Battle of Los Angeles

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Almost exactly 83 years ago, on February 25th of 1942, a terrifying event unfolded in the skies over Los Angeles. It was less than three months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, and L.A. was on edge. The city had been nicknamed the City of Shadows due to regular blackouts and widespread fear of a Japanese attack. Air raid sirens pierced the darkness that night, and a total blackout was ordered from L.A. down to the Mexican border. Suddenly, the night sky was illuminated by powerful arc lamps. The city erupted with the sound of anti-aircraft guns. Reports flooded in. Hundreds of enemy aircraft were reported flying overhead. Planes were said to have crashed throughout the Los Angeles area, presumably shot down by air defenses. But not even the military could agree on what, if anything, was there. The Secretary of the Navy said the air defense guns were firing at nothing. The Secretary of War said there were planes present, and they weren't United States aircraft. Eyewitnesses recalled seeing something floating in the dark skies over Los Angeles, something moving ominously slow. One report described it as being the shape of a butterfly. Others said they saw one, 12, or even 25 aircraft. Those reports came from trained military observers. Decades later, investigators uncovered incredible written evidence that the military misled the public. An Army chief of staff wrote to President Roosevelt to report shocking news. The mystery airplanes were, in fact, not earthly. According to secret intelligence sources, they were in all probability of interplanetary origin. But the documents this information came from are dubious at best. Whatever happened, there's so many conflicting reports, even from within the military, that it's as hard to be sure today as it was that night back in 1942. But we're going to do our best to try and figure it out. Welcome back to Astonishing Legends. I'm Scott Philbrook, and this is Forrest Burgess. None of the explanations so far offered remove the episode from the category of complete mystification. California State Representative Leland M. Ford calling for congressional investigation. Join us tonight for an in-depth discussion on the Battle of Los Angeles. And we're back. That we are, folks. Thanks for joining us. We're glad you came back, as always. Yes, we are. You know, we're trying to grow our audience this year. So please remember to find, subscribe, and review our show on any platform you can, particularly if the reviews are positive. Yes, and by the way, we're going to be joined by Dan Cummins from Timesuck for a discussion not only on his show, but also Rasputin, the Svengali who held tremendous sway over Tsar Nicholas II, the last emperor of Russia. Ooh, that's going to be a blast. And I've been waiting for you to use the word Svengali at some point in our show. I mean, if that guy is more Svengali than Svengali himself was, I think. You see that picture of him in the—it's pretty crazy. Yes, and one of our favorite characters, Svengali, as well. Yes, Svengali. Loves Svengali, by the way, who has no idea who we are. No. But if you hear this, we're big fans. In other quick news, our good friend Tom Maxwell, who guested on the show a few months ago to talk about American Blood Falls, is working on a new podcast of his own in partnership with writer and podcaster J.E. Peterson and filmmaker and comedian Mallory Everton called Gods, Ghosts, and UFOs. And it looks like it's going to be pretty great. They put up a Kickstarter to get it off the ground. So if you want to help them out, see our show notes for that, or just go to Kickstarter and look up Gods, Ghosts, and UFOs. Ooh, sounds like a fun show. All right. So we are diving into a truly bizarre moment from World War II, the so-called Battle of Los Angeles, or the Great Los Angeles Air Raid, which took place on the night of February 24th in the early morning, 1942. And Forrest, you have a little pre-existing knowledge on this, right? I'm not sure I would call it that. I did appear on an episode of History's Greatest Mysteries about this very subject. And, you know, it's one of the biggest stories to come out of ufology in general. Although when you find out the details of it, that is one of the many aspects. But of course, as you'll see from all these shows, History's Greatest Mysteries, Ancient Aliens, a great series called World War Weird, I think, also covered. It's all over the place because it was very significant. It has a lot of great elements to it. Tons of eyewitnesses, tons of confusion, World War II, social economic factors and geopolitical and world war events tied into it. But also, there's a photo. So, you know, we talk about a lot of incidents that happen and there's no proof. People say like, well, show me the photo. Then they see the photos like, well, that's not enough. So there may even be motion picture film out there. But the deal is this photo is at night in a blackout, pitch black. Photo film speeds were somewhat advanced, I would say, for the 40s with black and white, at least. They had color as well. People may not remember that, but there was a lot of color film around. But in this case, they didn't have very fast film stocks, meaning not great in low light conditions. So the photographers had to do a long exposure to get an image to appear on the film of that quality during that time. But nevertheless, there's a photo and there's a story behind that photo. And what does it really show? And what was printed in the papers actually shown as opposed to what's really on that photo negative. So I would caution people about this when we go into this, just like the PGF. You can take, and you should, take in all the factors around the story. For listeners who might not know, that's the Patterson-Gimlin film. Oh, of course. Yes. Using our inside acronyms there. But yes, which is the most famous Bigfoot film of all time. It's the one that everybody in the world has seen, even you who thinks you haven't seen it, of the Bigfoot walking in the creek in Bluff Creek, 1967. So we did a whole series on that, but that's what the PGF is. Well, this is another iconic image, really. And you may have seen a photo of it and not realized what it was or where it came from, where the story was. But with the Patterson-Gimlin film, whether you like it or you hate it or never seen it, you know what that film is. And so again, in the world of ufology, this is another famous one, but you should take in and consider all the other factors surrounding the story, but you go back to the photo. That's what's on film. Look at that. And then take in all the eyewitness accounts and all the surrounding details. But at least you can start there, as we say with the PGF, what's in the photo? Look at that. Right. Now, getting back to the show. So I was on an episode of History's Greatest Mysteries, one of a handful. I believe this was season five, episode seven that aired March 18th, 2024. Yeah. So almost exactly a year ago. Yeah. You're right here. And we're going to be pulling from some of the great research they do for that show. I was really impressed when working on that show, the researchers there, when they put together a suggested talking points and kind of an outline for you to form the narrative and the conversation and to guide you to what they would like you to talk about. They do a lot of great digging. So we'll pull from some of that research because they found some interesting points and they're pretty good at putting together a timeline. And then a lot of other sources that Scott dug up as well and some that I found. Yeah. There's a lot of great stuff in the Los Angeles Times, actually multiple articles, because after this happened, they dedicated pages and pages to it. It was such a big deal. There's also an interesting article from the Smithsonian that we'll be taking a look at. And there's military reports that have since come out, some that have been declassified. One called the History of the 4th Anti-Aircraft Command, AA Command, which I think is Anti-Aircraft Command 1942 to 1945. That's got a lot of interesting data on it from this. So all of that stuff has been called together. We've got almost 30 different sources for this. So it's a lot of interesting information. No, there's a lot of sources and a lot of people have done a lot of analysis after the fact over the years and especially of that photo, which we'll take a look towards the end here. But whatever you think happened, it was a terrifying event for people then. You had to put yourself in those shoes in that time period because we'd just been attacked. War was imminent. Real. A real kind of thing. People were terrified. And, you know, Scott, as some have called it, it was just basically a terror leading up to that. A night of sheer terror in the middle of the night as people are trying to sleep. That all unfolded in the skies over L.A. There was, as we were saying, it was less than three months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. And that, of course, brought the United States fully into World War II and a bit of controversy and conspiracy with that. Was that necessary to get us into World War II because there was a lot of isolationist feeling at that time? And so the possibility of another attack on American soil, especially on the West Coast, which we think were isolated and safe, it was very real. It felt very real to these people and was heavily on their minds already. That's right. The West Coast was on edge. Literally and figuratively on the map. Yes. I'm supposed to make the dad joke, but Forrest is right here. Even after living in L.A. almost 20 years, I had no idea about this next piece of information, which is part of the reason why L.A. was in a heightened state of tension. On top of Pearl Harbor being three months earlier, there had also been a Japanese submarine attack on some oil fields near Santa Barbara just the day before this happened. So when air raid sirens started blaring in L.A. in the early hours of February 25th, it's understandable why people thought the worst. That attack was just 90 miles north of L.A. the day before. Right. A very real thing. And in 1972, a developer turned that spot they were talking about into the Sandpiper Golf Club, which is what it is today. But in 1942, it had nearly 25 oil wells on it. And that's because oil had been discovered there on that site 15 years earlier in 1927. So that area, that strategic target there gets attacked by a Japanese submarine. And the very next day, we get the Battle of Los Angeles. So it was an incredible scene. There were searchlights sweeping the sky. It's just like the movies. And how apropos for it to be happening in Hollywood, La La Land. That's right. But it is a movie scene that people were living. So just imagine that really happening. And then you have this massive anti-aircraft artillery barrage, which shook the ground, which had shrapnel raining down. We don't often have to put up with that here in the cozy U.S. on the mainland. So it was quite shocking. And at the time, it was even called the Great Los Angeles Air Raid. So there was a lot of chaos I felt. And just imagine looking up and seeing all that happening. Waking up in the middle of the night, the noise, the lights, the explosions. Yeah. You're already on edge with World War II just about to get into full swing here. Yeah. There were 10,000 air raid sirens in Los Angeles at this time. And even though I read one article that suggested that only half of them worked that night, but it was still enough to freak everybody out. But here's where it gets really strange. Despite all of that firing, 1,440 rounds of anti-aircraft artillery, according to a declassified document we found, no bombs were dropped and no evidence of enemy aircraft was ever definitively found. Uh-huh. Now there's excuses for that. But were there some aircraft or some kind of craft or some kind of explosives or incendiaries? Well, this leads to all sorts of questions, doesn't it? You know, what were they shooting at? Was there really anything there at all? Or was it as then Secretary of the Navy, Frank Knox, as he famously said shortly after, just a false alarm due to war nerves or jitters. So those are all in quotes there, false alarm, war nerves, jitters. But then the army seemed to contradict this, suggesting that maybe there were enemy planes. And now it's starting to feel a little like Roswell, except not following a line. You're having real authorities, military ones, contradicting each other. And it becomes a real puzzle. That's right. And that initial confusion really sets the stage for decades of speculation and different theories, trying to explain what exactly happened that night. Now, we'll, of course, be digging into some of those theories tonight. But to really understand what went down, we've got to remember, as we said, this was less than three months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Yes, indeed. And remember, folks, that surprise attack on December 7th, 1941, sank four battleships and killed over 2,400 people, as I mentioned in a couple of episodes ago as a correction there. And it had a massive psychological impact on the U.S. And suddenly, the idea of the country being relatively untouchable was gone. So it's kind of a brutal wake-up call that you're not untouchable. And it wasn't just Pearl Harbor. At the time, Japanese submarines were active off the West Coast. There were skirmishes with U.S. boats, specifically the oil tanker SS Montebello, off of Cambria, California, up near Hearst Castle, which was sunk by a Japanese submarine on December 23rd, 1941. And the lumber ship SS Absaroka, the next day, which was attacked, didn't sink. But one crew member died, and another was injured. And then the attack on the oil field in Santa Barbara, just the day before the Battle of Los Angeles. That really brought the threat home, especially to people in California. A lot of things here, I think, that people, even if you've taken your cursory studies in American history, will remember these kinds of things. It's not often mentioned. And I don't think people alive today, or people that weren't around for World War II, who can really imagine what it felt like to live through this stuff. Yes, we've had attacks here, but like 9-11, of course, and some domestic terrorism. But we're really pretty isolated from this kind of thing, which is on a global scale, like a whole nation coming after you. Yeah. And 9-11, I used to try to think, what would it be like to wake up and see the news of Pearl Harbor? And 9-11 was the only thing, for me anyway, in my lifetime, that I could equate that to. I wasn't around for Pearl Harbor, so I realized I'm not equipped to draw a comparison between the two. It's just the closest thing that I can personally think of, you know, because we were both alive for 9-11. Right. And as I've said on the show many times, I moved to New York City just five days after it happened. So I was immersed in the aftermath of that for the next decade, nearly, before I left New York. And it's just hard to understand what that was like for people who were in Hawaii, who were living and dealing with Pearl Harbor, but also just the magnitude of that much of a change in reality. It makes you think about the Matrix when the helicopter hits the building and the building turns liquid. It's like, that's what it feels like. It feels like a liquid change to time and space when something that big happens. Well, it wakes you up. Like I said, we're all pretty complacent here because fortunately for us, we don't have to deal with that much. Not like folks in the Middle East, of course, or even Europe, Asia, everywhere else in the world. It's much more of a reality. We're pretty isolated and we don't seem to think about it. And speaking of 9-11, I was working on a corporate show in Las Vegas at that time, and I had to get up very early. So I had the TV on because they have cable in the hotel and I don't have it at home. So it was a treat. And I was thinking I was watching CNN or something, and they just had a static shot of the first tower and it was smoking. And I think they just said airplane crash or something like, oh, that's awful. Well, I guess that can happen. That's a terrible tragedy that somehow got off course. As I was watching that, I saw the second plane hit. And my first thought immediately was we're under attack. It just kind of popped in my head like this is an attack. And then the third thought was, okay, how widespread is this? What other cities are going to be hit? Is this that coordinated on a national level? And I am in a place that the rest of the world loves and loves to hate. So you're thinking like, how safe am I here? But really that was the first thought of like, you know, that I've ever had. They're like, yeah, we're, this is an attack. This is purposeful. So, okay. Well, imagine for the people of Los Angeles, the beginning of 1941, the psychological effect that submarine attack must've had. That was the night before on U.S. soil, launching artillery into an oil field, of course, to try and blow it up, start massive fires, cause panic. That's basically terrorism. You're terrifying the people. And it would have been immense, even though that I think about the time there's about a $500 in damage. And so today's dollars, it's just under $10,000, but imagine if they, one of those rounds had hit one of the oil storage tankers. Well, the dude couldn't hit the broad side of the oil refinery. Nice. Okay. Astonishing Legends is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible, financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are things that people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Because Progressive offers discounts for paying in full, owning a home, and more. Plus, you can count on their great customer service to help you when you need it, so your dollar goes a long way. Visit Progressive.com to see if you can save on car insurance. