours after the news report last December screamed of Japanese treachery, the Army commanders at the fort had barricaded the only exit from Terminal Island. No one was allowed to leave; it was now part of the arbitrary military zone that sprawled east and west, and north as far as the Presidio in San Francisco. Dr. Fujikawa’s wife had been entertaining two ladies from Sacramento the Monday Roosevelt declared war on Japan, and they wanted to get home. They asked him politely if he might find out how.

Walking quicker than he’d intended, Dr. Fujikawa headed toward the ferryboat on Fourth Avenue. There were about five hundred families on the island, but only five or six family names. He probably knew someone related to the ferryman; he might secure a passage for his friends if he could barter a discount on a birth or a free treatment for arthritis. The ferryman was not in his boat though, so Dr. Fujikawa walked on.

That evening, he took the ladies and their things to the immigration station. Maybe they’d find some answers there –how to get off the island, or how long they’d be trapped there. The agents at the station recognized Fujikawa from the frequent visits he made to sick people aboard Japanese ships that docked temporarily at Fish Harbor to trade and sell goods. One of the agents pulled him away from his company, as though they were going to discuss a special passage for the ladies. But the agent –a Nisei too– pushed Fujikawa against the wall with a long pole. A number dangled from the end of the pole, and he was photographed with it. Two flashes: a profile and a frontal.

“Hey, wait a minute,” Fujikawa protested. “All I’m trying to do is a favor for my friends, trying to get ‘em off the island, get permission.”

“Oh, we know that, Doc,” said the agent. “You’ve got to come with me anyway.”

In the holding room down the hall, a bell chimed and the elevator doors opened. A group of Japanese fishermen stumbled out. They looked at Fujikawa and said, “Oh, the doctor is here too.” He can’t remember where they went from there or how the ladies got home. He never saw the fishermen again.

Dr. Fujikawa and his wife, like other Terminal Islanders, probably went back to bed around 3:30 A.M. and slept uneasily, the silence after cease-fire as heavy as the pulse at their temples.

Outside in the smoky darkness, the Navy jeeps started rolling in. With the unconditional support of President Roosevelt, “the Japanese Question” was about to be solved. At Japanese churches across Southern California, people had started preparing for the evacuation they knew was coming. Nobody would have believed it would arrive so quickly though, at the end of a bayonet. Sometime that night, sailors and police officers pasted bulletins on shop windows around the island.

Each notice bore the same announcement: “Pursuant to such authority upon direction of the Secretary of Navy; You, all members of your family and all other occupants of the premises hereinafter identified, being located within such areas, are officially notified that you must vacate them not later than midnight February 27. You are further notified that if you are not gone from such areas within the time state you will be forcibly removed and will likewise face such penalties as the civil laws provide...”

***
Scotty Littleton awoke to his parents’ whispers in the hall. He peeked out and saw his father’s pale face. As an air raid warden for his beachfront neighborhood, Scotty’s dad had to leave his family and enforce the blackout outside. The shells weren’t exploding over the ocean this time, so it couldn’t be a drill. But neither could he confirm his fears of a real enemy attack –nobody answered the phone at the Civil Defense Headquarters. Only after he walked into the street for a better view did the air raid siren start up.

Mrs. Littleton’s father was staying with the family, and he was slow to get out of bed. Slow to do everything actually. But when Scotty’s dad shouted from the doorway, “Mr. Hotchkiss, I think this may be the real thing,” the old widower bolted down the basement steps.

Scotty and his mom were too curious to remain underground. Besides, the old man’s morning breath is deadlier than falling shells, they thought, and ran back up the stairs to the beach at their back door. The two of them stood side by side, clinging together for warmth, their eyes on the sky. Searchlights focused on what appeared to Scotty’s mother as a silvery, lozenge-shaped bug, seemingly paralyzed by the lights, hanging directly over Hermosa Beach.

Glowing shrapnel fell on the beach in front of them, sending the pair back under the eaves for protection. Scotty was so close he could smell the acrid smoke as the shells exploded. His eyes refused to blink and his lower lip dangled. Were the neighbor kids seeing this?

