All language subtitles for Historys.Greatest.Mysteries.S05E07.The.Battle.of.Los.Angeles.1080p.HULU.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H264-WhiteHat_track3_[eng]

- Tonight, a terrifying event

in the skies over Los Angeles.

- Los Angeles is one of the
most critically important

war defense cities in
the entire country.

- All hell is breaking loose.

There are reports of
a Japanese aircraft

shot down in Hollywood.

- No lights anywhere,
no street lights,

no lights in buildings,
no house lights.

Complete and utter
darkness, it's as if LA

has just been wiped off the map.

- This is absolute pandemonium.

The only lights are
the search lights

and the anti-aircraft
guns firing.

- When the smoke clears,

the incident becomes
known as the Battle of LA

and is veiled in
secrecy and lies.

- The army says that there
was something in the sky.

The Navy then says

there was actually
nothing in the sky at all.

(canon firing)

- Angelenos are
committed to the fact

that they have seen something.

Is the government actually
covering something up?

- Now, we explore the
top theories surrounding

this mysterious occurrence.

- In the middle of a
blackout, in pitch dark,

it's a lot harder to
separate facts from fiction.

(guns firing)

- What really triggered the
so-called Battle of Los Angeles?

(dramatic music)

- [Laurence] February 24th,
1942, Los Angeles, California.

It's less than three months

since the Japanese
Imperial Fleet

launched a surprise attack

on American forces
at Pearl Harbor,

(bombs exploding)

killing 2,400

and bringing the United States
fully into World War II.

On the home front,

the possibility of another
attack on American soil

is now very real,

especially in the nation's
biggest coastal cities.

- There's widespread fear

that Japan will attack
the US mainland next,

and the US military has vowed

never to be caught
off guard again.

- Not only does Los Angeles
lead American cities

when it comes to
aircraft production

with Douglas, Lockheed and
North American Aviation,

but in San Pedro Bay,

it also houses a
huge naval armada.

With a vulnerable location
on the Pacific Ocean,

plus major metropolitan area

and a population
of over 1 million,

city makes for a great
target and they know it.

So to bolster its defenses,

anti-aircraft guns have been
placed all around the city,

bunkers have been built

and air raid protocols
have been drilled

into the population.

- After Pearl Harbor,

the United States has been
practicing blackout drills

in every coastal city out
of fear of an aerial attack.

- [Laurence] The purpose
of these blackouts

is so that enemy planes can't
see the lights of the city.

- The enemy might
send 100s of bombers

to fly towards American cities

and drop bombs almost
indiscriminately

across any urban zone.

At night, it's very hard to
engage in aerial navigation.

However, the lights of a city
could make it very obvious

if you were near your target.

- By now, Los Angeles has been
through so many blackouts,

the LA Times has nicknamed
it the City of Shadows.

- [Laurence] The
city's ordeal begins

with a typical blackout drill,

on the night of
February 24th, 1942.

- No lights anywhere,

not a cigarette is allowed
to be lit on the street

for fear of giving away

any type of location
to a potential enemy.

Even all the radio stations
in LA go completely silent.

- [Laurence] At 10:23 PM,
the blackout is lifted

and Angelenos go to bed thinking
it was just another drill.

But at 2:21 in the morning,

LA residents wake to the
scream of air raid sirens,

(sirens wailing)

and the city is again
thrust into darkness.

- Search lights start
sweeping over the skies

and you have all of
these people starting

to run out of their
homes trying to see

what it is that
they're looking at.

- [Laurence] It's becoming
increasingly clear.

Whatever's happening
in Los Angeles

isn't just another drill.

At 3:06 AM, the search
lights converge

on a target over Culver
City and Los Angeles erupts.

(guns firing)

- The 37th Coast artillery
brigade starts firing

12 pounder guns that
lob three inch shells

up into the atmosphere.

The sound is enormous.

(guns firing)
A lot of the people mistake it

for the impact of bombs
striking the earth

from enemy attack.

- You can only
imagine what this sky

had to have looked
like that night.

You've got these orange
tracer lights in the air,

bursts in the sky.
(bomb exploding)

No one had ever seen anything
like this in the United States.