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations. 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That's marleyspoon.com slash offer slash P-O-D-4-5. Hey, I'm Cortina. And when I'm not having margaritas on Monday nights with the Mothman, I'm listening to Astonishing Legends. Now let's get back to the show. You do wonder what was going on with that as well. And of course, that's action by an enemy combatant. And after a war, we do get some information from their side, as we have with other actions from Germany and the other Axis powers of, what were you doing here when this happened? Like, what was going on? And so those questions, well, we do have some information about that. That attack was helmed by Commander Kozo Nishino, and he was firing in the dark in moderate seas from a 14-centimeter deck gun. So it's not surprising he didn't find the mark. But you know why that attack happened on February 23rd, don't you? I read about it, but I can't remember. Well, President Franklin Roosevelt was slated to do his live podcast. Well, I know for a fact, I don't know my history that well, but I do know for a fact they did not have podcasts in 1942. FDR did. Fireside podcast, the Fireside Chats, remember that? Yes, the Fireside Chats. That thing called the radio, remember that, where people, before they gathered around a picture tube, they gathered around a vacuum tube that just had audio, and that was called a radio. And they were large, folks, and people would just listen to things gathered around, filling their minds with the pictures illustrated by the words coming over the magic box there. Well, I'm pretty sure you learned about that in college, right? I certainly did. And I learned about that, of course, from my relatives, you know, when they would say, like, oh, talk about their favorite programs. Boston Blackie, The Lone Ranger. And you've seen A Christmas Story, right, where he's tuning into the radio every night at a certain time to get his code from the Little Orphan Annie radio program. Well, anyway, this was a series of presidential radio addresses that Franklin Delano Roosevelt did. I think over 30 of them in all to talk to the country about things like the recession and it's a state of the union, but kind of informal. That's why they call it the Fireside Chats. He was literally by a fire there. Other things like the New Deal. And then, of course, World War II. And they were generally anywhere from 11 to 44 minutes long. But the point here is the Japanese wanted to send a message, and that's why Nishino surfaced the I-17 craft and shelled Elwood exactly when FDR was on the air talking to the country. Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States. My fellow Americans, Washington's birthday is a most appropriate occasion for us to talk with each other about things as they are today and things as we know they shall be in the future. For eight years, General Washington and his Continental Army were faced continually with formidable odds and recurring defeats. Supplies and equipment were lacking. In a sense, every winter was a valley forge. The broad oceans which have been heralded in the past as our protection from attack have become endless battlefields on which we are constantly being challenged by our enemies. We must all understand and face the hard fact that our job now is to fight at distances which extend all the way around the globe. So that segment was from the 20th Fireside Chat that FDR did, and that played on tens of millions of radios across the country, probably about 12 minutes before a submarine that was so big witnesses thought it was a destroyer began shelling Santa Barbara. Well, there you go. And you know what reminds me of, of course, and it was, of course, inspired by these events, I believe is Steven Spielberg's comedy, 1941, with John Belushi. That's right. Where a Japanese sub surfaces and Slim Pickens gets taken aboard prisoner, causing them consternation. But yeah, people saw that. And I think back then when it aired, I'm not sure I knew these facts, and I thought like, is that real? Did a Japanese sub really come all that way and surface? And yes, the answer is yes. Okay. So now you've got the president talking on the radio to everyone about the dangers of the war and how oceans are now endless battlefields on the night before the Battle of Los Angeles. And again, the Wolfpack German U-boats have been terrorizing the Atlantic and sinking ships. So people knew it was extremely deadly and hard to stop at that point. That's right. So public outrage, paranoia is intensifying on the West Coast now. There's rumors of Japanese aircraft carriers off San Francisco leading to blackouts and even mobs smashing businesses that left the lights on, which I saw from some newspaper articles was also used as an excuse to smash a business window anyway. Oh, dear. Imagine that. That doesn't happen here. His light was on. It's like, what's that in your hand? No, but the light was on. But you know, in Los Angeles, they even stationed 500 army troops at Walt Disney Studios in Burbank to defend against sabotage or air attacks. That level of concern shows you just how high the anxiety was. Yes, the Japanese hate cartoon mice. But people were definitely on edge, seriously here. And every shadow, every strange sound could be interpreted as an impending attack. Yeah, for sure. And the military was on high alert, too. Anti-aircraft guns were being installed. Bunkers were built. Air raid drills were common. And as Forrest said in the cold open, Los Angeles had so many blackout drills, the LA Times even nicknamed it the City of Shadows. People were expecting something, and they were also trying to get ready to respond. They cared about this cause here and trying to defend themselves. And were a lot more serious, I think, or maybe just not as distracted as they perhaps are today. Well, that fear manifested in numerous rumors and alerts, of course, because conversely and ironically, I guess, talking about how people behave nowadays, there was a lot less information floating around out there. That's right. And I was reading something about soldiers wearing their helmets, and did they really all have the chin straps unbuckled? Not really a tangent, but we are talking about the war. And a lot of them left them, like, you see this in movies a lot. John Wayne left it unbuckled. He's like, well, that looks cool. The strap's dangling down. Yeah. And Clint and Kelly's heroes. His face was never strapped. Yeah. If you do some reading about it, there were rumors among military troops that, I think for two reasons, if the chin strap was buckled, fastened, that one, an enemy combatant could come up behind you and tip your helmet forward, causing you to stumble around in the dark with the brim over your eyes. And secondly, if a shell exploded near you, it would break your neck. The concussive force would lift the helmet up, catching it like a parachute. There was really no proof of that. But it also reminds me of the Battle of LA and conflicting military reports. There was one order saying, like, chin straps will be left unbuckled, coming from some CEP, some command post saying that we'd learn from troops in Africa and in Italy that this is real, this happens, so unless you're traveling, you know, in a vehicle, leave them unstrapped. It's like, well, there's really no case for that. Plus, if it's that, is that close to you, the blast is going to kill you anyway. But I'm just talking about rumors and that there was very little information back then. So in this case here, for example, talking about rumors and alerts, there were reports circulating in Juneau, Alaska about Japanese submarines lurking off the coast and leading to blackout orders. San Francisco had a similar scare in December 1941 with rumors of a Japanese aircraft carrier leading to school closures and a blackout. And then even Seattle experienced a blackout driven by similar fears and things there got so intense that some businesses with lights on, as you said, were vandalized by residents. Yeah, just an excuse to cause some mayhem. That's never changed. But it's really fascinating how quickly anxiety can spread and then escalate. And then you have these kinds of initial sparks of concern, often based on very little concrete information. And then the collective imagination takes over. And of course, we're going to talk about mass hysteria a little later on. Now, all that said, if you're a longtime listener of Astautsing Legends, then you know when it comes to unexplained aerial phenomenon and phenomena, military conflicts can be hot zones and usually are. That's right. And whether that was what was going on here or setting the stage, it's no secret that the Pacific Ocean and specifically the waters around Catalina are also now internationally known for nearly continuous reports of UFO sightings and UAP. Now, back in 1942, that wasn't so much of a thing, but it's definitely something that's been written about a ton in recent decades. Yeah, back then, not such the big deal that it is now. And we're going to talk about Kenneth Arnold, maybe, 1947 and the years after, and just the continuation of this kind of narrative that's building on UFOlogy. But more on this in a bit. Anyway, the point is, while an antsy public is definitely prone to misinterpretation, when it comes to the paranormal, there are no rules that say strange events can't coincide with our definition of reality. And we've often mentioned on this show, Jose Chung's From Outer Space, the X-Files episode, where U.S. military is pretending to abduct somebody as an alien, and then the guy playing the alien gets abducted himself, which, of course, that's fiction, but there's no rules that say that things can't pile on like that, that there can't be anxiety and hysteria, and then also something really happening. A lot of times when there's, I guess, a widespread panic, to quote a band name, but a lot of times when there is something like that, it actually is triggered by something real. There's something real that is starting it. It doesn't mean just because there was an overreaction to it that there wasn't a seed in the first place. I'd say perhaps most every time. Most of the time, I would say. That's my bet here. And I see a note from you, sir. Don't talk about the PGF. Yes. You've referenced it too many times. I didn't mean what you said earlier. No, no, no. I know what you're saying here. What I meant was the idea that they went looking for Bigfoot and found him. That was the thing I was going to say. Uh, yeah, don't, uh, not, and then we've said that a billion times. No, I think it's a valid point though. And I'm not going to get into it here. Don't worry. But what I'm saying is that it's not Occam's razor. I, okay. And we've said that too many times or, you know, it's not us. Other people have said that too many times. Yeah. Because it's just like, well, go with the simplest thing. So there was nothing there and it was just a panic sparked by all this, uh, act, you know, war nerves and this and that. And, uh, well, that I'm sorry, doesn't make sense to me, but what we're going to talk about now is, well, you're talking about the Northridge quake a little bit, right? About rumors. And, uh, yeah, I remember after the Northridge quake, this was in 1994. There's a fairly strong earthquake in Los Angeles. In fact, the last really big one there, we were living there. You were living there as well for Northridge, right? Forrest, I think at the time. Well, I was living in Los Angeles, not near Northridge, but no, not near Northridge. I was in Playa del Rey, which is not for people that don't know where Northridge is. Los Angeles is huge. And, but it still was a strong earthquake all the way in Playa del Rey, which is by LAX where I lived. But what I was going to say was that just in the collective recall of the events and the things that were talked about afterwards in the media, folks were talking about angels appearing in cars on the highway, warning people before the earthquake happened and that these stores were going to be out and a lot of stuff like that. And you think, okay, well, is this just something about large populations living together? It's a cultural phenomenon. It's a collective sort of anxiety, like what we might be talking about here with the Battle of Los Angeles. But then on the other hand, and this is something that's being talked about a lot lately and a lot of people, oh, whatever, if you believe any of this at all. But a lot of people lately have been talking about summoning UAP and UFOs and manifesting their appearance and everything. So what, all I want to say is like, is it a possibility that that happened here, that this anxiety over whatever was in the sky actually drew something to the scene? I don't know. Well, there's, just putting it out there. You know, but E-SETI, CE5, and having that kind of a close encounter. And I think, again, was it logically, there can be three possibilities, not at all, all, or a blend of both. My outcomes raiser is that it's often in the middle, that there is something in the, it's usually not just one or the other or that black and white. So when you're talking about natural disasters, and I remember it's a topic I wanted to broach, but we didn't have time. And I think Scott had had enough of me rambling on, but during our discussion of the third man syndrome, there was the effect of the butterfly people in Joplin, Missouri, during the horrible, devastating tornadoes that happened there. Yeah. It was a lot of children that saw these beings that were helpful, that were angelic, but also some adults. And then you wonder like, is that just kids making that up with their, you know, kids' imagination and things like that. But they were all very consistent and very similar. And the things they said don't put you in the mind of something a child would say or relate. And that's another aspect of that third man syndrome, which