Not far from Strand Street, another air raid warden left his family in the backyard staring skyward. The thing they watched so raptly reminded him of the Graf Zeppelin he’d seen land at Los Angeles’ Mines Field in ‘29, only wider and flatter. He and some neighbors jumped into their cars, tossing a couple of shotguns into the backseat. The object picked up speed and vaulted into the night sky as they followed it, racing down Sepulveda. As it moved away, the warden got one last look at the rectangular silhouette. Three narrow slits, like the gills of a shark, stood out, glow an angry orange-red. And then it was out of range.

***
Warden Tom Herbert heard the all-clear signal –one minute blast followed by two minutes silence– at 7:30 A.M. and hobbled back to Hollywood, sore but giddy. He lingered over breakfast with his wife, chattering about the night’s excitement. Tom savored his bit part in what he pictured was a small triumph of American morale; his wife undoubtedly liked the look of him in the Civil Defense gear. Then he napped long into the afternoon.

Waking up, Tom walked directly to the newsstand on the corner and plucked the day’s Los Angeles Times from the stack. His knees nearly buckled under him. “RAID FALSE ALARM SAYS SEC KNOX,” read the headline. He cursed aloud and slammed fifty cents on the counter. The article quoted Secretary of Navy Frank Knox dismissing the Army’s antiaircraft response as a case of wartime jitters. Back at home Tom’s wife tried to comfort him, but he wouldn’t be quieted. He wondered who would take him seriously next time when he told them to pull over and douse their lights. Later on, Tom tuned in to the War Department’s radio address. The Secretary of War claimed it wasn’t a false alarm, but explained little more.

As the sun set, Tom sat down at his typewriter. He thought back to the darkness of the early morning, the shells raining down and the national anthem. Confusion descended on him.

***
A few hours later and half a world away, a Dutch sailor aboard the HDMS Tromp spotted something moving along the horizon. Glowing like a comet, it hurtled towards the battleship, skimming the thick air above the Java Sea. And then it slowed. Crew members must have gathered on deck to watch the strange bright disk as it circled and circled overhead.

Wat is dat in vrednesnaam?

Having nearly been sunk by a Japanese Navy fleet a week before, the sailors knew the enemy. But this aircraft had no wings and dropped no bombs. And then suddenly, after orbiting the ship for three hours, it sped away –a streak of heat and light and sky.

- See Part I -

See Also:

THE BATTLE OF LOS ANGELES

- EXCLUSIVE -
THE BATTLE OF LOS ANGELES
- Part II -


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EXCLUSIVELights Over Los Angeles

By Caitlin Hammer
© Sept. 2006-2009

- Part I -

     A milky glow appeared in the second story window of the white stucco house at 2500 Strand, in Hermosa Beach. Inside, Scotty Littleton lay beneath his sheets reading by dim flashlight. His parents had recently bought an entire set of Encyclopedia Britannica, and Scotty would often choose a volume at random, uncovering the mysteries of nature and history. The big guns of the antiaircraft batteries along the coast had quieted, leaving the rhythmic creeping of the tide to soothe strained nerves.

The war was still fresh in February 1942, a dubious Christmas package delivered to the American people by President Roosevelt via radio the day after Japanese air fleets attacked Pearl Harbor. Angelenos had caught the war fever on a grand scale. Since January, their challenge to the Japanese replayed nearly every night in mock attacks, when Navy batteries would hurl shells at targets towed by Army planes. To eight year-old Scotty and his neighborhood buddies it was entertainment, like nocturnal clay pigeon shooting or a fireworks show. But it always stopped around Scotty’s bedtime –before 10 o’clock– a little gesture of gratitude for all of the Angelenos who would face another long day at one of the factories, galvanizing the tools of victory.

Scotty turned off the flashlight and hid it under his pillow. It was a school day tomorrow, Wednesday, February 25, but he would wake to a sound more ominous than the rattle of his alarm clock.

***

Further north, eighty-thousand watts of white light branded “Hollywoodland” into the nightscape above Los Angeles. The 25-foot letters projected the symbol of silver screen glamor and easy riches as far as Terminal Island, in east San Pedro. Most of the Terminal Islanders were Issei fishermen, first-generation Japanese immigrants, whose trawlers moved easily in the familiar Pacific.

Thirty-one year-old Dr. Fred Fujikawa was not one of them. In 1942, he’d lived on Terminal Island for six years, and walked to his office each morning from his house on Seaside Avenue. It was a good practice; the islanders lived simply and had simple problems. Dr. Fujikawa also made house calls to several non-Japanese patients who lived along the coast. If he felt comfortable ministering to people of both cultures, it was because he was Nisei, or second generation Japanese –born in San Francisco, educated in Berkeley and Los Angeles, interned at L.A. General Hospital. All of his patients were doing well, but the comfort level had plunged since that infamous Sunday two months ago.