To a lot of people
in Los Angeles,

it seems like it's the end of
the world, like it's Doomsday.

- [Laurence] Phone calls flood
the city's information lines

with wildly differing accounts
of sightings in the sky.

- Eyewitness reports
start pouring in

to military authorities.

We have reports of 100s of
enemy aircraft flying overhead.

We have reports of
aircraft crashing

throughout the Los Angeles area,

presumably shot down
by air defenses.

- The only lights you've
got are the search lights

and the anti-aircraft
guns firing,

which just add to the sense
that they are in a war zone.

- The anti-aircraft
artillery lobs

almost nine tons of
ordinance into the skies.

100s of buildings and
vehicles are damaged

by the fragments of the falling
shells coming back to earth.

- This is absolute pandemonium.

A lot of people are just trying
to get the hell out of there.

They're piling into
cars and driving.

There's gridlock, five
people are killed.

Three fatalities as a
result of traffic accidents

in the chaos,

and two people die of stress
induced heart attacks,

and it's pitch black.

- But nothing's been shot down,
no bombs have been dropped.

What's the story? What
actually happened?

(guns firing)

- [Laurence] Military command
orders a ceasefire at 4:14 AM.

They officially lift
the blackout at 7:25 AM.

Daylight brings more
questions than answers,

as local newspapers print a
flurry of conflicting reports.

- The most iconic
image from this event

is a photograph that
appears in the newspaper

with eight spotlights
shining up into the sky

on this object that's
floating in the middle.

You can't really make
out what the object is,

because it's brightened
up by all the spotlights.

- [Laurence] But not even
the military can agree

on what, if anything, was there.

- The Secretary of
the Navy, Frank Knox,

came out immediately after
the Battle of Los Angeles

and announced that
the air defense guns

had been firing at nothing.

He says this is a result of
rising panic, of jittery nerves,

that those manning the
coastal defense batteries

were also scared.

- But then Henry Stimson,
the Secretary of War,

gives a press
conference and he says,

"No, there were planes present

and they weren't United
States aircraft."

(dramatic music)

- [Laurence] Less
than 48 hours before

the Battle of Los
Angeles, area residents

feel their vulnerability
for the first time.

- As President Roosevelt

is about to deliver
his fireside chat,

a giant Japanese submarine
rises out of the sea

about 10 miles northwest
of Santa Barbara

and takes aim at the
Elwood oil fields.

- The submarine took
shots at the piers

and it shot at the fuel
storage on top of the bluff.

It miraculously managed to miss

just about everything
it shot at.

- But Santa Barbara's only 90
miles north of Los Angeles.

If they're going to
attack Santa Barbara,

couldn't Los Angeles be next?

So there's this really
heightened sense of fear

of what's coming.

- [Laurence] Around 7:00
PM on February 24th,

Naval intelligence
instructs coastal defenses

to prepare for an attack
within the next 10 hours.

- The entirety of Southern
California is under

this blackout and general alert.

There's the concern
that Japanese submarines

might still be out there
looking for trouble.

- But nothing really happens,

so that alert is
canceled around 10:30.

People are going to bed,

they think everything
might be okay.

- Just when it looks like
nothing is gonna happen,

right before 2:00 AM, a radar
station near Santa Monica

picks up what appears to be
a formation of aircraft.

- Two more radar
installations report

that they too have
detected something

moving towards the
American coastline.

- [Laurence] At 2:15 AM,
the military issues

its highest level alert,

ordering the 37th
coastal artillery

to engage enemy targets
as soon as they appear.

- There are anti-aircraft
batteries distributed

all over the city

and there's a concern
that Japanese aircraft

are soon to attack Los Angeles.

(air raid siren wailing)
- [Laurence] At 2:27 AM,

the target is tracked
to within three miles

of the Los Angeles area
and then disappears.

At the same time
information centers

are flooded with reports
of enemy planes overhead.

- The reports of
seeing these planes,

they're not just coming
from people on the street

who are panicking,

these are trained
military personnel.

There's an artillery colonel

that sees 25 airplanes
in formation.

There's another report that

there's 12 airplanes
in formation.

