Battle of Los Angeles

 

Searchlights converge on an unidentified object over Los Angeles in the early morning hours of Feb. 25, 1942. This is the unretouched version of this photo; a retouched photo ran in the Los Angeles Times the next day. (Los Angeles Times Archive / UCLA)

On February 25, 1942, three months after the attacks on Pearl Harbor, a very strange thing happened. By this time, my family had moved to Long Beach. We were now living in a high, second-floor apartment that was converted from a large home. It was only four blocks from the ocean. At about 8:00 p.m. on the night in question, my father called my brother and me to our deck, which faced the bay. There was a strange, intense light just above the horizon: a narrow beam pointing towards the ocean. The little beam turned horizontally, right into our eyes, and hit the back wall of our apartment and the surrounding trees. It was blinding. Suddenly, and bafflingly, the light went out. Whatever it was, had gone. There was nothing we could do but stand there amazed. Finally, we re- tired to our beds.

Just after midnight, the air-raid sirens and anti-aircraft guns of the coastal artillery woke everyone up. We ran out onto the  street and saw a large round craft, about seven thousand-feet up, floating in the air above us. It slowed to a stop right overhead and remained stationary. It was lit up by eight searchlights, while anti-aircraft shells burst all around and against it. Most of the shells exploded on the bottom of the craft – we just couldn’t believe the thing hadn’t exploded or been shot down! Three, then five, other ships appeared near it; some of the searchlights, as well as the anti-aircraft teams, focused on each one as they passed the first object. Eventually, the first craft slowly departed as well.

Later on, about twelve other craft passed by at higher altitudes and were, in turn, fired upon. It was like a spell: why weren’t the hundreds of us watching this event concerned or frightened? I was not scared; there was no panic. No-one was screaming, there were no heart attacks, and no-one was going crazy. Other vehicles continued to pass over us for nearly five hours. Our coastal, artillery anti-aircraft crews attempted to shoot down these strange flying machines. By 3:30 a.m. the main show was over. Unconcerned, we went back to bed, although several neighbors told us the air-raid continued and the alarm lasted until 5:00 am. The next morning, the newspapers reported that foreign aircraft had been spotted in the airspace between Santa Monica and Long Beach. They failed to mention that half of Southern California watched the event nearly all night.

This so-called Los Angeles air-raid became the first major incident in a long string of events connected to the UFO phenomenon in recent history. And, it was the start of many encounters affecting my entire fifty- seven years of aerospace engineering.

William M. Tompkins
Selected by Extraterrestrials