it's a different thing. So it wasn't totally relevant, I'll grant you. But what you're talking about is during times of extreme tension and anxiety and trauma, strange things do happen and maybe they are, things are conjured in a collective imagination. And I'm not talking about imagination, make that up. I'm just saying a collective consciousness. Yeah. All that's possible. Well, coming back to the Battle of LA, in addition to civilians being on edge, the War Department at the time was receiving tips, sometimes from within the Japanese American community, predicting attacks. There was a high alert ordered for coastal defenses stretching from Seattle to San Diego for over a month. One report even predicted a bombing on February 18th, which of course didn't happen. But the thinking at the time also was that these rumors might even be a Japanese disinformation campaign to keep U.S. troops tied down. Because you can imagine after Pearl Harbor, they're going to do something. How can we slow that down, slow down whatever retaliation they might be planning? Psychological operations, PSYOPs, are always, it's an ancient tactic from the very first instances of coordinated warfare, classic wartime tactic. And what you want to do is you sow confusion, you divert resources, very Sun Tzu, the art of war kind of a thing. It makes a certain logical sense. But then you also have to wonder about the sheer volume of these predictions. Talking about 9-11, tons of weird psychic predictions, people phoning those in before it happened and during. And you wonder about that, you may not believe in psychic power, but those were documented because those are 9-1-1 calls and people going on the record and then something tragic actually happening. So statistically though, most of them were bound to be wrong. We're talking about these predictions of Japanese attacks and it just highlights the difficulty of discerning credible intelligence from the signal noise. That's right. So you have this constant drumbeat of warnings, rumors that don't pan out, and then a very real, albeit small-scale attack just a day before the Battle of Los Angeles. It's like the perfect storm of anxiety. Everyone's nerves are frayed. They've been told an attack is imminent. And then the sirens go off in the early hours of the 25th. It's no wonder the response was so intense. Right. And so the other wild card in this perfect storm of events is radar, which at this point was an early nascent technology. We take it as a given these days. Every meteorologist has it. We've all grown up watching it, but there was a time when it was new, a new technology and groundbreaking. And not only did it not work great back then, but we weren't exactly sure how to use it. At least the military people were still, it takes a bit of interpretation. They were trained. Exactly. Yes. That's what I'm saying is that it's a little bit of an art and maybe we didn't understand false radar images as well as we do now. That's not saying that's what was happening on this night, but keep it in mind and that people would get a ping, a radar report, and not really maybe know what they were looking at on the scope. That's right. So around 1.44 a.m., according to some accounts, a coastal radar station first picked up an unidentified aerial target out over the Pacific Ocean heading towards the coast, towards Los Angeles. This initial detection was a key trigger for the events that followed. Right. So an echo in the void. Was it a lone blip, a phantom on the screen, or did it suggest a more significant presence lurking offshore? And one can almost envision the debates in operations rooms. You know, is this thing real? What is it? You know, how many are there? What if it was the vanguard of a much larger unseen force? And of course, it makes me think of the Tic Tac video. You know, now our sensors are pretty sophisticated. So, and they know when something is a bogey and it's not really there, something's malfunctioning, which that makes me take a little, not umbrage, but just makes me shake my head when they're saying they don't know what they're looking at. We've come a long ways and they know when their sensors aren't working, or if it's just a reflection or a bird or a Mylar birthday balloon, I'm pretty sure they know, they know what they're seeing. And when someone says, oh dude, there's a whole fleet of them, a whole fleet of them to me is not a misinterpretation. So, this is from the declassified, the history of the 4th AA, or Anti-Aircraft Command, Western Defense Command, January 9th, 1942 to July 1st, 1945. At 0144 hours, an SCR-268 picked up an unidentifiable aerial target confirmed by two 270s. At 0200 hours, there appeared on the Information Center's Operation Board an unidentified target 120 miles west of Los Angeles, well tracked by radar by 1st Lieutenant Kenneth R. Martin. All AA gunners were alerted at 0200 hours 15 minutes, and between 0200 hours 21 minutes and 0200 hours 32 minutes were put on green alert, status number one. This target between, I'll just say, 2.06 a.m. and 2.27 a.m. was tracked within three miles of Los Angeles area, and at 2.21 a.m., the regional controller ordered a blackout. Right. So, the SCR-268, which Forrest just read about, was one of the earliest versions of the U.S. Army's radar, with the 270 being an update to it. So, what's happening here is they're saying the 268 first identified it, and then two 270s also saw this same target. Now, it's my understanding that the range of the SCR-268 is only about 23 miles, so I'm not sure how it picked up a target 120 miles out at sea, but I'm guessing some radar experts are going to fill us in on that. But the point is, this thing, whatever it is, is picked up and then confirmed. So, that's three radar stations picking it up. Maybe that triangulation has something to do with it being further out, but this multiple confirmation likely added a degree of credibility to the initial detection, making it seem less like a technical glitch just on the 268, because the 2270s are getting it as well, or a false reading. So, by 2 a.m., the Information Center's Operation Board was tracking this target, noting, as Forrest read, it was, quote, well-tracked by radar, end quote, which I think is important because a lot of people are going to say, oh, it was a bird, it was a cloud. It is well-tracked by radar. That is in direct quotes from a radar operator. Yeah, to put it in some perspective, it's like what I learned about stealth aircraft. People think it's totally invisible to radar, from what I've, and maybe one day they'll get there, but from what I know, even like the stealth bomber, is that nothing's totally invisible because it is a large object, but you can build it with the angles as such and the reflective surfaces that it appears something that large as a fighter or bomber, like the F-117 or the B-2 stealth bomber, is that it could appear the size of a goose. So, you do see something blipping, but that's what we're talking about here. It's the interpretation of like, well, that's not big enough to be a plane. Like, well, it is. You're seeing a stealth aircraft, and so it's not showing up much. But 120 miles, you know, the grand scheme of the Pacific, it might seem like a vast distance, but in terms of aerial approach, that distance shrinks rapidly. It's the ticking clock scenario. So, each sweep of the radar brings the unknown closer. Were they envisioning Japanese bombers perhaps launched from a hidden carrier or something else entirely, something that the technology of the time couldn't even comprehend? Yeah. And what's interesting is, too, there was speculation that there might be bases in what is now, or we call it today, Baja, California. They thought maybe there were some places down there to launch from, or like we just said, a Japanese carrier, or maybe a light aircraft coming off of a submarine, which later that did happen. But there are slightly differing accounts on all of this. While most indicate a westward detection, one source mentions the target approaching the Santa Maria area, which is to the northwest. There's also a report that radar operators later plotted the object as heading toward San Diego, to the south. So, this highlights the limitations and potential inconsistencies of that early radar technology. It wasn't nearly the flawless, precise system that we have today. Indeed. So, this is where the human element intersects with the technological. You have operators interpreting these raw signals, as we mentioned, making judgment calls under immense pressure. And was that fleeting echo just atmospheric interference, a flock of birds, or the harbinger of invasion? Yeah. Regardless of the exact nature of that initial radar contact, it served as the catalyst for the immediate escalation. Anti-aircraft batteries were alerted around 2.15 a.m. as Forrest read in that excerpt a few minutes ago and put on green alert, which means ready to fire. It's counter to Star Trek, where you can red alert. This is green alert. This means you're green, you're good to go. And that object was tracked to within just a few miles of the coastline, and a blackout was ordered across the region at 2.21 a.m. The stage is now set. Right. That's a significant jump. And remember, there was some talk and use of radar, and that being contentious, during Pearl Harbor. There were radar stations set up, and I believe something was tracked. But what we're just talking about, if I can remember the story or the details, I can't remember exactly, but I think something was picked up, and it's like, well, don't file that report. You guys don't know what you're looking at yet. Because they were training on it still. It's like, I think this is pretty major. We should report this. Like, nah, don't wake that guy up. Right. And then you have something horrible happen. Well, yeah, as Scott said, ready to fire implies a perceived imminent threat. They weren't just observing anymore. Now they were preparing to engage. So at this point in military technology and operations, do we know if they were expecting visual confirmation or was radar detection alone enough to trigger this level of alert? Well, I mean, it's speculation on our part, but given the backdrop of the Santa Barbara shelling and the earlier intelligence warnings, this approaching unidentified object likely triggered a high degree of alarm. Right. So you have an unknown threat that's closing in, and it's a classic fear archetype in a city brimming with vital wartime industries as well. That's another thing that people don't, maybe don't realize how much Los Angeles had vital wartime industries happening there. That makes the stakes, you know, they couldn't have been any higher. Every blip on that screen likely represented a potential catastrophe in their minds. And that could have been, you're talking about real damage to the wartime effort here when things are just ramping up. Yeah. So at 2.21 a.m., air raid sirens sounded throughout Los Angeles County. And a few minutes later, around 2.25 a.m., thousands of air raid wardens were also summoned to their positions. And the blackout is in full effect. 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They turned off their lights. You do this to avoid potential targets. You've probably seen this in old war movies too, as the planes fly over, lights in the houses going out one by one as the planes fly over. Because as they joked about with Los Angeles, people weren't even lighting cigarettes. It was all the streetlights were out. I think Scott's got a note in here later, a car crash has happened. There were fatalities even. That's right. So they would even approach houses, these air wardens, with lights to enforce these regulations. And of course, this leads to injuries. Some in San Francisco, during an earlier alert, these are self-appointed people. They would help enforce the blackout. So then you have a little bit of people like throwing their weight around, but it's a necessary thing. So they also guide and assist citizens and they can lead them to, uh, to air raid shelters. They maintain order because, uh, people don't do well in panic situations and a mob mentality and, uh, just watch any twilight zone episode that deals with this. Uh, things quickly fall apart. They basically, it's a courageous thing. Like you're, you're taking on this responsibility to take care of others and maintain order. And they also are the ones who get woken up in the middle of the night. And if we do have time to get to it, there's one, uh, testimony from an air raid warden, a young woman at the time who actually saw what was going on and, uh, had a report of it, but that was her duty. She volunteered for that. And she gets a call from her commander in the middle of the night, like spring into action. This thing's overhead. So whatever's happening. Right. So in the context of the battle of Los Angeles, they're out in the streets, they're telling people to turn off lights, take cover, make sure it's pitch black out there. And as Forrest said a second ago, you can't even have a cigarette. Well, I think that's a, that's a bit exaggerated. I think it's the lighter. The lighter is the lighter. Yeah. Three on a match. Remember that for World War one, uh, in a trench that was enough time for a sniper to get a bead on you, but, uh, so they take this kind of stuff seriously in the military, but talking about the city, it's a city of shadows. Now they call it kind of a double-edged sword, you know, on the one hand, it's a defensive measure and it makes it harder for potential attackers to identify targets. And then on the other hand, as we've discussed, it breeds disorientation and fear. People don't like being in the dark. So you have a lot of civilians who aren't used to this kind of thing. And so, uh, it also can make it harder to ID what's going on in the sky on site. To some degree, I think on another hand too, you don't have as much light pollution. That's true. Yeah. Unless you're shining a thousand beams. Well, then it's easier to see. Sure. Yeah. But, but, but basically, no, the idea though, is that imagine here, you know, you've been in them too, in LA, Scott, not so much in your community now, which is smaller, but in LA during a blackout, there's a vibe. No, I've done it in New York too. I prefer the vibe of the New York blackout to the vibe of the LA blackout, frankly. I don't like any big city blackout vibe. No. Well, I mean, you know, I, I caught a ride in a cab with like five other people in a blackout to get home. Yeah. The one time that New Yorkers are actually nice to each other. Yeah. That's right. Well, yeah. 9-11 and, uh, and a blackout. But, uh, on the other hand, we've, we've also heard about blackouts that happen in major cities and it's a loot fest. Yeah, that's true. Well, with the blackout in effect and the air raid sirens blaring, the city was effectively plunged into a state of high alert, but also handicapped by the darkness. Now, what happened next was the moment the situation truly moved forward from potential threat to actual engagement. Yeah. So imagine, uh, that moment as we were talking about, it's dead quiet. It's in the middle of the night, pitch black. If you've ever driven here, it, you know, there's lights all over the freeways and every street. And so it is also the city of lights in a way, but imagine that totally black now. And then it's roared awake with earth shattering anti-aircraft fire at 3.06 in the morning. Now war had come to the city of angels. Yes. And in this case, something specific triggered the barrage. Are you ready for this? A balloon carrying a red flare was seen over Santa Monica. Immediately four batteries of anti-aircraft artillery opened fire. They'd been ordered to destroy it. Now this moment seems to have been the initial spark that ignited the widespread shooting, but this isn't the only thing that happened that night. It's not just about this balloon, but the balloon at this point in hindsight is thought to be the reason that