Someone else reports that
they see a single aircraft.

So there's total confusion here

about what people are seeing.

- [Laurence] But military
witnesses are certain

they've spotted
aircraft overhead,

and the top brass believes them.

- It's not just the Secretary
of War, Henry Stimson,

who's saying the
aircraft were real.

It's George Marshall,
FDR's Army chief of staff,

and he writes a memo
to FDR and he says,

"Yeah, there were
aircraft present."

- But whatever the Coast Defense
Brigade is firing towards

is not shooting back.

- And there are so many
unanswered questions

about these planes, like, where
would they have launched from?

There's no Japanese
aircraft carriers

within range of Los Angeles.

- There are rumors of
downed Japanese aircraft,

but that turns out
to be just rumors.

There are rumors that
bombs were dropped,

but again, no
bombs were dropped,

so there's a little
bit of a mystery.

- [Laurence] In his
memo, Marshal posits

a possible explanation for
the lack of enemy fire.

(dramatic music)

- Marshall's memo states
that access pilots

could have flown commercial
aircraft over Los Angeles,

not as a bombing mission,

but as a surveillance tool

to spot enemy aircraft positions

and also spread fear and panic.

- [Laurence] But if
the enemy had access

to commercial planes,

where were they keeping them?

- There's speculation
from Secretary Stimson

and General Marshall that
the axis may have established

a secret base in Mexico,

and used it to launch aircraft
to fly over Los Angeles.

- That sounds like
crazy person talk,

but there's actually
something to it.

And the reason why is that
during the First World War,

the German government
made some advances,

attempting to recruit
the Mexican government

to join World War I on the
side of the central powers

against the allies that
included the United States,

and there was an awareness that
Mexican commercial airliners

were operating aircraft that
had been made in Germany,

that could be easily
converted from

civilian commercial transport

into aircraft that were
capable of carrying bombs

or paratroopers.

- American authorities devote

an enormous amount of
resources searching

for secret access bases
both in northern Mexico

and throughout
Southern California.

However, there's no evidence
that there's a secret base.

The American public
wants answers

and Secretary Stimson is
not going to supply them.

- Stimson just says, "Well, we
don't have definitive answers

to this, but maybe it's
better to be too alert

than not alert enough."

- [Laurence] For days after

the so-called Battle
of Los Angeles,

residents still struggle to
make sense of what happened.

- So whatever
happened that night

turns out to be
a solitary event

and there are much
bigger concerns

happening in Europe
and the Pacific.

- [Laurence] As World
War II rages on,

the mysterious air raid
fades in importance.

But after the wars end, the US
Coastal Artillery Association

shows renewed interest in
the mysterious 1942 event.

- The Coastal
Artillery Association

is essentially a
veterans organization

made up of units
that were responsible

for coastal and harbor
defenses in the United States.

- So they start reviewing
the Battle of LA,

documenting it for posterity,

and what they discover

puts a whole new
spin on the event.

- It turns out that at 1:00 AM,
so just really two hours before

the Battle of Los
Angeles commences,

two weather balloons were
launched in the Hollywood area

and it becomes clear that
they may not be the only ones

to have been
launched that night.

(dramatic music)

- [Laurence] Weather balloons
are critical to the war effort,

both on the battlefield,
and on the home front.

- Coastal artillery units
constantly release balloons

to collect meteorological data,

things like airspeed,
and precipitation,

and atmospheric conditions.

This actually helps the guns
on the ground be more accurate.

- If there is enemy
aircraft coming,

it is imperative that they get
these balloons up in the air

as soon as possible.

In order to track the balloons,
they added a small candle

that they put in a glass
jar underneath the balloon,

because the balloon has
a kind of a silvery skin,

that light is able to reflect
as far as 25,000 feet.

- At about 3:00 AM,

about 40 minutes after
the first sirens go off,

the 203rd Coastal Artillery Unit

launches two further
weather balloons.

One's launched from Westwood

and the other one from
Battery D in Santa Monica.

- [Laurence] The
lieutenant in charge

of Battery D's
meteorological operations

notifies his commander of
the balloon's departure.

The timing couldn't be worse.