On December 7, Dr. Fujikawa was loafing around his office, tossing a comment now and again to a friend who sat behind an open newspaper. The radio was on, likely tuned to The World Today, a CBS news show, because at about 10:30 A.M., the announcer thanked Golden Eagle Oil and then an Oahu correspondent relayed news of the attack. Fred’s friend called him closer to the radio and they stood still in disbelief for five or ten minutes until the connection abruptly went dead. As the news sunk in, Dr. Fujikawa grew anxious. His parents, like most Terminal Islanders, were Issei. He may have been all-American in spirit, but he looked Japanese. His confidence as a respected community doctor suddenly meant little; he feared for his family’s safety.

That same Sunday night at 7:00 P.M., the entire West Coast had been blacked out as the Army prepared for another secret attack. On Terminal Island, FBI agents emerged from the darkness, rapping on doors and secreting away all of the Issei fishermen they had marked as dangerous. Community leaders were taken first, their boats confiscated and moved to a government-owned dock. Streetlights went out on Terminal Island every night thereafter and people awaited a knock at their door.

This particular February evening, Dr. Fujikawa groped his way home from the office. Scant moonlight reflected off storefront windows and puddles. He and his wife had dinner and drifted upstairs. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, and yet within seventy-two hours not one Japanese Terminal Islander in a community of three thousand would remain.

***

Thirty miles east of the island, Goldie Wagner was just waking up. Arcadia was a growing suburb of Los Angeles and to Goldie and her milk delivery mates, growth was measured by the gallon. The area around Arcadia had been pastureland for the fifty years Goldie had lived in Southern California; the smell of earth and animal clung to clothes and hair like cigarette smoke.

The Hillcrest Dairy Company was likely one of the small town dairy outfits that saw big opportunity in the new war. Blue collar workers from all over the country hopped off trains at Union Station every day by the thousand, settling into the suburbs that hugged airplane and rubber plants. And if the average Rosie spent her daylight hours popping on rivets, who was going to do the family’s grocery shopping?

Goldie provided the essentials. People would mark the milk they wanted: whole, buttermilk, chocolate; and then there were the extras like cream, cottage cheese, pudding –even eggs. Breakfast just wasn’t the same without her. So when the streetlights suddenly flickered and went out around 2: 45 A.M., Goldie must have sensed the morning stretching out before her. But she had plodded through one war before and must have discovered that consistency was the key. What was more consistent than cold milk at your doorstep? She got on with her route.

***

It helped to be awake when you were trying to save the city. Maybe Tom Herbert had put in a couple hours of overtime at his day job, or he and his wife had gone to see a late showing of “The Pride of the Yankees.” Whatever the reason, the air raid warden responsible for his Hollywood block had to be roused by his landlord at about five minutes to 3:00 A.M.

While Tom dressed, nearly thirty-three thousand other volunteer wardens swarmed in the streets of Los Angeles. From the rooftops they looked like newly hatched insects still carrying a bit of protective shell on their heads –white fiberglass helmets with a red-and-white striped triangle at front. Armbands cinched their sleeves. They had all been through enough drills to break in their boots and develop a confident gait, but some of the assurance waned under the cold moonlight. There was something different about this morning. Darkness crowded the city, and their job would entail making it darker still. Some wardens had to smash shop windows to douse lights that might invite enemy aircraft.

In the darkness they were vulnerable. Just like new hatchlings, a few would never make it to the local Civil Defense Headquarters. A car killed one warden downtown, and many blacked out intersections made crossing painful for other volunteers. Swarming into the defense offices around the county, they conferred. It’s the real thing, brother, they said to each other. Somethin’s goin’ on for real this time.

See Part II

See Also:

Battle of Los Angeles:
Mystery Planes Never Identified

- Strange Craft Unidentified -
Battle of LA
1942

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Anniversary of The Battle of Los Angeles: 67 Years Ago Today, a Huge UFO Withstood Hours of Anti-Aircraft Fire While Cruising Over L.A.

The Great L.A. Air Raid Mystery

By Stephanie Walton
The Daily Breeze
2-20-08

     Questions still abound over the Great Los Angeles Air Raid of 1942.