those four batteries initially began to fire. Right. This is just a single balloon with a flare. So it seems, I don't know, maybe anticlimactic given that level of alert, but then you wonder could something so seemingly innocuous have really triggered that massive of response? And it speaks to the heightened state of alert. And of course, you know, a lack of clear identification protocols, but we're talking about, well, as people know who've studied World War II, we weren't very prepared in the very start of the war. And people think that, you know, the American military had a lot of catching up to do, but when we first started in the first battle, it was pretty woeful. You know, at this point, was there a shoot first, ask questions later mentality? That's a good question. So that initial firing seems to have escalated rapidly. Major Milton Durham later recalled that night saying, quote, the air over Los Angeles erupted like a volcano, end quote. Now, this vivid description really captures the intensity of what unfolded. It wasn't just a few shots. It was a full scale barrage against what they believed, at least some of them, to be an enemy aircraft or a group of aircraft. Yeah. It's like a volcanic eruption of steel and fire into the night sky. And there's tracer rounds painting streaks of light. And you may have seen that, people who don't know, I believe it's, say, rounds that are tipped with phosphorus, or there's something that basically makes them streak. So every fifth round will be a tracer round. So, because imagine that you're shooting in the dark. You don't know where it's going if you don't have a tracer. You don't know where the bullets are going or what you're hitting. So those are very handy. Even in daylight, you'll see some of the old gun footage, gun camera footage of fighter planes. Yes. And, uh, but basically those are now streaking across the night sky here. Then you have the concussive force of the explosions. And then for civilians huddled in the darkness, it must've felt like hours. It must've felt like the long feared attack had finally arrived. They're all waiting for it. And then it happens. And the sounds alone would have been terrifying because that's very jarring. Yeah. It makes it impossible to discern what's actually happening or what they're shooting at. Yeah. And, and it wasn't a short burst of fire. It was over the course of the next hour or so. It was incredible amount of ammunition was expended, a 1440 rounds or more from multiple locations. That is a staggering amount of firepower directed at an unknown target. So just imagine that sheer amount of shrapnel raining back down. What goes up must come down. It's a, it's a wonder more damage wasn't done on the ground, but there was damage. Yeah. There was a fair amount. Yeah. Yeah. And it really underscores a level of perceived threat or perhaps some later suggested collective war nerves leading to this kind of overzealous response. So then you do wonder, was this all just started with a balloon with a red flare? And then if so, like who launched it? Well, once the anti-aircraft guns opened fire around 3 AM, the reports from civilians, police and military personnel about what they were seeing in the night sky became incredibly diverse and often contradictory, leading to widespread confusion. A lot of the eyewitnesses reported seeing nothing at all in the sky, despite the intense barrage. Now, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Ernie Pyle, who was in Los Angeles that night, stated he saw nothing except for flashing lights, tracer fire, and smoke. And he was a military journalist. I'm pretty sure there's another quote from him where he said something to the effect of when it's real, you don't have to sit and wonder about it. You know it's real. So he was like, I don't know. No, I didn't really see anything. Another journalist who was there was a Los Angeles Times columnist and later Saturday Night Live writer Buck Henry, who reported that he did not see any airplanes, either American or foreign. According to an article in the Los Angeles Times later that we'll have a link to by Lorraine Blossomo, Buck Henry wrote, quote, we imagined parachutes dropping. We imagined the hills of Hollywood on fire. We imagined hand-to-hand combat on Rodeo Drive. Yeah, well, imagine that. Well, but now you have an intense military reaction. But for a lot of folks on the ground, they're not seeing much of anything. However, I just want to make this clear. A lot, a fair number that I came across did see something, which you don't have a lot in the reports. But here's a disconnect, though, that is happening between military reporting and civilian observation. And then you have to consider some of the people on the ground, the civilians, are seeing what they thought were balloons. And the United States Coast Artillery Association in 1949 concluded that a meteorological balloon, that was the initial trigger. In 1983, the U.S. Office of Air Force history also pointed to meteorological balloons as the likely cause of the initial alarm. And then some eyewitnesses described seeing, quote, a batch of balloons just floating along on the strong night wind, end quote. And then there were also later theories about children's balloons with foil streamers being used to test for radar. I'd seen that report a few times because that actually worked. That did get picked up on radar. So it worked. It was a cheap solution here. But specifically, a balloon carrying a red flare was noted as the moment that all that firing began over Santa Monica, California. That's right. And this is where it gets even more complex, to your point, about other things people were seeing. A significant number of people, including some military personnel and police officers, claimed to have seen airplanes. A Coast Artillery Colonel reported seeing, quote, about 25 planes at 12,000 feet over Los Angeles. Another report mentioned 20 to 30 planes seen from a hotel roof in downtown L.A. I believe this was on Flower Boulevard. Is it Flower or Flowers? I can't remember the downtown. A singular flower. A singular, right? It's been a minute since I was there. Yes. Yeah. So on a hotel roof down there, I hope it wasn't the Cecil where Lisa Lamb was last seen alive. So somebody on the roof there saw 20 or 30 planes at an estimated height of 20,000 feet. A sergeant reported seeing five planes with the naked eye appearing to be bombers flying in formation at a high altitude. A lieutenant at the Douglas plant saw first a single plane and then three more flying in V formation, again at a high altitude. And the Long Beach chief of police had a Navy observer with him who counted nine silvery planes in the cone of searchlights. This goes to a theory later that was put forth by one of the military officers, senior military officers, that commercial aircraft were being used to surveil or do recon over L.A. And maybe that was why these ones in particular were silvery. But the Los Angeles Herald Examiner also cited a witness who claimed to have seen as many as 50 planes. And there was a lot of formation details. You know, these are V-shaped. They're flying in a wedge, altitudes, and speeds. But everything was very different. There was a lot of confusing or conflicting information. Yeah, there's a lot of variety in the numbers, the amounts of craft and their descriptions. And you could say like, well, that clearly points to this all being baloney. Or if we're more sophisticated in our thinking nowadays and knowledgeable about UFO and UAP encounters and what happens then, is this typical? Does that add more veracity? Because people were all seeing different things, but we know they were seeing something. Yeah. And so you have to decide your camp on that. But my point here is that it adds another layer to the mystery. So many eyewitnesses. And as we said, it's one of the most famous photographs in the Los Angeles Times in their history. And they're all describing a single slow-moving object illuminated by searchlights. And again, it's just a very dramatic photo when you look at it as well. Yeah. Are we able to get a copy of that on the website or is that? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Okay. Well, I'll help you help me put that up. And Scott will have 25 different filter versions. I don't want to put that up. It's a lot easier to do now. That's true. Yeah. So that's a little bit of the story then about, as we said at the beginning of the show, what are we really looking at? What does the negative to that shot actually convey? This is another thing is that the movement. Look at it in the lens of what we now know about UFOs. If you're into that sort of thing, in that not only do we talk about size, shape, and also, as we mentioned in 1947, Kenneth Arnold described silver, shiny, skipping, like crescent-shaped kind of things, as if they were skipping along in the water in a formation. And that got misinterpreted as saucers. Yeah. And that's where you get the term flying saucer. And so now, this is pre-all that. So people are not associating yet. They're just describing what they know, which is enemy aircraft or conventional aircraft or balloons or something. The other thing we think about now is the speed and the angle and the movement of these things. And so another thing that was fascinating to me is the object or objects were described as moving slowly and steadily and also seemingly impervious to the anti-aircraft fire. So think about that, folks. If these are balloons, large or small, are they not affected by flack, the shrapnel that comes with anti-aircraft fire, which are shells that go up in the air and are made – there's several technologies that look this up just briefly about how that happens. And basically, they're meant to – it's hard to hit a bullet with a bullet or a flying aircraft with a single shot. So the idea is you put up a shell that will explode in the air. And I think in the very early days – it happened as early as World War I, I believe – that those were on a timer fuse. So you can kind of – it takes a lot of math and gauging to hit your target. But you set a fuse. It's like, okay, so that's a timer depending on how fast they're flying, what altitude, and airspeed. And you kind of guess. And then you have – you try and have the shell explode near the aircraft and throw out enough ball bearings or just shrapnel that it damages the aircraft because they're very lightly armored. And you'd hope to bring it down. And not that effective, but it did cause a lot of damage and brought down a fair number of planes in various wars. And then you had things as sophisticated in World War II in the later years here as proximity exploding shells where there's basically very simply a tiny radio transmitter that would – like a metal detector that would get close enough, detect a solid object, then explode. Right. A lot more effective. So these things as effective early in the war but not damaging any balloons, you got to wonder about that. And so it also – this thing was – whatever these things were, they're being illuminated by high-powered searchlights. And so the other thing was that – you know, some people speculated it was a blimp because it was moving so slowly. One eyewitness on a rooftop described seeing searchlights converging on a single point moving slowly across the sky. And when you have that many lights on it that brightly, you would think that you could discern a blimp, a dirigible, a zeppelin. Or if there was nothing there at all as well. That's the other thing, yes. We'll talk about the theories, right. There's a lot of smoke. And smoke can make light seem like it's stopping or maybe like it's resting on an object. We'll talk about that in a little bit. But like the idea of it or the image of a solitary object bathed in searchlights taking this incredible barrage and seemingly unaffected is the most enduring and perplexing aspect of this entire event. Ultimately, the overwhelming characteristic of the eyewitness accounts from that night is the utter confusion and the lack of a consistent description of the alleged target of targets. Now, some saw nothings, others saw balloons, and still others were convinced they saw multiple airplanes or a single enigmatic object. This wide divergence of perceptions underscores the chaotic atmosphere and the power of suggestion during a time of heightened anxiety and the inherent limitations of eyewitness testimony, especially under stressful and dark conditions. But this intense anti-aircraft firing that began around 3.06 a.m. did eventually cease around 4.14 a.m. And the all-clear was sounded, and the blackout order was finally lifted later that morning at 7.21 or 7.25 a.m., somewhere in that area. Right. So now as the sun's coming up, that must have brought some relief to the citizens and the military. And then you have to look at the aftermath of the... Yeah. Right. The rowdiness of what occurred the night before and then count up the damage. And so... Yeah. There was... Well, there were no bombs were dropped by any enemy aircraft, but the barrage itself caused a lot of damage. Several buildings and vehicles were damaged by falling anti-aircraft shell fragments. Some homes were even rendered uninhabitable, and parked cars had their tires blown out. Yeah. So friendly fire intended to defend the city. But if you want to make an omelet, you got to break some eggs, right? And... Yeah, that's right. But they ended up causing a lot of physical damage. That's a stark irony here, but very common in that war is messy. There's a lot of unintended collateral damage. Well, tragically, there were also casualties as an indirect result of the anti-aircraft fire and the blackout conditions. Five civilians died. Three people were killed in car accidents that occurred in the ensuing chaos and darkness of the blackout. And you're not supposed to be driving, but obviously it's hard to get an entire city to stop driving, especially if people aren't home when this happens. I know one car got hit a milk truck or something that was driven by a woman, and that driver, I believe, died. Both of them were driving around with their lights off because they were supposed to be driving around with their lights off. But driving around in the dark with your lights off in L.A., not great. There were no street lights. Additionally, two people died of heart attacks attributed to the stress and excitement of the hour-long action. And one of those guys I read in the Los Angeles Times was transporting ammunition to – he was a volunteer, I believe, taking it to a site. But he had a heart attack on the way. So it's important to note, though, that no enemy aircraft were reportedly ever recovered. Right. Also, even with all that anti-aircraft fire, as we said, it's not the most accurate means to bring an aircraft down, not like today. But it was effective often. And you would think something would have gotten hit. Even at Pearl Harbor, of course, there were Japanese planes that were brought down, even with that surprise attack. And then I looked to the chaos of it, and I'm reminded of 1941. Ned Beatty, I think he was – you're right. He was a volunteer that – or they placed an anti-aircraft, a AAA gun at his house. Remember, I think his wife was Lorraine Gray, and he took it upon himself to man it and caused some damage to his own house. Watch the film, folks. It gets panned a lot, but I thought it was fun. Anyway, it's just all a grim reminder, though, that just even a perceived threat can have real and devastating consequences. And then you have no physical evidence of any enemy attack, and then you've got a lot of questions and a demand for answers. 