Harrison Kilgore, 26
At the beginning of WW2, American paranoia was at an all-time high. The attack on Pearl Harbor had broken the nation's sense of security, and fears of bombings on the West Coast went rampant. This fear was amplified by the Japanese attacking American boats in the Pacific near the American coast. America rushed to build defenses and sirens across the West Coast in preparation for a seemingly imminent attack. They even participated in blackouts in fear of attacks. In the wake of all of this anxiety, on February 25, 1942, the city of Los Angeles found themselves rushing to defend themselves and fight against a non-existent enemy.
On the evening of February 24, Naval Intelligence warned that an air raid could be expected in the next 10 hours, putting the city on yellow alert. After a few hours, they reverted the city to white or all clear. Nevertheless, this raised concerns for the citizens and military. At 1:44 a.m. on February 25th, three different radar stations saw an unidentified flying object heading to the city of Los Angeles. By 2:00 a.m., this object was detected 100 miles offshore, prompting the anti-aircraft guns to be prepared for an impending raid. Twenty-five minutes later, the “UFO” was within 5 km of the city, causing the sirens and blackouts to activate. Despite the aircraft vanishing from the radar systems, visual sightings of enemy airplanes now flooded the phone lines. At 3 am, artillery was permitted to open fire. Until 4 am, the soldiers shot the artillery at supposed lines of planes they saw in the dark.
The following morning, the blackouts were lifted to find that there had been no bombing damage to the city. The evening newspapers had difficulty reporting what had happened. Some papers reported on eyewitness accounts stating they had seen multiple planes shot down. However, upon examination, it was found that no bombs had been dropped on Los Angeles, causing confusion for the citizens of Los Angeles. This confusion was not helped by the disjunction within the government. The head of the navy at the time stated it was a false alarm and that there were no planes over Los Angeles that night, while the secretary of war stated that there were as many as 15 planes over the city. Because no bombs were dropped, some people suspected it could have been a reconnaissance mission. Despite military officials stating they were going to get to the bottom of this and update the citizens, they did not give new information until the end of the war.
The military concluded that it was likely a weather balloon launched by a separate regiment earlier in the day. The red light on the balloon could have been mistaken initially for a distant plane. As the smoke from artillery and explosions in the sky rose, the shadows created by the smoke and spotlights helped create the illusion of planes. This, compounded with the stress from the war and a radar anomaly, created the perfect conditions for an overreaction.