- Guners are scouring the sky,
looking for enemy aircraft

and almost immediately,
Battery D notices

that their balloons
are coming under fire.

(guns booming)

- There is no controlling
system such that

when one unit releases balloons

into the sky over Los Angeles,

other units would know
where those balloons are

or when they were released.

So while one unit is releasing
balloons to collect data

for its own accuracy,

another unit might be
mistaking those balloons

for enemy targets.

- Colonel Ray Watson
is commanding

Battery D of the 203rd
and he basically says,

"Don't fire, these
are our balloons.

Don't fire, don't shoot."

So even though Colonel
Watson is warning people,

the order comes back from
high command, "No, shoot."

(guns firing)

- The 203rd Coast Artillery
probably triggered

this entire incident by
releasing weather balloons,

but interestingly,
this is a battery

that did not fire that night,

because the the battalion
commander decided

that there was
nothing in the sky.

- Colonel Ray Watson is
relieved of his duty immediately

and the story about the balloons

in Battery D that
night remains hidden

for a number of years.

- [Laurence] Nevertheless,
questions remain,

particularly about the
earlier radar sightings.

Is it possible that something
far simpler is to blame?

- In the years since,

we have learned that the
military's weather balloons

weren't the only things
floating in the sky that night.

(dramatic music)

(guns firing)

- In the 1960s, two full
decades after the events

of the Battle of Los Angeles,

a former air defense
artillery crewman claimed

that his unit was desperate

to test their own
radar capabilities,

and because there were
no aircraft available

for that very type of test,

they obtained some
children's balloons,

loaded them full of
hydrogen for buoyancy,

suspended some foil
streamers underneath them

to create a radar return, and
released them into the sky.

- And lo and behold, it worked.

They were able to see these
balloons on the radar.

- [Laurence] But as the night
wears on, the winds change

and an onshore
breeze starts pushing

the balloons back
towards the city.

- Prevailing winds make
it almost impossible

to conceive of radar picking up

some of these children's
balloons with foil beneath them

100 miles west of the
city, out at sea.

However, if a radar were to
pick up that kind of a return,

if the balloon popped, the
return would disappear

from the screen
almost immediately.

- Maybe a combination
of radar balloons

and weather balloons tricked
the city of Los Angeles

into believing that
they were under attack.

So this information
might fill in

some puzzle pieces from 1942,

but people still find it
odd that 1,400 rounds shot

into the air couldn't bring
down a single balloon.

- [Laurence] Eyewitnesses
recall seeing an object floating

in the dark skies over Los
Angeles on February 25th, 1942.

Something moving ominously slow,

practically hovering overhead.

Many historians believe

they could have been
weather balloons

or toy balloons used
for radar testing,

but even if true,

it leaves more than a
few unanswered questions.

- One of the biggest
problems with this theory

is in relation to the
size of the balloons.

Kids' balloons are not
exactly airplane size

and military weather
balloons back in the day

were around four
feet in diameter,

but there is another
kind of balloon

that could explain
what witnesses claim

to have seen overhead.

- The Japanese were absolutely
desperate to find ways

to attack the United States.

There was no possibility of
bringing their aircraft carriers

within range of
land-based air power,

so they start looking
at other mechanisms.

- [Laurence] In 1933,
almost 10 years

before that terrifying
air raid signal went off,

a Japanese general begins

a new weapons program
called The Fu-Go.

- The Japanese will
ultimately launch

a major offensive operation
against the United States

using intercontinental weapons,

in the form of a
series of balloons.

(dramatic music)

- [Laurence] They discover
that high altitude air currents

can deliver a balloon
across the Pacific

in as little as 30 hours.

- These are 33
foot wide balloons

made of laminated paper.

They're capable of
holding a massive amount

of hydrogen inside of them

and lofting high explosive
and incendiary bombs.

When released from the
Japanese home islands

and put into what we now
know as the jet stream,

they can effectively blow over
the North American continent.

- What the Japanese were
hoping to accomplish

was that they would hit
the Pacific Northwest

at a time when it's being
swept by intense winds,

when everything's dry,

and that they will
then rain down balloons

that will start forest fires.