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Right, so you have a military response, which seems conflicting, but it wasn't just military. Who are some of the more important people speaking up about this? There was Frank Knox, who we mentioned a few times already. He was the Secretary of the Navy at the time. He's also one of the controversial figures behind the Japanese internment camps, which FDR wrote the order. I think it was order 9066 that kicked that off. But Frank Knox was associated with that. He was pretty quick to dismiss the whole thing. And as we said, just hours after it happened, on February 25th, he held a press conference and called it a, quote, false alarm caused by jittery nerves, end quote. And he was adamant that there was no evidence of enemy planes. And it's worth remembering also that Knox was part of Roosevelt's cabinet, and he had a background in supporting preparedness for the war. He also had, when he was younger, he rode with the Rough Riders, with Roosevelt. But he had also, I said, I read some quotes that said that he wasn't necessarily fully aligned with Roosevelt's policies. I don't think they were besties or anything. But again, I'm speculating there. So there you go. It's a firm stance of sorts from the Navy Secretary basically saying it was all in people's heads. But what does the Army have to say? Well, it's a bit more complicated. Initially, they didn't rush to a conclusion, but then Secretary of War Henry Stimson announced the War Department's belief that there might have been from one to five unidentified aircraft over Los Angeles. He even proposed some theories like they could have been commercial planes, as I said a few minutes ago, flown by enemy agents from secret airfields in California. And again, that would be down on the Baja Peninsula or Mexico or light planes launched from Japanese submarines. He later seemed to back away from that a bit, though. But I can't remember who, some of the research that we did or one of the things I might have watched, and it could have even been the episode of History's Greatest Mysteries you were on. But I know at some point the U.S. was greatly concerned that there were a lot of airfields in Mexico that might be being used by the Japanese that had been built there by the Germans, I believe. Yeah, we know there was a heavy and historical German presence in Mexico, weirdly enough, which may, and I think does explain their love of the accordion. But like, no, Anaheim, California, it's Anaheim, Anna's home, it translates to. So very much a German influence, where you might not think it. It's a little far-fetched for me, planes launched from submarines. But okay, all right, so the Army— No, they did that, no, light aircraft, not a bunch. Yeah, I know, I know. Well, you know, there was an attack in Oregon, on the Oregon coast, from a Japanese pilot launched from a submarine in a seaplane and successfully deployed a balloon bomb. So that is happening. I don't know how that works, by the way. I don't know how the seaplane lives on the submarine, and the submarine goes underwater. I imagine you have to put it together. I feel like I've seen that before, but I can't remember it anymore. I'm envisioning an ultralight. I'm not very aware of that, I got to admit, but that's not off the coast of Seattle, though. You're right, you're talking about coast of Oregon? Oregon, yeah. Okay, because that makes me think of the Fugo balloons. But we'll mention that a little bit later here. Yes. My point being, though, in this case, it seems a little far-fetched. Not the mechanics of that, but what was seen. Yes. And as far as me thinking that an ultralight aircraft is flying around, and that's what people saw, and it was undamaged by all that AAA fire. So, okay. Anyway, at least the Army, I guess, is considering the possibility of actual aircraft. And that is in contrast to the Navy's complete dismissal. Meanwhile, George C. Marshall, who is the Army Chief of Staff at the time, sends a memo to President Roosevelt about the incident. And the general understanding at the time was that airplanes may or may not have been involved, possibly commercial ones moving at slow speeds. Quick aside on that. The speeds I heard described or read about were so slow, I don't think they were describing aircraft in that sense. Or moving fast, up to people estimated 200 miles an hour. So, but okay. May or may not, I'll go with that. And then, you know, possibly commercial ones, maybe. Then there are some later documents, ones that are highly disputed, of course, because they're linked to Majestic 12 and all that UFO conspiracy hullabaloo. And, you know, one of these supposed documents that came out of the Majestic 12, MJ-12, our UFO fans out there will know what that is. And the Marshall-Roosevelt memo, it's called, claimed Marshall told Roosevelt that the, quote, mystery airplanes are, in fact, not earthly and probably of interplanetary origin. End quote. It's really important to know, though, that these Majestic 12 documents, well, they've been discredited by many. And the FBI concludes they were fake. But the more as the years pass and I see what goes on in the news and what really happened in real life, I believe less and less of these official statements. I'll just do a little personal note here. Yeah, but this stuff is, I mean, it's coming up here. I mean, some of these details are pretty convincing, including like a photocopied signature. With the same exact marks on it and errors and stuff. No, no, here's the thing. Yeah, not that we're going to explain what the Majestic 12, that secret group of higher-up muckety-mucks involved in secret UFO knowledge, a bit of a cabal there. You know, what they were, but those documents were delivered anonymously. They hit the public. And then from that point on, of course, they basically just admit the existence of extraterrestrials and non-earthly craft as being real. And even folks like Stanton T. Freeman, the famed physicist who's been heavily lauded, and he thought they were real. And then, you know, like I said, once you stand behind something, it's like, oh, I like that guy, but he believes that was real. Now he's an idiot. Yeah, see, I don't feel that way because I have great reverence for Stanton Friedman, but I do feel like he was wrong about those being real. Well, there you go. That's what I'm saying. That's only based on the research I've done. But I'm not discounting him because of that. Right. I think he just, you know, I think any people can get tricked by things, but. Right. But you're. You know, because the guy that had created him had purportedly said, no, I'm going, he had told somebody else, I think it was Tim Cooper or something. I said, I'm going to do this. I'm making a plan to do this so I can force the hand of other people or I can get whistleblowers to come out. But basically that was the plan was to create convincing documents to flush people out. Yeah. Okay. Well, not to get into a debate about the veracity. My point being is that there are people that I think are highly respected that at least, you know, people that I respect as well that are on both sides of that argument as being, well, because you can always go back like, well, that's what they want you to think. Or he was forced to think that. And it's like, okay, well, let's just say in this case, though, this document here, you know, is making a claim that's been highly debated, but I rarely, well, I won't go out on a limb here. Either way, like I said, I'm just saying like, oh, totally debunked or totally accurate. I don't know. But there you go. But the FBI coming out, well, again, after Roswell, it's like just what was officially stated there as the party line. And then even into, as recently as just a few years ago, the Air Force coming out, it's like, okay, it's still silly. That explanation still stinks. Yeah. You're not making me think you're any more credible about all this, so. Well, one of the other explanations that Representative Leland Ford of Santa Monica put forth, because he was not satisfied with what was coming out of the Army or the Navy, he called for a congressional investigation. That was his quote at the top of the show tonight. He said the whole thing was a, quote, complete mystification, end quote, and even speculated about a few possibilities himself, like it being a practice raid, a scare tactic, a case of mistaken identity, or even a way, more importantly, to justify moving war industries out of Southern California because they're too vulnerable on the West Coast to Japanese attack. Right. So now we're on to the conspiracy angle here. Yeah, well, in his case, I think, but he also, he represented Santa Monica in the California's Congress, not, he wasn't a state representative for the, in D.C., but, you know, he had to look out for his constituents. And there were, I guess, you know, I'm sure he had concerns about the local economy, but people are, everybody's got a lot to say about things like this, and a big event like this happens, and it happens even today. But these eyewitness accounts, they're all over the place. Some people said they saw nothing, others reported balloons, and you had those who were convinced to saw a plane, saw a single slow-moving object in the searchlights. That adds to confusion. The media coverage reflects that. Some news outlets were suspicious. The Long Beach Independent even wrote an editorial talking about a mysterious reticence and hinting at a possible cover-up. And as we said, Ernie Pyle and Buck Henry both said they didn't see any airplanes that night. So you get this mix of official statements and skepticism and varied accounts. I love Ernie Pyle, love Buck Henry. Yeah. But it's people, it just kind of rings of like when people write us, actually, many times saying like, you know, I've been hunting out in the woods for 50 years, and I've never seen a Bigfoot, so this is baloney. Right, right. It's like, well, okay, well, you haven't seen one. Yeah. But, you know, it's like, I was there in L.A., and I didn't see anything. Well, I also believe Dave, who's one of the guys, the kids in the hall, Dave? Foley. Dave Foley. Yes. Claims that he saw a UFO in L.A., I think just like last year, within two years, in the middle of the day. A lot of people saw it, and then people were, you know, he posted it. I saw him the other night in New York, and I wanted to go up to him. You should have asked him. And ask him. I didn't get a chance to get near him. Well, now he's a believer. I know. So, anyway, now we're talking about a lot of people, we're talking about possible plane attacks, and just sabotage in general, and one of the more persistent theories that keeps coming up is that it wasn't enemy aircraft at all, but maybe what it is by now, weather balloons, okay? So, this is five years prior to Roswell, and balloons are just, hey, they're the sandhill cranes of the sky. Yeah, and hey, we just had some Chinese balloons not two years ago, not even, and that's a thing. It's a thing. Now, okay, case in point, they just, this is just a few weeks ago, it's like, okay, what was all that hullabaloo? The hundreds of reports, like, well, those were all FAA scheduled things, like, that's it? After all that, like, that's it? Oh, yeah, the drones, the drones in New Jersey, yeah. So, the FAA, which is, you know, it's a government agency, or quasi-government agency, or whatever, like, after months, a year, you're finally saying, like, oh, yeah, that was us. Yeah. You could have said that earlier, you think? Yeah. I don't know. So, again, that just smells bad to me. So, well, there you go. The theory goes that these meteorological balloons, which were known to have been released over LA that night, which is a fact, that people have come forward from different units and said, no, we were doing that, that these triggered the initial radar alarm, as we said earlier. Now, these balloons are actually crucial for the war effort, as coastal artillery units constantly use them to gather data on things like airspeed, precipitation, atmospheric conditions to improve the accuracy of their guns. And some of the balloons even had a small candle and a glass jar underneath them with a silvery skin to help track them to up to 25,000 feet, so they could see where they are. Now, here's an interesting little aside. Do you remember Soviet officer Stanislav Petrov? A lot of people don't know this story, but World War III almost happened as it has. There's more than a few times, and I think they don't publicize these very much just because people would freak out. I think there's a good PBS documentary. I don't know if it was NOVA. Somebody, it was on PBS about the whole ordeal and just how close we were to a full nuclear strike here. However, Stanislav Petrov was the guy who didn't push the button when the Soviet missile warning system said the U.S. had launched an attack, and this is back in 1983. If he went with protocol, he should have followed those orders and launched his missiles, but he didn't, so he's going against protocol, right? Yeah, so he had a gut feeling that it was a false alarm, and he chose to wait for confirmation, potentially saving the world from a nuclear war. Now, so we have some parallels here with this guy and Colonel Ray Watson during the Battle of L.A. That's right. So you remind us all, what did Colonel Watson do? Well, he was commanding a battery, and they were firing at all these things in the sky, but he apparently saw weather balloons that he thought his own unit or nearby units had launched, and he was like, don't fire. These are our balloons. Right. He knew what they were. So that's the story, but here's the crazy part. The high command ordered him to shoot them down anyway. All right, so now Colonel Watson, he's in a similar position in a way to Petrov, and then, well, without the thermonuclear war. But you look at something that seems like a threat in this case. Other people are saying it's a threat. He can see what it really is. They think it's a threat, but he goes against the immediate reaction. So Petrov saw missile launches on his screen, but doubted it. His instincts told him that's not what was happening because there weren't enough incoming missiles. Watson saw targets in the sky, but believed they were harmless. Now, the big difference is Petrov disobeyed orders by not acting, and Watson seems to have disobeyed an order to act. Right, and tell them what happened to Watson. Watson was immediately relieved of his duty. That's right. Well, so both men make judgment calls under men's pressure based on their assessment of the situation, but that's what you're supposed to do as an officer here. Petrov's inaction had potentially huge positive consequences, and Watson's inaction, based on his belief, led him to being punished for actually, well, you don't know. So I was reminded of General Patton, who said that any action is better than no action. Yes. But, again, this seems like common sense. But, you know, here's my question. So if it's all just balloons, why did so many people claim to see non-balloon objects? And then why was this firing so intense and prolonged? Well, yeah, and that's the question. Over 1,400 rounds are fired at something as flimsy as a few weather balloons without hitting anything, which there's no talk of balloon debris, by the way, in any of this story. Also, eyewitnesses describe seeing an object, sometimes multiple objects, that seem much larger than a typical weather balloon, like you said, a blimp, and in some accounts even maneuvering slowly. And some even describe the objects as being silvery. Now, plus, there's theories about the other types of balloons being in the air that night, like children's balloons with foil streamers for radar testings. A lot of historians are saying, well, once the firing started, imagination created all kinds of targets, and everybody joined in. And the meteorological balloon theory offers a plausible explanation for the initial radar blip and the slow-moving targets. But it doesn't fully account for the intensity and duration of the battle and the other diverse eyewitness accounts. Specifically, in the 1960s, a former air defense artillery crewman claimed that his units, decades earlier, they used children's balloons filled with hydrogen, and they had foil streamers or wires. It would create a radar return because, well, a lot cheaper than aircraft. And also, there was no aircraft available. Well, that's true. Yeah. So, no aircraft available for testing, but also a lot easier to do, and it was effective. In the case of radar detection, the toy balloons filled with hydrogen and foil dangling down, they could be, yeah, it's basically something for the radar to ping off of and just enough. It's still new technology. Everybody's still training. You know, can we get this figured out? Right. And so, as the night progresses there and there's a change in wind direction, specifically in this case, an onshore breeze, it pushes these balloons back towards the city. And is that what they were mistaking here? So, it's theorized that these radar returns were from the toy balloons along with actual weather balloons, so a multitude of different types of balloons. And then all that may have contributed to the confusion, thus leading the city of L.A. to believe it was under attack. And so, you could see how these could be interpreted as approaching enemy aircraft. And I don't know if you have it in your notes, Scott, but I think there was a report that I had read there because you do wonder then why weren't they taken down by exploding flak shells, anti-aircraft shells. And there was, I believe, one report of one or more balloons making it pass through all that. Right. And surviving the barrage. Yeah, so I had read that. It's like, so, because I was wondering that. It's like, well, is that possible that they would not just get popped? It's like, no, there was at least one report I read where one did make it, so it's possible. Yeah. But is it likely? Astonishing Legends is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible. Financial geniuses. Monetary magicians. These are things that people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Because Progressive offers discounts for paying in full, owning a home, and more. 