What was it that showed up on military radar screens the night of Feb. 24, 1942, prompting authorities to order a blackout and unleash an hourlong anti-aircraft barrage?

Could it have been enemy aircraft like those that attacked Pearl Harbor less than three months earlier? Was it just a weather balloon? Might it have been a UFO?

"What have we learned? Not much," said Steve Nelson, curator of the Fort MacArthur Museum in San Pedro, which housed some of the artillaryartillery used to protect the West Coast during World War II.

Decades later, it's difficult to imagine the tension gripping residents of Los Angeles and the rest of California. They were still reeling from the attack on Pearl Harbor and worried about a similar assault on the U.S. mainland.

Their fears were realized on Feb. 23, 1942, when a Japanese submarine surfaced and fired on an oil production facility near Santa Barbara. Reports circulated that the sub then headed south, in the direction of Los Angeles.

According to historical accounts by the California State Military Museum, U.S. naval intelligence issued a warning on Feb. 24 that an attack was expected in 10 hours, but the advisory was later lifted.

Then, early on Feb. 25, radar picked up an unidentified target 120 miles away from Los Angeles.

At 2:15 a.m., anti-aircraft gun batteries were alerted and were ready to fire minutes later.

At 2:21 a.m., the regional controller ordered a blackout. Information centers were flooded with reports of enemy planes "even though the mysterious object tracked in from the sea seems to have vanished," the museum's Web site said.

At 2:43 a.m., planes were reported near Long Beach and one coastal artillery colonel spotted "about 25 planes at 12,000" feet over Los Angeles.

At 3:06 a.m., a balloon carrying a red flare was seen over Santa Monica and four batteries of anti-aircraft artillery opened fire.

Reports of what happened afterward vary.

"Probably much of the confusion came from the fact that anti-aircraft shell bursts, caught by the searchlights, were themselves mistaken for enemy planes," the museum's Web site states.

Among those anti-aircraft batteries responding were the crews at Fort MacArthur who, according to veterans' reports, fired about seven rounds of 3-inch shells from guns mounted on the upper reservation, near where the Korean Friendship Bell stands today, Nelson said.

The number and type of aircraft reportedly seen over various parts of the Los Angeles area widely varied from one to 220 and from airplanes to balloons to a blimp.

Some eyewitnesses said that there were no planes.

And some people, in later years, have claimed that the objects were UFOs.

"Although reports were conflicting and every effort is being made to ascertain the facts, it is clear that no bombs were dropped and no planes were shot down," the Western Defense Command said in a Feb. 25, 1942, Associated Press story.

Those conflicting reports included the military.

Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson announced that as many as 15 aircraft, "possibly piloted by enemy agents," had flown over Los Angeles the morning of Feb. 25, according to an Associated Press report.

Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox said that "reports reaching him indicated the incident was a false alarm and that extensive reconnaissance had disclosed no evidence of planes," the same story said.

Whether an enemy aircraft flew over American soil, there were several casualties due to blackout conditions.

One occurred in Long Beach, where a police sergeant driving to headquarters was killed in a head-on collision with another driver, who had just come off duty at a shipyard.

Another death was attributed to a heart attack. A third man died of injuries suffered when he walked into an automobile while trying to catch a Pacific Electric train in heavier than normal morning traffic after the all-clear was sounded.

Despite the uncertainty over the cause of the events, public officials praised the efficiency of civil defense officials, air raid wardens and anti-aircraft batteries in response to the perceived threat.

Daily activities resumed after the all-clear was signaled at 7:21 a.m. although not without some glitches.

Newspaper reports noted pupils absent from school and employees late to work that day while others went hunting for souvenirs - anti-aircraft shrapnel.

See Also:

Exclusive
THE BATTLE OF LOS ANGELES

Exclusive
THE BATTLE OF LOS ANGELES - Part II -

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MY UFO EXPERIENCE: New Witness Recounts His Father's Involvement with Roswell UFO Crash

Reader Submitted Report
[Edited By FW]
2-19-09

     Frank:

My father passed about 6 years ago, my mother about 15 years prior to that.

He would not say too much, as I said, he was, or appeared scared or hesitant when it was brought up. The one time I was at the house, I answered the door, and two "suits" were there and asked for him. He came to the door, came back to me with concern, and asked to me to leave and come back in a couple of hours. I did, and asked who they were, and he said "government". When I pressed him, he put me in my place with a stern "none of your business".