And the thought was that if
we can suddenly give them

this epidemic of forest fires,

we will use our resources
trying to put those fires out,

rather than trying to attack
the Japanese home islands.

- These things are a little
bit more sophisticated

than people realize.

There's a mechanism
once the balloons

get into the jet stream

to make sure that
it maintains height.

If it gets too low,

it drops a sandbag and then
that keeps the height up

until it gets over the land.

- And they don't need to
be particularly well aimed

as long as they hit a
rural area with dry tinder.

The prevailing wind
patterns of the jet stream

in February of 1942 would have
essentially blown balloons

from the Japanese home islands
directly towards Los Angeles.

- The Fu-Go balloon
could explain

the sudden blips on the radar,

the scattered reports
of a zeppelin,

and the oddly slow speed
at which it left the city.

- [Laurence] But Japanese
documents discovered

after the war revealed
that the Fu-Go

was mass produced
starting in 1944,

2 years after the Battle
of Los Angeles incident.

- But could this have been a
test run of an early prototype?

Perhaps.

- [Laurence] The
documents also revealed

that many of these
floating bombs

successfully made
it to North America.

- From November of '44
until March of 1945,

they launched over
9,000 Fu-Go balloons.

At least 300 of them
actually reach the mainland

of the United States and Canada.

- Most of the
payloads fizzle out,

but one actually got through
and knocked out the power

to the very facility that
was producing the plutonium

that would be used
in the atomic bomb

that was later
dropped on Nagasaki.

(explosion booming)

- [Laurence] And just four
months before the war's end,

one of them reveals its
full destructive potential.

May 5th, 1945, Bly, Oregon.

Reverend Archie Mitchell
and his pregnant wife Elsie

take five of their Sunday
school students on a picnic

in the nearby mountains.

- When one of the kids,

a 13-year-old girl, find
some fabric sprawled out

on the forest floor,
she calls over Elsie

and the other kids
to come investigate.

Elsie calls to her
husband back at the car,

"Look what we found, it's
some kind of balloon."

- The balloon gondola
had experienced

a failure of its
triggering system,

the system that would've
dropped the incendiary charge

and dropped the bomb.

Instead, the entire
gondola comes down

with the incendiary device
and the bomb still intact.

- Just as the reverend tells
his wife not to touch it,

boom, there's a huge explosion.

(explosion booming)

The reverend goes running
to give aid to Elsie

and the five kids, but
there's nothing he can do.

They've all been
killed instantly.

Some people are convinced
that a balloon like this

is actually what drifted
into LA's airspace

and started the
so-called Battle of LA.

- [Laurence] Even
so, questions remain.

- So as hard as it is to believe
that the United States military

could not shoot down
a weather balloon,

it's harder still
to even fathom that

they couldn't shoot
down this larger object

with an explosive payload.

- Whatever that iconic
photo is showing

in the Los Angeles Times,

whether it's something
like a balloon

or a more traditional aircraft,

you'd think that artillery fire

would've at least taken it down,

or at the very least,
sent it reeling.

would've at least takeneruptedn,

over Los Angeles,

the so-called Battle of
LA remains an enigma.

No one from the military,
or the government

can say for certain what entered
the city's airspace that night,

nor will they explain why the
city's anti-aircraft batteries

failed to take anything down.

In the absence of any
definitive answers,

a new theory takes hold,

one that confounds
experts to this day.

- As interested sleuths
start to comb through

all the documentation
and witness statements,

they begin to think
that the official story

has swept a lot of the
eerie details under the rug.

- In particular, people
fixate on the iconic photo

of search lights
that are all shining

on some unidentifiable
object in the sky.

- It's disc shape, but it's
appearing to glow as well.

Now you can say, well,
it would, wouldn't it?

I mean, it's illuminated
by search lights.

But again, they
picked up something.

There's gotta be something there
for this thing to be glowing.

- [Laurence] In 1950,

a former Marine Corps
aviator named Donald Keyhoe

makes an interesting connection.

- Keyhoe suggests that the
unexplained aerial phenomenon

was extraterrestrial in nature,

not the government's explanation
of Japanese planes or balloons.