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Made with no artificial ingredients or fillers, just something that tastes good and works the way it's supposed to. So if you're in the mood for something truly craveable and nutritious, try any of Aloha's protein bars. Grab one at your local grocery store or head to aloha.com. I'm Elijah Hershey, and I'm in Salem, Massachusetts on Halloween night. And when I'm not searching for thin places or giving psychic readings, I'm listening to Astonishing Legends. Now let's get back to the show. Well, let's talk a little bit about some of the theories about what may have happened here. One of the first things is, and this comes back to, it seems like every time we cover some kind of astonishing legend that involves a large group of people, we can't get through it without talking about mass hysteria. But if there ever was a condition or a case for this, like when we look at the big picture here and we look at the idea that Pearl Harbor has just happened, there was an attack the night before just up the beach, boats are being sunk in the Pacific, there's submarines out there, we're being pulled into the war, what's going on? And then you have Los Angeles, home of all these defense construction companies and military industrial complex. There's a lot of vulnerability there. It's right on the Pacific coast. You can definitely see where there would be a paranoia. And you can see it's like anything, where any tense situation, we've all seen Quentin Tarantino movies, a bunch of people standing around with guns pointed at each other. All it takes is somebody dropping a pin on the floor and suddenly everybody's firing at everyone. And I know those are movies, but those are true events. It's a hair trigger event when you get lots of people in proximity and lots of people are uptight and nervous. And so maybe it doesn't take much to make an entire city go crazy, both the civilians and the military response. I mean, what do you think? Yeah. Well, you know how I feel. I've talked about it many times since we've done the Enfield Monster and really looked at that because, again, that old chestnut kept coming up and we finally had to address it. And I was reading so much about it, like, okay, is this really a thing that's accurate to talk about? Because I understand from the, just the human behavior aspect, it's an easy old chestnut to throw around because it explains so much. It's like all these cliches now that we come across, again, that we've just mentioned, Occam's razor, mass hysteria. Is that even accurate? And as we look at that, the framework and the definitions and the modalities, I don't know, I just, I hate throwing that word around. Actually, I like, it makes you sound smart. You start wondering, is that really applicable to what we're talking about here? And I don't think it is because as we looked at it, like you're going to equate this with the mad gasser of Mattoon or the Seattle windshield pitting incident. What was it, 1954 or something? I'm not making this stuff up, folks. These things really happen. It doesn't really fit where you're describing, like the mad gasser, like something similar, or even Spring Hill Jack. It's like, okay, it's, take any of these things. Like the whole town talking about, what was the winged creature that had the light in its chest or the light coming out of, no, it had a light coming out of its forehead. The Van Meter monster? That's right. It's like, is that mass hysteria? Is that town all wound up on jittery war nerves? And then, you know, well, no, as far as we've looked at it, that model, and again, I believe I've thought about this so much. It's Daniel Miller, I believe the sociologist who convinced me, and it's one of those perhaps rare and delightful opportunities where you read something. It's like, okay, that makes sense to me. Like, I'm going to go with that from here on out. And that his argument was that in the 1930s, there was the idea of social contagion, which you could apply here. And also, this is also applied to War of the Worlds, which is also applied to this case here. It's like, oh, it's Orson Welles, and people are wound up, and they're killing each other. Cats and dogs sleeping together. They're burning down buildings. It's like, that's a little exaggerated. All that was exaggerated, by the way. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. They recently have been talking about how none of that was really happening. People were freaked out, but all the other stuff was made up. However, in Quinto, Ecuador, people did hear that on the radio, got really mad, and did burn down the radio station and killed like 11 people. Okay, so people do, yes, they do get mad. That's more of a, people don't like to be fooled. But in this case, does this fit? It's like, well, no. I think because of the differences of what people are seeing. Also, this doesn't fit mass hysteria in that Daniel Miller's argument is that when something like this happens, there are specific patterns of collective behavior. So that's kind of more what he called it, kind of a collective action and behavior in that more to ongoing threats of, like, people keep seeing this monster. What do they do? Well, they get pitchforks together. The police have to come in. It's like, we're going to track the monster down. We're going to solve this mystery together because we're not getting any answers from the authorities here. And, yeah, you have some of that, but it doesn't apply here in that it's just one night and people are wound up. But I think to something, an off comment you made earlier, which is one of my main points here, is that somebody saw something. People actually saw something. You could apply that to the Phoenix Lights. It's like, no, people saw this. They took photos of it. They took video of it. Kurt Russell saw it, speaking of Tarantino. So people saw something, and they all, in that case, though, they all described something very similar, okay? It's a chevron-shaped kind of thing with evenly spaced lights. And what do you hear? Oh, it's military aircraft dropping flares as the official thing. Another time we get a bogus, silly answer for these things. It's like, that's all they got. That's it. We got flares. We got balloons, and we got balloons tied to flares, and flares tied to balloons, and flares and balloons tied to sandhill cranes. That's what we got. And that's the best we can do. In this case, though, yeah, it doesn't really fit any of this mass hysteria for me, because even the word hysteria is outdated. Yeah. Okay? So that's not even, I think, appropriate on several levels. But the idea here that, yeah, something could have triggered that, but I think it was more than nothing, and I think it was more than just balloons. All right, so what about the idea that whatever it was that people were seeing was a collective illusion based on all of the smoke and the light just landing on the smoke from the searchlights and maybe the occasional balloon. And then that's it. You want to get to my woo theories, or let's start leaning that way? Yeah, and start leaning into them. Okay, I'll just dabble here. A little dab of happy trees and the joy of painting with Bob Ross. Dabbling with my broad brush. I think it's very apropos here. When you talk about people seeing different things, now I can connect that to, not that I believe in this, but you can talk about more sophisticated concepts of UAP. And again, you don't have to say aliens. You could say phenomena. You could say craft. But something like the Merkaba UFO concept of a craft that is malleable, we often hear of people seeing a singular craft or some large craft that starts to morph or blob off into a bunch of smaller ones. And then come back and combine again into something that's larger but a different shape or changing shape or changing colors or just like plasmic gas that is seen by different people as different things. And that's such a common thing that keeps coming back. So when you say, well, it could be just the smoke, it's like, yeah, but, you know, I mean, a lot of people have seen smoke in the sky. And by now you have a lot of military people like, yeah, we weren't up to our military tactical snuff at this early stage in the war. But there's a lot of seasoned military people, people who, veterans who'd been to World War I and had seen artillery fire and flack and even some early aircraft in the sky. So I think for that many people, especially trained observers, as we say, military people who claim to have seen aircraft and different things, there could be a bunch of various things flying in the sky that people saw that were all there. And, of course, there's going to be mistaken identity of stuff. People, I don't know if they're actually seeing Venus and reporting that as something that's traveling over the sky. But, again, going back to what's compelling is the speeds, okay, aircraft, winged fixed aircraft do not fly very slowly, as was reported, and then shoot up to 200 miles an hour, one or the other. Balloons, as far as I know, do not travel that quickly at 200 miles per hour. Now, that's not to say that the technology of these days with lighter-than-air craft that they're developing that are maybe of extraterrestrial origin and development, that those can't fly at tremendous speeds and make crazy right-turn angles. But 1942, I don't think so. No, and we didn't have jets. They were coming along towards the end of 42 for us, I believe. Right, and as far as I know, nobody reported a noise with these things. Yeah, that's true. Now, they did report, again, they did say aircraft, but not specifically, I heard, like, because if you've ever been to, well, Memorial Day, if you've seen World War II aircraft fly over, they have a very distinct, loud noise to them. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I've been to air shows. Right, right. For sure. It's really hard to say, but it's just very intriguing and compelling to me that so many people saw such different things. Now, if we have time at the end here, I'll read an account by an eyewitness who saw it very clearly, but is this what everyone was seeing? I'm not sure. Okay, now, let's consider then, what if they really did see nothing? Was this just a convergence of high-powered arc light, Klieg lights, all converging and making a spot there on maybe some smoke? Well, would that create the illusion of a triangle-shaped craft? You know, as you're talking about here, the only things visible in the sky were the searchlights that were illuminated. There's nothing else there. So then you have drifting smoke from anti-aircraft shell bursts. Well, as some of the Wikipedia notes here, quote, anti-aircraft shell bursts caught by the searchlights were themselves mistaken for enemy planes. The Battle of L.A. transcript also points out that the only thing that anyone could see was whatever the searchlight struck, which was smoke from AAA bursts. Okay, does that make sense? Because now it's the cart before the donkey. So what you're saying is that they fired the anti-aircraft shells at nothing, saw nothing, and then when the searchlights hit it, then they saw something. Right. Seems a little out of order to me. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Like somebody said they saw something, then they start firing, and then you have the lights, and then they actually saw something when before they saw nothing and fired at it. Right. Not making sense to me. I mean, I get the concept, is that people got spooked, they thought they saw something, you start firing, then you put the searchlights on it, then you think you see something that's just illuminated smoke. Doesn't carry a lot of water for me. I don't know, man. It's like, I hear you, and I don't want to directly debate. I know. I'm not calling you out or anything. But I can see panicky over firing, and then, and if the firing is creating a ton of smoke, and the lights are landing on the smoke, I can see people mistakenly thinking that there might be some kind of object there. Yeah, but you see my point, though. What started the firing? Was it a balloon, and then you start the firing, and then you have the searchlights, like, a long time later, and then you have no balloons left, you just have smoke, and then, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, that's a good, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a bit of a stretch. So what I'm saying is that, so you have this panic, and people are seeing, what, nothing then? Or there's no balloons. Right. Or they're seeing balloons. I think the searchlights come on pretty quick after, you know, once the, and maybe precedes the firing in a lot of the cases. So, I don't know, not making a lot of sense that it's just smoke. The other thing I'm wondering, and it's not clear, by the way, is where Buck Henry was, where Ernie Pyle was, because for people that don't know Los Angeles or haven't lived there, all the spotlights that were converged, I guess that was Santa Monica, I believe, or it was near the coast there. If you were downtown, because folks were talking about being on the roof of a building downtown, that is a long way from Santa Monica, just for the record. It's a long way. You wouldn't be able to make out something in the clouds at the beach from the top of a building downtown without a high-powered telescope or something. You'll hear it. It'll be flashing. When folks are like, to your earlier point about like, oh, well, just because they were there and they didn't see something, where were all these folks? Like, no one's talking about that, and that's one of the things where it's like, when you start to assess what really happened here, and, you know, we've talked about this in the past, the whole idea of peer-reviewed papers, and if you get really scientific about this, like, well, where were these people standing? How close were they to where this convergence of spotlights was? Why do we only have that one picture, also, of the spotlights? If it was a whole hour of things going on that night, I wish