Two times I was over at the house, once I answered the phone, and a voice asked for "Xxxx X Xxxxx", he went on the line, spoke nothing, but came back to the table very subdued. Once again, he told me to mind my own business. The other call I witnessed, was similar only he answered the call, and came to the front room the same way.

One time, after several beers, I once again asked him "Was there anything to the flying saucers at Roswell" (or something similar to that). He did not answer for a minute, and then looked up, and nodded his head, yes. I then asked were there any "little green men", and he looked at me, and held up three fingers. I asked him what could of became of them, and he said "Xxxxxxxx Xxxxxxx" When I pressed him, he said that he had said too much already, and went into the house.

My mother told me on a couple of occasions that he would have strange calls, and told her it was in reference to Roswell. In the months following 1947, he seemed to be more secretive.

I will look to see what I have. The last several years of his life, he became even more reclusive, and we did not speak much. I would like to know what you find out as to where he served, in what unit, etc. I remember that while at Xxxxxx Air Force base, he was in contact with a Colonel Xxxxx Xxxxxx (spelling might be wrong). We would go to the house and the two of them would be in behind closed doors quite a bit. I do not know if he had anything to do with Roswell, I just know that he did not have much to do with Officers, only him and he mentioned Major Marcel's name on occasion.

Let me know if you find out anything, I will talk with my sister, who is ten years older, to see if she remembers anything.

Addendum
I thought you would like to know. I spoke to my sister last night about Roswell. It was the first time either of us have spoken much about it. She was born in 1938. She was 9 or 10 when the landing occurred. She remembers my dad coming home, covered with soot, or dirt, wild eyed, and saying something like "you can't believe what I saw". She also confirmed with me that he told her, at the time, there were three passengers and described them to her. He evidently loaded up the plane with the debris. He also described to her, the metallic substance, and the beams. She said he was top secret clearance, and one of the top XXXXs. She believes that he may of been in charge of the XXXXXX at the time.

See Also:

Dr Lincoln La Paz and Special Agent Lewis Rickett Investigate a UFO Sighting Over Roswell, New Mexico

The Truth Is Out There: Roswell Incident Recalled By Local Vet

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2009 International UFO Congress Opening in Laughlin, Nevada Today

Greetings, Obama: we come in peace

By Tony Allen-Mills
Timesonline
2-22-09

     THE CNN tape shows it clearly. During the inauguration of President Barack Obama last month, a panoramic camera shot of the Washington monument recorded a small, dark object racing across the sky. Was it a bird? Was it a plane? Or was it an emissary from an alien planet?

Internet opinion has been predictably divided – “What kind of birds can fly at 500mph?” asked one of several million viewers who have seen the video clip – but for a small group of dedicated researchers, the incident could scarcely have been better timed.

High on the agenda at the 2009 International UFO Congress opening in Laughlin, Nevada, today will be the prospects for a breakthrough in a long and mostly frustrated quest to persuade the US government to come clean about the CIA’s supposed contacts with extraterrestrial life over the past 50 years.

Hundreds of delegates are converging on the Nevada desert to listen to speakers from 30 countries recount their extraterrestrial experiences. The ufologists are used to being mocked or ignored by the American media, yet in two key respects their meetings this year are not entirely out of this world.

Far from being disheartened by their failure to produce conclusive evidence of aliens, ufologists were electrified last year by the appearance over Stephenville, Texas, of a series of fast-moving, flashing orbs seen by hundreds of people. Ufologists flocked there in the hope of witnessing a phenomenon that some linked to a near-by military airbase.

Behind the UFO debate lies a CIA statement that more than half the reported UFO sightings of the 1950s and 1960s were caused by cold-war spy planes whose saucer-like designs were at the time kept secret.

In a declassified report entitled CIA’s Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-90, Gerald Haines,a government historian, blamed cold war hysteria for the deception. Other researchers have since suggested that the CIA may have been happy for its most secret spy planes to be mistaken for visiting space-craft.

Larry Bryant, a former Pentagon official who claims to have been sacked for trying to expose military UFO cover-ups, has been fighting for years for access to alien-related CIA material. Yet the agency insists there has been “no organised CIA effort [to study UFOs] since the 1950s”.