- With all due respect
to the Air Force,

I believe that some of
them will prove to be

of interplanetary origin.

(dramatic music)

In 1942, the concept
of a flying saucer

isn't really part of the
American lexicon at all.

However, investigators
looking back

on the battle of Los Angeles,

essentially backdate that idea
into the story surrounding

what might have
happened that night.

- Some of the
eyewitness statements

help fuel this theory
that this is a UFO,

because of this strange ability

to be very slow on the radar

and then suddenly it speeds up,

that it's maybe hovering,

then suddenly it's
moving very fast,

that it's at a low altitude

and then it's at
a high altitude.

All of these help fuel this idea

that maybe this is some
kind of unknown aircraft

from another planet that's
coming down to Earth.

- There're going to be questions

from the highest
ranks of leadership,

and command in the military
and civilian government,

and reports about this incident

go all the way to
the Secretary of War.

They go all the way to US Army
chief of staff, George Marshall,

and they have to report to the
president what happened in LA.

- [Laurence] Proponents
of the UFO theory

point to a series of
unauthenticated memos.

- There are a number of
documents floating around,

purporting to be
from George Marshall

to FDR talking about the
recovery of two craft.

One of these was
apparently recovered

off the coast between Los
Angeles and Catalina Island,

the other in the San
Bernardino mountains.

- Marshall also goes on
to allegedly explained

to FDR in these memos that the
objects that were recovered

didn't resemble any
conventional aircraft

and he presumes that
whatever these objects were,

were of an
interplanetary origin.

- [Laurence] The eyewitness
reports that come in

the night of the air raid

include many descriptions
of unusual aircraft.

The US will encounter even more
unidentified flying objects

as the war continues.

- Towards the end
of World War II,

allied pilots begin to
describe being followed

by very strange lights
over the skies in Europe

and they nicknamed
them, "foo fighters".

- Whatever these objects were,

it was said that they
would usually shine

in red, yellow, and green.

They would fly alongside
the allied aircraft

at speeds up to
200 miles an hour.

Sometimes there would be one,

sometimes there could
be several of them.

- [Laurence] Some ufologists
speculate that FDR himself

was a believer in
extraterrestrial life.

- Allegedly, this
unauthenticated memo

written by FDR in
February of 1944

is sent to a special committee

on non-terrestrial
science and technology.

Supposedly in this memo,

FDR is slowly coming
to grips with the idea

that the planet Earth
is not the only one

that's able to house
intelligent life.

He says that, "We will take
advantage of these wonders

that have come to us
after we've won the war."

(guns firing)

- There are many
people who believe

the Battle of Los Angeles

was really Earth's
first big encounter

with extraterrestrials,

and of course, there's an
equally large number of people

who think that's
complete nonsense.

- [Laurence] Under
particular scrutiny

are the unauthorized documents
between Roosevelt and Marshall.

Experts question
their credibility.

- There is a lot of
controversy about this.

There are many, many
documents circulating

in the UFO community
that are frankly bogus.

There are big question
marks over this.

- [Laurence] In
addition, analysis

of the infamous LA Times
photograph from 1942

raises even more questions.

- Retouching of
photographs was something

that occurred commonplace
in the 1930s and 1940s.

- Newspapers at the time,

it was very common
for them to create

a more of a contrast with
the black and the white.

When they look at the
negative of this photo

versus what's published,

they discovered that this photo
has been touched up quite a bit.

- There are details that
are in the foreground

toward the bottom
of the photograph,

where they can see they
brought out the mountain ranges

that are seen in the background.

They also blow out some of the
overexposed components of it.

- The skyline has been darkened,

the searchlight beams
have been enhanced,

and what's actually lens flare

has been altered to make it
look as if it's explosions.

- The photograph
makes people think

that there was
something in the sky.

But what if there
actually wasn't something

in the sky that night?

- [Laurence] Whatever terror
the people of Los Angeles

endure on February 25th, 1942,

is soon matched by
frustration and anger.

- There are so many questions

about what happens on
this night in Los Angeles

and the government doesn't
seem to be very forthcoming

with any real information.

- One thing the public
still can't understand

is why there wasn't a
single American aircraft

in the sky that night.