there was more photographic evidence of any kind, besides just the one photo. Yeah, but you're lucky to get that, okay? Because we could be debating this, and there's no photos, and then it's, you know, then you're going off eyewitness testimony, and then, of course, a lot of people have problems with that. I understand. But here's the thing, how, also, when you're talking about statements people have taken, you know, the Wikipedia excerpt, one of them mentions that the commander, the acting commander of the anti-aircraft battery brigade, who, quote, had first been convinced that he had seen 15 planes in the air, but then had quickly decided that he was seeing smoke. Okay, I would relieve that guy of his command. It's like, okay, now, was there pressure for him to say that? Maybe, you know, because it's very embarrassing that you're shooting at nothing, causing damage, and you can't tell a balloon from 15 planes or nothing from 15 planes. You know, if you make that kind of mistake during wartime, people are going to get killed, a lot of them. So, and at the same time, the, quote, Saturday night euphoria, end quote, that's a blog, that article quotes Minard Fawcett as saying that he and his wife were initially certain they saw planes, but later decided the smoke clads that confused us. What we saw were merely puffs of smoke from the shells. Now, okay, I don't know Minard and his wife if they're trained observers, but that commander of the AAA battery brigade should know better. Right, right. They train to look spot aircraft, especially for anti-aircraft. Like, what's their silhouette looks like? You've seen that in the movies, right? They have silhouettes. It's like, what is that? That's a Tempest. That's a Harlequin. That's a Mosquito. You know, you get trained to learn what they look like because they don't want you making mistakes and shooting down civilian aircraft. Or puffs of smoke. You're wasting shells. All right, well, let's get down to what the actual quotes were. Same article, Saturday Night Euphoria, and the denials that any U.S. aircraft were there. Well, this was the official stance from the military, and this is for people who were wondering if this was maybe friendly fryer or some kind of practice, which, you know, the thing about these practices is they, at least nowadays, they always tell you when it's happening. And it doesn't seem like a good idea to freak out a bunch of civilians in Los Angeles. But there were questions, especially when you had the Army and the Navy completely disagreeing about what was going on, which is one of the more embarrassing parts of this for the U.S. government. They're like, wait a minute. The Navy is saying this and the Army is saying that. Why can't they come to the same point on it? It's indicative of confusion. But the official stance from the military was a denial that any U.S. aircraft were involved that night. And again, this comes from a blog entry at Saturday Night Euphoria that quotes General John DeWitt, who is one of the major players here. He was in charge of the area's defenses. He was stated definitively in a telephone report to Washington, quote, And similarly, the Battle of Los Angeles transcript notes that the Secretary of Navy, who we mentioned earlier, Frank Knox, also announced there were no planes in the skies over Los Angeles. So that takes the planes out of the equation from anywhere at the time. Well, any of our planes, yeah. And then I think it's also very unlikely that they are enemy combatant planes or absconded with civilian aircraft flown by Japanese or German pilots or what have you. Some secret base. If they are Japanese planes, there's no carriers in the area. Again, if you're talking about 15 planes, well, here's, look, there's a quote here. Let me see here. Talking about trained military personnel and eyewitness testimony here. This is from the Battle of Los Angeles, Fear, Mystery, and World War II. There are transcript notes that, quote, report of seeing these planes, 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 they see a single aircraft. And so are these planes, and again, I'm jumping way ahead in our sophistication scale here. But remember, somebody reported from Terry Lovelace's book, seeing what they thought was, and this was like a pilot, I think, and a commercial pilot, seeing something that was, that looked like a 727, but only half of it. Yeah. And it was like, oh, there's only half of it. And so it's that weird doppelganger craft kind of phenomena or people seeing like a black helicopter, but there's no rotor. Right. But it's shaped just like a, like a Bell jet ranger or something that noticeable and recognizable like a regular civilian aircraft. Yeah. But there's no sound. There's no propulsion. It's like, what's going on? It's mimicking something else. So there may be a mimicking kind of thing going on here or shape changing kind of thing going on here. But I tend to believe when, when these military personnel say, and again, going back to them being trained observers saying that, well, there's some aircraft in some formation and there's more than one. Yeah. That there's something to that, not just, I'm sorry, that was smoke. Not buying it. Well, talk about the iconic photograph, if you will. That's the question. That's the picture that everyone has probably seen or doesn't realize you've seen. And also it was recreated for a movie about the Battle of Los Angeles that came out a few years ago, or maybe it was a decade ago now. I'm not sure. The one for the movie got mixed in with the real one. So there's some confusion there because they're, they're very similar. But this picture that we've been mentioning, that's connected to the Los Angeles Times, that's the one that folks determined, well, okay, the contrast has been enhanced on it. But that was because that was what you had to do at the time with the black and white photo, because by the time it made it into newsprint, it was going to get washed out. So yes, the contrast is enhanced, but you see this collection of beams that seem to be centered on some kind of object in the sky. So the question is, what are the origins of this picture? What is the history of this picture? And there's been some discussions about it on, I wanted to find the actual piece and I cannot find it anywhere. It was 2015 episode of UFOs Declassified that had an archivist on there who did some work suggesting that the negative of the photo was not a negative that would have been used by the photographers at the LA Times. So it was implying that there was some dubious source in terms of the image, like who took the picture. Right. So as we said at the top, there is a story behind just the photograph itself, regardless of the incident. And this comes from, it's not that far, because I think we did an initial search, couldn't find much. And then I just happened to trip upon this website we've talked about many times before, bibliotecapleides.net. And a lot of great paranormal-themed articles in here from years ago. And this one happens to be one. But Dr. Bruce McAbee did an analysis of the photo. And it's a little bit too long to kind of go through the whole thing here. But we can give you some highlights. So the date of the photo is from February 25th, 1942, as we said. This photographic print was obtained by Frank Warren. Yes. Now, he's the publisher and the editor of the UFO Chronicles. Right. I believe to this day. So as far as I can tell here, that negative, he found it in the original archives at UCLA. And so that's what you have to get to the source of. And then, so what we can do now is that you can enhance that. You can digitally kind of filter it. So when you do that, though, you have some enhanced versions of this same print from the negative or digital print. And you can put it in negative. You can kind of see that. And then you can more easily trace the beams of light. And you'll see basically around the object, you can see, which is at the center or apex, I guess, of the searchlight triangulation here. There are orbs. Now, those are believed to be exploding anti-aircraft shells. And as Dr. McAbee explains here, when you're talking about relative image brightness, it's necessary to, you first have to scan the original negative. Then you adjust the gamma, which is the relationship between the film image density and about the light, which made the image. And you want to try to match that at the time of development or the instance. So, but they may have pushed the film to a higher gamma to get faint images is what Scott was talking about when you go to print the newspapers here. So it gives you an idea of the shape of this object in there and which people have described as a butterfly kind of looking thing or lantern. And what Dr. McAbee is saying is that it may be oversaturated. So as I said at the beginning of the show is that you don't have very fast film stocks in this era and you don't know the F stop of the LEDs. A lot of people, you know, we take so many digital photos. People don't really remember, you know, old chemical film cameras with aperture stops like F2, F16 and so forth. And so it would have to be pretty wide open to get that much light into the lens. What he's saying is that this exposure could have been taking place for a long time, several seconds perhaps to gather that much light. And so what you're seeing now is now this activity not happening at once. You know what I'm saying? Is that if anybody's played around with their, with their iPhone with a long exposure on an old camera would be B for bulb. I think is that it's just wide open. That's how people get those starry night pictures where the stars are at a spiral or streamed or streaking is that the earth is moving, rotating as the stars are stationary. And so as the image is captured, you're getting a streak. And so what he's suggesting here is that these actions of the explosions and the craft and the lights were probably pretty stationary to get a long exposure going. So that all these actions are not happening at once. And so another thing that he notices is that whatever this thing is, when you see a clear version of this photo is that the beams of light are not getting past the object. Whatever this is, if it's smoke, you would expect that some light would still pass through it. Smoke is not that dense or opaque. It's basically you're, you're having light reflecting off the particles of smoke. So what he's saying is that at this beam convergence, whatever this thing was, it must've been optically quite dense. If there was a lot of smoke swirling around the volume of air limited by the beams, I would expect to see variations in beam brightness in parentheses, brighter where there was smoke. You're not really seeing that. Yeah. There are variations, but they are uniform and agree with the distance from the searchlight and width of the beam. That is the variations are consistent with each beam getting dimmer as it travels away from the searchlight. So that tracks and doesn't suggest that those were painted in or Photoshopped. Right. Literally backed in with a brush and paint. Going on, if there were smoke within any beam, it should cause an increase in scattered light where there is smoke in parentheses, which is how we see the beams anyway. Light bounced or scattered from dust or smoke particles in the air. The beams are quite bright before they reach the object and zero or nearly zero afterwards. Just how much optical density of smoke this requires, I do not know. However, certainly a solid metallic object would be sufficient to block the beams. So that's interesting. What he's saying is that there's something there. It's not just a convergence of light onto smoke. From what he can tell by analyzing this photo at a much better resolution from the original negative. Right. And then basically he goes on to do some calculations. He says that if you knew the focal length of the camera and the distance of the camera from the beam and then the convergence of the lights with the landscape, you could approximate the size of this object. This requires knowing what portion of the city the object was over, where the cameraman was, and the altitude of the object. What you could also do is an alternative method is you estimate the diameter of the spotlight beam at some distance from the spotlight and use that width as a reference size. So somebody in the 1940s, Dr. Louis Elterman, had done a study of army searchlights in the upper atmosphere to determine vertical distribution of dust. Here's an interesting note about Dr. Elterman. He was the author of the infamous Project Twinkle Report in November 1951, which ignored or covered up, at the very least misrepresented, the White Sands movie film that proved unidentified objects were flying around. So just coincidentally, he happens to debunk UFOs at some later time here. Well, Scott, I think you have some calculations of estimation of the size and diameter of the object. But this article by Maccabee goes on to, he's saying one estimate of the height of the object was 8,000 feet. And he goes on to say, for a 30 degree slant angle of the beam from the ground level up to 8,000 feet, the distance along the beam would be about 8,000. And there's some calculations here. So then the beam diameter at that height would have been about 165 feet. And the horizontal width of the object would have been about 330 feet. Right. So that's one calculation in that it's pretty large, 330 feet across, depending on some variations, as we said here. So, yeah. Yeah. And the other thing too, by the way, Forrest, is just the idea of all these beams converging on something. I just want to say, like, of course, you know, I guess the people that are operating the lights, the Klieg lights, can see when more than one gets pointed at whatever's in the sky from different parts all over town. But it's obviously very coordinated, and it feels like that the light operators all have a target in mind. That's a great point. Yeah. Yeah. Because, I mean, you've got to think of it like a teepee, because that's what these beams look like. If you're building your teepee, right, and you're putting up the logs, and you need them all to converge at the top, then you're down at the bottom figuring out where that convergence point is. And this is a giant teepee. These things are miles and miles apart, but they're all converging. It makes you think that the operators are seeing something specific in that space. Yes. And to this point here, and I probably didn't explain, I'm pretty sure I would bet $100 I didn't explain it very well. Well, I just want to say here, Dr. McAbee ends his, at least this portion of his report, quote, without more solid information to go on, this has to be no more than a WAG, wild rear-end guess, W-A-G. But I bet it's close to right. So he's saying, based on the amount of calculations and realizing that a much better estimate could be made if we had more accurate information on the spotlights, camera, et cetera, I would hazard a guess that the width of the eliminated, quote-unquote, object is on the order of 100 feet or more in size. So let's go with that. Let's be conservative, say 100 feet across, pretty big still. And what he was saying about a long exposure is that all those spotlights converged on one thing. And what has to be a longer exposure of the camera, and there's no smearing, is that that thing is stationary. Right. So if it's a balloon and there's winds and it floated in from over the ocean or whatever, and it's going inland at even a slow speed or a fast speed, in this photo, it does not appear to me to be moving at all. Right. Neither are the beams. Whatever this thing is, it's 100 feet across, it's stationary, and they all locked in on it. Right. And they're all still firing at it to no effect. Because then what you're seeing are the bursts there, which there's still no determination, I think, or confirmation that those orbs that you're seeing in the photo are bursts of AAA fire. You're just seeing light orbs. They could be other craft. Who knows? Yeah. But we're going to assume, though, that those are bursts of artillery shells. So what we know then, or can estimate from this photo, is that they're all locked onto one thing, not a bunch of different things, not a formation of different things, but in those wide beams, one thing that is large and stationary, and they're all still firing at it, and nothing happened to it, whatever that was. If it's a 100-foot across balloon, I'm going to guess they would have hit it. Yeah. Well, speaking of this particular source and the mention that Frank Warren was the person who had acquired that, I wanted to read an excerpt from the UFO Chronicles, which is a website that Frank Warren runs and has run for years. And this is something that was posted in 2006, and it was written by C. Scott Littleton, a professor of anthropology emeritus from Occidental College, who was a very revered professor. He passed away in 2010. But he was an eyewitness to the Battle of Los Angeles, and he was living down in Hermosa Beach. And I just want to read this brief little section here from this posting on the UFO Chronicles, and we'll put a link to this website. This is a great website. If you like this kind of stuff, you should really check it out. There's tons and tons of fascinating stuff here. But this is from that particular post of the eyewitness account. 