The Battle of Los Angeles
Later explainedSummary
Early on 25 February 1942, anti-aircraft guns around Los Angeles fired some 1,400 rounds into the night sky at an enemy that was never found. The Army's own history records that the first shot was aimed at a balloon, probably a weather balloon, over Santa Monica.
The War Department said there had been enemy planes. The Navy said there had been a false alarm. The official history of the Army Air Forces, published in 1948, sided with the Navy.
What is documented
The week. The United States had been at war for eleven weeks. On the evening of 23 February, as President Roosevelt began one of his radio "fireside" talks, the Japanese submarine I-17 surfaced near Santa Barbara and fired thirteen 5.5-inch shells at oil installations from 2,500 yards. The damage was negligible.
The warning. On the evening of 24 February naval intelligence warned that an attack on the Los Angeles area could be expected within ten hours. An alert called at 19:18 was lifted at 22:23.
The alarm. At about 2 am on 25 February, after a string of reports of suspicious activity, coastal radars picked up an unidentified target 120 miles west of Los Angeles, heading in. Anti-aircraft batteries were alerted at 02:15, and at 02:21 the regional controller ordered a blackout. The Army Air Forces kept its fighters on the ground, waiting to see the scale and direction of any attack.
The barrage. In the words of the official Army Air Forces history, "At 0306 a balloon carrying a red flare was seen over Santa Monica and four batteries of antiaircraft artillery opened fire." The Army's history of continental defence says the first shot was aimed at "a balloon (probably a meteorological balloon)". Over the next hour the batteries fired, by the Army's count, some 1,400 rounds of 3-inch ammunition; the Army Air Forces history gives 1,440. It judged that "much of the confusion" came from shell bursts, caught by the searchlights, being "themselves mistaken for enemy planes." There were reports that four enemy planes had been shot down, and that one had come down in flames at a Hollywood intersection. None was true. No bombs fell.
The damage. According to the Army Air Forces history, the only damage to the city came from the excitement ("at least one death from heart failure"), from traffic accidents in the blacked-out streets, and from shell fragments falling from the barrage. A report from Los Angeles in the Washington Evening Star of 25 February 1942 recorded two deaths: a police sergeant killed in a traffic accident on his way to an air raid post, and a State Guardsman who died at the wheel of an ammunition truck during the blackout. Later accounts commonly give five civilian deaths, three in road accidents and two from heart attacks. The registry has not traced that figure to a contemporaneous list.
The argument. The Navy said at once that there was no evidence of enemy planes, and Navy Secretary Frank Knox told a press conference on 25 February that the raid had been "just a false alarm". The Secretary of War, Henry Stimson, announced the opposite as the War Department's version and offered two theories: commercial planes flown by the enemy from secret fields in California or Mexico, or light planes launched from Japanese submarines. The Army concluded that there had been "from one to five unidentified planes"; the Navy decided there had been no excuse for the firing. On 27 February a Washington Post editorial called the handling of the episode a "recipe for jitters".
The verdict. The first volume of The Army Air Forces in World War II, edited by Wesley Frank Craven and James Lea Cate and published in 1948, concluded that meteorological balloons, "known to have been released over Los Angeles", may well have caused the initial alarm. It recorded that the anti-aircraft units were officially criticised for wasting ammunition on "targets which moved too slowly to have been airplanes."
The photograph. The image most often offered as evidence of a craft is a photograph of searchlight beams converging over the city during the barrage, published in the Los Angeles Times on 26 February 1942.
Leading explanations
A false alarm set off by a balloon and sustained by war nerves. Established. This is the conclusion of the official Army Air Forces history, and the Army's history of continental defence records the first shot as aimed at a probable meteorological balloon. It explains the first target (a slow balloon carrying a flare), the later targets (shell bursts lit by searchlights) and the result (nothing hit, nothing found, no bombs). It sits in a documented context: a real submarine attack on the evening of 23 February, and an explicit warning that evening that an attack was expected within ten hours.
Enemy aircraft (the War Department's position in February 1942; abandoned). Stimson's theories were never supported by any aircraft, wreckage or airfield. No bombs were dropped, and the "shot down" planes did not exist. The Army's own conclusion of "from one to five unidentified planes" was overtaken by its official historians.
An unknown craft (a later UFO-literature reading; unsupported). It rests largely on the 1942 photograph. The official histories describe the lights in the sky as a balloon and bursting shells, and neither describes a craft held in the searchlights.
What the popular version gets wrong
"The army fought a UFO over Los Angeles." The first target, by the official record, was a balloon carrying a red flare. In 1942 the argument, in the War Department, the Navy and the press, was between enemy planes and nerves.
"The famous photograph shows a craft caught in the searchlights." It shows searchlights meeting in the sky during a barrage. The Army Air Forces history says the shell bursts in those beams were themselves being mistaken for planes, and neither official history describes an object held in the lights.
"Shells burst all around it and it flew on unharmed." By the official history's account, the gunners fired first at a balloon and then at the bursts of their own shells. The "hits" of the night were four planes that were never shot down, and a burning wreck at a Hollywood intersection that was never there.
"It was never explained." The official Army Air Forces history explained it in 1948: a meteorological balloon, jittery gunners and their own shell bursts. The Navy had said much the same within hours.
Current status
Later explained. A balloon carrying a flare was seen over Santa Monica, a coast braced for attack opened fire, and the gunners then fired at their own shell bursts in the searchlights. The official history says so, the Navy said so at the time, and no evidence of aircraft has ever been produced. The case stays in the registry because for a few hours it was a genuine military engagement against an enemy nobody could see, and because the photograph has outlived its explanation.
Sources
- Craven, W. F., and Cate, J. L., eds. (1948). The Army Air Forces in World War II. Volume One: Plans and Early Operations, January 1939 to August 1942. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Chapter 8, "Air Defense of the Western Hemisphere", pp. 277 to 286. Reprinted by the Office of Air Force History, 1983.
- Conn, S., Engelman, R. C., and Fairchild, B. (1964). Guarding the United States and Its Outposts. United States Army in World War II. Washington, DC: Office of the Chief of Military History. Chapter IV, "The Continental Defense Commands After Pearl Harbor".
- The Washington Post, 27 February 1942. Editorial describing the handling of the episode as a "recipe for jitters" (as quoted by Craven and Cate).
- Knox, F. Press conference, 25 February 1942 ("just a false alarm"; as recorded by Craven and Cate).
- Los Angeles Times, 26 February 1942. Photograph of searchlights over the city.
- Evening Star (Washington, DC), 25 February 1942, p. 2. Report from Los Angeles on the anti-aircraft firing. Library of Congress, Chronicling America.
Last reviewed: September 2026. Records are provisional. Where the evidence changes, the entry changes. Found an error? Tell us.