- It is understandable to
not wanna try to fly a plane

over a densely populated city
when shells are raining down,

but what a lot of people
still have trouble

coming to grips with,

is that when the blip
showed up on the radar,

why wasn't one
military plane sent up

to intercept the object,

or at least just to
check out what it was?

- The fact that aircraft
weren't scrambled

in response to
this radar return,

suggests to some
people that they knew

there was nothing there,

that the whole thing was some
sort of deception operation

organized by the government.

(dramatic music)

Representative
Leland Ford demands

a congressional
investigation into this.

- He wants answers
because he feels that

the government hasn't been
very forthcoming about

what really happened.

- Leland Ford is concerned

that there might be a
reason for this deception.

He thinks it's possible that
the government might be laying

the ground for moving some
of the defense infrastructure

and industry away
from Los Angeles.

If you wanted to
persuade people to move,

having some sort of dummy
raid might just scare them

into saying, "Okay
then, we'll move."

- [Laurence] Since the
beginning of the war,

there has been discussion of
moving LA's oil, ship building,

and aviation industries inland,

to protect them against
possible Japanese attack.

- Some people at senior
level in the government

do think it's prudent
to move these industries

and Leland Ford is concerned.

His view is, "Look, these
industries are essential

to the economy of California.

We don't want to move them.

If they're at risk,
we protect them."

- The greatest thing to
happen to the economy

after the Great Depression
is World War II.

Suddenly, everyone
is back to work

and manufacturing's
at an all time high,

so no one wants to see
the sudden booming economy

of the war industries
leave Southern California.

- Before the shelling begins,

there are reports of
these flashing lights

and these flares
that are showing up

near these defense
plants around the city,

and during the shelling,

there are reports of
these objects in the air

that are following a route
that would've taken them over

the highly sensitive areas
of Douglas, Lockheed,

and North American Aviation.

- [Laurence] News coverage
immediately after the air raid

suggests that whatever phantoms
were in the sky that night,

they seem to show an interest
in defense industry targets.

- Some people start to
question whether or not

the attack was staged or
at least maybe exaggerated.

- [Laurence] But some
historians suspect

there may be an even
more sinister reason

to orchestrate a giant
false flag operation

throughout Los Angeles.

- At the beginning of
the Second World War.

There was really, no real
concern about the loyalty

of Japanese-Americans.

- After Pearl Harbor,
as time goes on

into January and February,

there is continued war
propaganda coming out.

There's more dehumanization
of the Japanese people.

- Even though the Commander
of Western Defense command,

Major General John Dewitt,
reported that there were no acts

of Japanese-Americans
sabotaging American industry

or other aspects
of the war effort,

he still also recommended
that Japanese citizens

be moved away from
the West Coast

and its vital defense plans.

- The initial hope is that
they will very quickly

evacuate themselves to
these internment camps.

- It didn't take long for
the president to realize,

well, that's not gonna work,

'cause who's gonna
wanna do that?

Nobody, absolutely nobody.

- [Laurence] On
February 19th, 1942,

President Roosevelt issues
executive order 9066.

- Executive order 9066
authorizes the removal

of anyone that
could be considered

a danger to the war effort.

It's vague language,

but it is clearly pointing
to Japanese people,

particularly Japanese people
who live on the West Coast.

- To Roosevelt, in early 1942,

just 80 days after the
attack on Pearl Harbor,

the world looked very
scary and intimidating,

and unfortunately,
he made this decision

to deprive American
citizens of their rights.

- The Battle of Los Angeles
came out really only five days

after FDR signed the
infamous executive order

to do with the internment
of Japanese people

in the United States

and this was controversial.

It arguably went against
his political instincts,

but on the other hand,

there was a feeling
that this was necessary,

and therefore did
something get staged

that would really make
everyone go along with this,

and say, "Yeah, we get
why this is needed"?

Was it all part of hyping
up the Japanese threat,

not just the threat
from invasion,

but the threat from within?

- After the smoke clears,

after the blackout
order has been lifted,

there's no evidence that
there's actually been an attack,

yet the military arrests
20 Japanese-Americans

for colluding with the enemy.