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 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. All right, so I'm going to scroll. You can read this post yourself if you want to go to it. We'll have a link to it, but I want to scroll down a little bit further here. So now he goes outside with his mom, and he's talking about being outside. This is the part that's more pertinent. 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, he's got in quotes, 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, 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. 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 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, he talked earlier in this about watching practice, 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 1,430 rounds, but this figure is probably way too low. Could the Japanese have come up with some secret weapon that deflected flack? The thought was scary to the max. Anyway, so it goes on after that, but that's an eyewitness account from this professor emeritus at Occidental College. He's a revered professor. As I said, he passed away in 2010, wrote many books. Well-educated man who recalls this particular incident from his childhood. He saw it from Hermosa Beach. Yeah, and so pay attention to what he described. This thing moved after being fired at, and it was a thing. Not a balloon, right? Right. And not conventional aircraft, and as I said earlier, as I thought, made no sound. So an interesting report. Now, does it mean UFO? No. But does it lead to, well, we did mention it earlier, so I don't feel bad, but the conspiracy theory angle. You know, that it was all an elaborate staged hoax. You know, the military higher-ups liked the idea of moving the military industrial complex of airplane manufacturing and other military manufacturing inland. Business leaders did not. They did this to say, like, look, it's vulnerable. These things are too close to the coast. We should move these to some place more favorable to our liking, and that being a reason is basically a red flag operation to get people excited, upset, and to justify action that was not being moved on. So, I mean, that's kind of in a nutshell, right, of the conspiracy angle in that it was not an object. It was just kind of manufactured hysteria. But what I'm saying or suggesting is that people actually did see something, and not maybe just one thing. I'd like to read an account now that I found on a website that we often go to, kind of a blog here, by Jeff Rense, R-E-N-S-E. We've talked about him, but not for a long time. But a lot of great articles on paranormal subjects and just kind of fascinating, cool stuff. This one's titled, Battle of Los Angeles, Photographic Comparison. And this is from an article by Frank Warren, who we just mentioned, from 2002. And it talks about the analysis of the photo here with a couple of pictures here, one from the L.A. Times from the microfilm and one from the original L.A. Times negative. And what you do see is that there's a tremendous difference in quality of photos. And in the one, it does look like a saucer-shaped lemon meringue pie with a little bit of a dollop of whipped cream on the top. Yes. That's kind of a flippant description. But with a sprinkled with orbs all around it. But it does look, I wouldn't say football shape, but it is kind of saucer-shaped from the side. With a little thing on the top, which is maybe not an orb, not orb shape. But Frank says at the top of this article, which is not the complete writing here, it just says, It has recently been suggested that picture, which appeared in the Los Angeles Times on February 26, 1942, that captured a disc-shaped object surrounded by exploding artillery shells, had been doctored in some manner. Below is a copy of a print of the photograph produced from the original negative, followed by a photocopy of the same, taking from existing available microfilm of the archives of the newspaper. And then he invites you to be the judge of the two. This part, though, is a short excerpt by Jeff Rantz titled, Katie Saw It All, with an eyewitness description. So Jeff goes on to write, Pay close attention to the convergence of the searchlights, and you will clearly see the shape of the visitor within the illuminated target area. It's a big item and seemed completely oblivious to the hundreds of AA shells bursting on and adjacent to it, which caused it no evident dismay. There were casualties, however, on the ground. At least six people died, as we said, as a direct result of the Army's attack on the UFO, which slowly and leisurely made its way down to and then over Long Beach before finally moving off and disappearing. In February 1942, Katie was a young, beautiful, and highly successful interior decorator and artist who worked with many of Hollywood's most glamorous celebrities and film industry luminaries. She lived on the west side of Los Angeles, not far from Santa Monica. With the outbreak of the war with Japan and the rising fear of a Japanese air attack or even invasion of the West Coast, thousands of residents volunteered for wartime duties on the home front. Katie volunteered to become an air raid warden, as did 12,000 other residents in the sprawling city of Los Angeles and surrounding communities. In the early morning hours of February 25th, Katie's phone rang. It was the air raid supervisor in her district notifying her of an alert and asking if she had seen the object in the sky very close to her home. She immediately walked to a window and looked up. Quote, With the city blacked out, Katie and hundreds of thousands of others were able to see the eerie visitor with spectacular clarity. Quote, It was a lovely pale orange and about the most beautiful thing you've ever seen. I could see it perfectly because it was very close. It was big. End quote. The U.S. Army anti-aircraft searchlights by this time had the object completely covered. Quote, She's talking about the fighter planes. They were shooting at it, but it didn't seem to matter. End quote. Katie is insistent about the use of planes in the attack on the object. The planes were apparently called off after several minutes and then the ground cannon opened up. Quote, It was like the 4th of July, but much louder. They were firing like crazy, but they couldn't touch it. End quote. The attack on the object lasted over half an hour before the visitor eventually disappeared from sight. Many eyewitnesses talked of numerous direct hits on the big craft, but no damage was seen done to it. Quote, I'll never forget what a magnificent sight it was. Just marvelous. And what a gorgeous color, said Katie. So that's interesting. There's claims of a lot of other people having seen this thing and this thing being hit by anti-aircraft fire and with no effect and it being colorful. Right. So what's interesting about this is when we look at the root of all the research and all the data around this, when you try to dig into it and you tell the story, the bulk of that comes from official accounts and people who were probably varying proximities and locations to whatever this object may or may not have been. And then the military accounts were like, oh, it was smoke. It was, you know, and the army and navy are disagreeing on what was there. And then later they're like, there were no planes in the sky. And then when you come down to eyewitness accounts like this, which a lot of people poo-poo and, you know, you and I have said in the past that we're actually not as quick to dismiss those as others are. It's easy to lean on that if you're a skeptical person or you're interested in debunking things and just be like, oh, it's eyewitness. Can't believe it. Can't believe it. Well, in this day and age with AI and everything else, you're not going to be able to believe anything. And in fact, the organic source is probably the one you're going to have better instincts about because digitally you're about to be easily fooled by just about anything. And I say that as I sit here with the very image that we're talking about inside of an AI app enhancing like they did in Blade Runner, which I thought would never come to pass. But I am enhancing it and I'm going to see what it looks like. I've already done it once and I can see the object in the light. So the next question becomes, did the LA Times put that in there or is there something really there? And, you know, you have to be careful about AI because it can make things up. But I feel like this is a clear example of the difference between what happens when you react to official military sources in these cases like Roswell or other cases that are similar. And when you just take a minute to read a couple of eyewitness accounts and think about what those folks are saying, the air raid warden and the professor from Occidental who both were eyewitnesses and the similarities between what they were saying they saw. And what do you think the government would say if this is what happened, if there was an object there, what would they say? Would they say, there's something there, we don't know what it was, we shot 1,400 rounds at it, it didn't hurt it and it flew away. Do you think they would say that three days after Pearl Harbor? Very good point. I mean, really. Yeah, right. Yeah. No, it's, and we've seen the same pattern with everything that they describe. Again, going back to Jesse Marcel, the information and intelligence officer at the base there, you know, at first saying in the initial military reports, the newspaper reports saying disc crashed at Roswell. And then later saying, no, no, no, it was a weather balloon. And then him being forced. And now I've watched a lot of docs afterwards. In fact, history's greatest mysteries has a good three-parter on the Jesse Marcel and Roswell incident. Like they go out in the field and it's fascinating, very well covered, very in depth. You know, when you see all that, it's like, yeah, it's obvious to me that he was told to change the story. You did not see these pieces. This was a weather balloon. Because again, that was an incursion onto, you know, at that time, the first and only base, strategic air command, SAC base, that had bombers with nuclear weapons on board. Which also rings true with a lot of UFO sightings over military installations and bases, especially nuclear ones. They're keeping an eye on us or they want to see what we're going to do with them and reign us in perhaps. But, you know, getting back to this, yeah, I think you're absolutely right. They're not going to say like, well, we don't know what it was, but there was something there and we shot it and there was no effect. And I hope it's not the Japanese because we're in trouble. Right. Yeah, they're not going to say that. And so you have a conflicting message. I think this is more genuine though with the initial reports that are coming out and why they're, again, I think it's interesting why they're all varied this much. But there being aircraft and then you have Katie here and people could say like, well, who is this Katie? We don't, I don't know. I haven't seen a picture of her. Do we have a track down? If you're not going to want to believe her, it doesn't matter if she proves herself to be real. If she's on camera saying this. Right. You know what I'm saying? The professor, if you're not going to want to believe them, you're not going to believe them. It doesn't matter who they are. That's right. It doesn't matter what their testimony is. It doesn't matter what photo you show them. So we can say that this, yeah, has no good provenance, this report here, this eyewitness testimony. But if it is true, it's detailed enough. And it's interesting that she mentions that fighter planes were scrambled to intercept this thing. And, uh, then were called off because there was no, uh, either there was no effect or they were shooting at it, or now they were in danger of getting hit themselves with friendly fire. It's interesting that she's, you know, she knows what aircraft were and the difference between that and what the object was because it was directly over her house near Santa Monica and, uh, and sought travel off and just how that corresponds with something else. So there you go. Uh, again, we weren't there, but you do have a photo of it and, uh, it looks like something's there. And so I'm going to say something was there. That's going to wrap up episode 305 of Astonishing Legends. The main show is dark next week, but we'll be back March 22nd, 2025 with the first of two weeks of shows in a row. Look for new episodes of the Dead Letter Office weekly on Tuesdays. Astonishing Legends is edited by Sarah Voorhees-Wendel at VW Sound. Our co-producer is Tess Feifel, who also leads our research efforts and manages our social media. And we're grateful for the hard work of our technical producer, Ed Vakola, behind the scenes. Special thanks to our announcer, John Bolin, for lending his voice to our shows. Hi, I'm Kratina. I'm Margaret Emma. This is with no implied promise of present or future compensation. And it is spelled H-E-R space S-H-E-Y. Our theme, which is available as a ringtone, was composed by Judson Crane at FounderMusic.com. All other music and sound design for the show is composed and created by Alan Caressia. Our logo was created by Tommy Beaver Design. And our animated graphics for social media and YouTube are done by Joshua Sloan at DeadStreetProductions.com. Many episodes have transcripts available. For ones that don't, you can request them by emailing transcripts at AstonishingLegends.com. Astonishing Legends would not be possible without you, our listeners. Visit our store at AstonishingLegends.com or interact with us and other listeners on Facebook, Instagram, Blue Sky, Discord, and YouTube. You can also visit us at Patreon.com slash AstonishingLegends, where patrons have access to commercial-free versions of both the main show and the Dead Letter office, as well as additional bonus content, including the Patreon-exclusive show, The Astonishing Junk Drawer. No part of this show may be reproduced anywhere without permission. Copyright Astonishing Legends Productions. Good night. Astonishing Legends is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible, financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are things that people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Because Progressive offers discounts for paying in full, owning a home, and more. Plus, you can count on their great customer service to help you when you need it. So your dollar goes a long way. 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