Part of the problem for serious UFO researchers is that their efforts continue to attract an eccentric fringe of earnest folks who claim to have been abducted by sex-crazed aliens or wear tinfoil hats to deflect government radio waves.

At the congress, Barbara Lamb, a therapist, will discuss her experiences of “hypnotically regressing” more than 600 people to help them describe their encounters with aliens. Marisa Ryan, a psychic medium, will help the delegates to commune with extraterrestrials.

More . . .

See Also:

World's Largest UFO Conference to be Held in Laughlin, NV in February 2009

Crash Retrieval Day At UFO Congress, Laughlin, Nevada

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Phoenix Lights:The Massive UFO Flyover of Arizona-March 13, 1997 12 Years of Retrospect

By Mike Fortson The UFO Chronicles © 2-4-09

     As we near the 12 anniversary of what is commonly and erroneously labeled the Phoenix Lights, in retrospect it’s difficult to believe so much time has passed; it seems as if it were only a couple of years ago that my wife and I witnessed the “Massive V-Shaped Craft” from our then home in Chandler Arizona; for almost 4400 days that image has been seared into my mind’s eye. I still vividly remember the entire sighting, which occurred at 8:30 pm MST. I’ve been told on many occasions that over time, thoughts and memories fade and total recall starts to diminish. Well, not this one!

I still give thanks almost daily for being allowed the opportunity to view with my own eyes one of the greatest UFO sightings in history. We (my wife and I) were at the perfect angle at the right time and place to have the opportunity of a lifetime. Being able to witness a mile-long “alien craft,” from which I believe comes from another dimension, has been by far the greatest visual experience of my 55 years of life on earth.

I’m not writing this to sway public opinion or change anyone’s mind. I am writing this to express gratitude for what I was a part of and to publicly say, “Thank you Lord” for allowing me to see this for myself; something that we have been told all of our lives “does not exist!”

I first came forward on Saturday morning March 15, 1997, in a phone call to Mr. Walter Andress of MUFON in Sequin, Texas; from that point on I haven’t stopped talking about this life-changing experience. I have met and shared our encounter with hundreds of other “eight o’clock witnesses” and the database is overwhelming as to the scope and magnitude of the event throughout the great state of Arizona. What was once thought of as a mere set of lights beginning near Kingman, is now known to be much larger in scale with multiple mile long V shaped objects, a massive 2 mile-wide triangle and a mile wide disc (and that’s not all).

Not just one set of lights by a long shot!

It’s a fact that the listening and viewing public have been lied to from the very beginning! Without a doubt the real story has never been told. This is what motivated me to write, The Non-Investigation of the Phoenix Lights. I have known from my very first interviews that the media (producers) do not care if the truth is ever told. They wish to sanitize the story so it is more believable (accepted) by the public. In other words; they change or don’t report all the facts; thus, they lie to you. Because they feel that sometimes the truth is much too strong for the sheeple and the truth needs to be altered so we can sleep tonight without worrying about something we have no control of. Sickening, isn’t it?

Concerning the Phoenix Lights case: “they” changed the facts and continually show the 10 PM flare videos (there are 6 of them) while interviewing the eight o’clock witnesses. This deception is a huge slap in the face to the witnesses of the “actual craft,” and a total lie to any who read or watched the events and testimonies of The Massive UFO Flyover of Arizona, March 13, 1997. All one has to do is ask a non-witness about the Phoenix Lights sightings on March 13, 1997, and most will say, “Oh, yeah they were flares!” The eight o’clock witnesses just shake their heads left to right in frustration. The diversion has succeeded and the truth will probably never be told as minds have already been made up.

So, I ask myself, “What can I do?” Does anyone other than the witnesses really care? Does anyone know about or care about the MSTI-3 satellite that was disabled early on March 13th 1997? Does anyone care about the witnesses who watched in awe at 5:30 pm near Crown King, AZ., as 3 massive V shaped craft in daylight pancaked on top of each other”; then turned into a white ball of light and vanished as 2 fighter jets approached from the south? Does anyone care that the 8:16 pm MST witnesses in Paulden, AZ., included retired US Army Major named Lyle Vann, not a retired police officer as was written in summaries and books? Does anyone care about being “historically correct” as much as we possibly can? I do!