- This makes no sense,

because how could they
collude with planes,

when at least part of
the official narrative,

is there were no planes?

And the suspicion is
that this is perhaps

something aimed at driving
forward and accelerating

the pace of the
internment program.

- [Laurence] When Secretary
of the Navy, Frank Knox,

first dismisses the so-called
Battle of Los Angeles

as a false alarm, many
citizens are outraged.

But as time passes,
even Angelenos

begin to question what they saw.

- One of the big questions
about this Battle of Los Angeles

is why are there so many
different conflicting stories?

People report a wide
variety of things

and I think that's really an
indication of the type of panic

and utter fear that is
driving people in this moment.

- For every person
that comes forward

and says that they did see
something in the night sky,

whether it was a plane
or a floating object,

other people come forward,

like Pulitzer Prize winning
journalist Ernie Pyle,

and says, "They saw
nothing that night

except for flashing lights,

tracer fire, smoke in the sky."

Some military historians claim

that the combination of things
that happened that night

led people to see things
that actually weren't there.

(dramatic music)

- All of the elements
leading up to mass hysteria

are in place in Los Angeles
in February of 1942.

You have the attack on the
oil fields north of the city.

You have the aftermath of
the Pearl Harbor attack.

You have war
preparedness movements

and the assignment of
civil air defense wardens.

All of these elements combine
to make people afraid,

to make people nervous, to
make people jumping at shadows.

- We already knew
how easily excitable

the American population was
from an event from 1938.

- [Orson] I'm speaking
from the roof

of broadcasting
building, New York City.

The bells you hear are ringing

to warn the people to evacuate
the city as Martians approach.

- Orson Welles and his radio
broadcast dramatization

of the War of the Worlds,

it was done in a false
documentary style

as if it was actually happening.

- A shockingly large
number of people thought

they were listening to
an actual broadcast,

announcing the arrival of
extraterrestrial aliens

who were making war
with the planet Earth.

- The American public, although
it likes to think of itself

as very sophisticated
and intelligent,

is not immune to the
effects of mass hysteria.

They flooded
telephone switchboards

for their local police forces

and their local media
demanding assistance

and demanding answers
about what was happening

in the alien invasion
of the United States.

- [Laurence] Less
than 2.5 years later,

in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor
with the country on edge,

it's not just the
American public

who fall prey to
their own fears.

- In the period after Pearl
Harbor, scared American aviators

and naval personnel
constantly file reports

that are alleging
that Japanese warships

are off the western coast
of the United States.

There are reports of aircraft
carriers, battleships,

massive flotillas of the
Imperial Japanese Navy.

Typically, they turn
out to be cargo craft,

elements of the US Navy,

or even in a couple
of instances,

floating debris like logs.

(radar whirring)

- [Laurence] And
the radar systems

that sparked the
Battle of Los Angeles

are far less reliable
than most people realize.

- A lot of the technology
that we take for granted today

in regards to air defense
was in its infancy

at the beginning
of World War II.

- Radar's a new technology
here, so it's not foolproof.

There's mistakes, there's
inconsistencies with radar.

A bird could show
up on the radar

and you might
think it's a plane.

- Maybe that's why the object

just suddenly disappeared
off of radar screens

a few miles from downtown LA.

Because there was
nothing ever there.

(dramatic music)

- Sometimes what you perceive
outweighs your own experience

and it causes you
to draw conclusions

that don't really fit the facts.

In the case of the
Battle of Los Angeles,

people who had no wartime
experience see flashing lights,

they see explosions,
and they want to assume

that there's a
purpose behind them.

- When we're in a moment of war,

when we're in a moment of fear

where the world
feels upside down

and the unknown is happening,

people's minds play
tricks on them.

(dramatic music)

- On February 25th, 1942,

the helplessness and fear
Angelenos felt was very real,

even if an imminent
invasion was not.

We may never know what
triggered the barrage,

be it a phantom aircraft
or a case of nerves.

Either way, The
Battle of LA remains

one of World War II's
enduring unsolved mysteries.

I'm Laurence Fishburne,

thank you for watching
History's Greatest Mysteries.

(dramatic music)