Does anyone care that drivers on I-17, I-10, US60 and many other highways and roads throughout the state pulled over and got out of their vehicles to watch in disbelief what was passing in their field of vision? Does anyone care if a little league game came to a halt as a massive craft silently passed overhead? And does anyone care if a police search and rescue team practicing in the north valley witnessed the same thing and the helicopter pilot absolutely refused to go up and check it out? What about the airborne flight instructor from Embry-Riddle? As he looked down he assumed there was a power outage, only to become aware of the massive V shaped craft passing under him; in his own words he stated, “I thought he was going to die!” Does anyone care? Does anyone care about the retired airline captain who claimed he could land his 737 on the wing of the massive V shaped craft? Again, does anyone really care?

I mean, after all it was just flares, right?

Throughout the past twelve years, I’ve looked back and realized just how lucky I’ve been. I mean I’ve done 2 episodes of Strange Universe, 2 documentaries for stations in Tokyo, Japan; I’ve also been privileged to do dozens of television interviews and at least 60 radio interviews. I was invited to do the Leeza Gibbons show, as well. How often does one get to fly to Los Angeles, get a limo ride to Paramount Studios, have your name on your door, a catered private lunch and get to meet Leeza! Wow! Well, I did. It was very cool indeed and one of the best times I’ve had.

I have for the most part always been open to share my experience—again without requiring compensation. There have been a few witnesses and or investigators who’ve penned books and or produced DVDs etc; however, making a buck hasn’t been a precedence for me.

I did an interview with Dr Lynne Kitei for her book and DVD. Actually, I’m a large part of the video she sells and my 8:30 sighting is told in great detail. I do appreciate her for allowing me to do that. She asked me dozens of questions and allowed my views of March 13, 1997 to be told in my own words. I do not agree with her on her 10 PM video as UFO; rather I pretty much agree that those 10 pm videos are more than likely flares, intentionally ignited at high altitude (17,000’) to create a diversion to take away attention from the earlier events of the massive crafts.

The strangest part of my association with Dr Lynne took place at a MUFON meeting in Mesa, AZ a couple months ago; she approached me and said, “I’m also an eight o’clock witness to the massive V shaped craft! I just never came forward because I didn’t take any pictures!” What? So, for the last 11.5 years why have you been focused on the 10 pm video you shot, trying to divorce it from the other flare footage and claming it was of an authentic UFO? Most agree that the 10 pm videos are in fact flares, so now you claim to be an eight o’clock witness as well? Are you kidding me??? And for the past 11.5 years with all your interviews, television and radio shows—you never made this claim! Now you are a witness to the large craft?

Does anyone else find this peculiar? Very early on, the majority of eight o’clock hour witnesses became cognizant of the disparity between the “large craft” cruising “low and slow,” opposed to the distant lights up and beyond the Estrellas; to say that people were adamant about their “craft sighting,” in contrast to flares would be an understatement! Dr. Lynne has fought tooth and nail for her “10:00 video” to be disassociated with flares—never during this time has she given any inkling that she observed the “craft” in the eight o’clock hour! I find this new revelation very curious to be polite.

One part of the March 13th massive statewide sightings that never really gets examined is the official statements made by the USAF and government pertaining to the events; they did not claim that the dropping of flares were responsible for the “earlier events” (eight o’clock hour). Instead what was said was this, “at no point in time was there a threat to the security of the United States”. Thus, my interpretation would be that since there was no threat, then it (the UFOs) would be considered a friendly. The FOIA from Luke AFB did not call the earlier events as planes, flares, blimps, balloons, or any other man made objects. Instead the FOIA reports the USAF as calling the “objects” as unusual aerial sightings. They also report that no Luke AFB craft were involved in the “phenomena” reported on the night of 13 Mar 97.

Since our sighting nearly twelve years ago, my wife and I have become very good sky watchers. We have spent many hundreds of hours watching the skies for a return visit, hoping this time to get “it” (or them) on film. I really feel that what we got to see that night might be considered a “once in a lifetime” sighting and we have accepted that as a possibility. However, whenever outside no matter what the length of time might be, I am always aware of my surroundings and I still take a moment to scan the skies.

So, in closing I wish to say something from my heart, “I do not believe in UFOs or aliens—I know “they exist!”

See Also:

The Phoenix Lights: Former Air Force Man Comes Forward with Inside Information!

UPDATE:The Phoenix Lights: Former Air Force Man Comes Forward with Inside Information!

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