Battle of L.A. ~another UFO hoax

[Hazzard]

Ahhh, you have the same spell checker as I do.

Actually, I took the first one that popped up (on my phone) and it is the correct spelling... in Swedish.

[DONTEATUS]

THe real warriors that had WWII and even Nam time would mostlikely be asleep now ! If not in there coffin`s !

Do the Math !

[Kludge808]

THe real warriors that had WWII and even Nam time would mostlikely be asleep now ! If not in there coffin`s !

Do the Math !

*ahem* ...

[GoldenRabbit]

A photo published in the Los Angeles Times on February 26, 1942 has been cited by modern day conspiracy theorists and UFOlogists as evidence of an extraterrestrial visitation.

They assert that the photo clearly shows searchlights focused on an alien spaceship; however, the photo was heavily modified by photo retouching prior to publication, a routine practice in graphic arts of the time intended to improve contrast in black and white photos.

This seems to be always the case, we have this great evidence but.....

[lost_shaman]

Absolutely. Pearl Harbor had just been attacked and many on the West Coast thought they were next. You also had inexperienced gun directors and crews operating new technology that was just in its infancy. Frankly I'm surprised they weren't blasting away every single night.

The Gun Directors were computers not people. And they required a target being tracked in order to work. The crews couldnt just get "war nerves" and start blindly firing into the air!

[S2F]

The Gun Directors were computers not people. And they required a target being tracked in order to work. The crews couldnt just get "war nerves" and start blindly firing into the air!

Was there no way for manual control? I'm slightly dubious that the military would put soldiers in a position where they could not put rounds on a potential target due solely to a computer. That's a severe weakness to be exploited by an enemy in my opinion.

[lost_shaman]

Was there no way for manual control? I'm slightly dubious that the military would put soldiers in a position where they could not put rounds on a potential target due solely to a computer. That's a severe weakness to be exploited by an enemy in my opinion.

Hey s2f,

No. That type of AA rounds were never designed to work without the Directors. The guns themselves were aimed by two crew members who had wheel cranks and the directors turned two dials one for each crew member. One crew member controlled the angle of the gun by cranking his wheel until the dial being controlled buy the director reached a zero on the dial and he would crank his wheel which moved the gun to try and maintain a zero reading with the dial being controlled by the director. The other crew member seated on the opposite side of the gun did exactly the same thing but his crank controlled the direction the gun pointed. The director also determined how long the shell would travel through the air after being fired before it explodes. So when everything works the Shell will intersect the target and explode at just the right moment so the fragments destroy the aircraft being targeted.

[Professor Buzzkill]

Hey s2f,

No. That type of AA rounds were never designed to work without the Directors. The guns themselves were aimed by two crew members who had wheel cranks and the directors turned two dials one for each crew member. One crew member controlled the angle of the gun by cranking his wheel until the dial being controlled buy the director reached a zero on the dial and he would crank his wheel which moved the gun to try and maintain a zero reading with the dial being controlled by the director. The other crew member seated on the opposite side of the gun did exactly the same thing but his crank controlled the direction the gun pointed. The director also determined how long the shell would travel through the air after being fired before it explodes. So when everything works the Shell will intersect the target and explode at just the right moment so the fragments destroy the aircraft being targeted.

If this is true, then it's pretty clear that something solid was in the air that night.

Edited January 25, 2014 by Professor Buzzkill

[DBunker]

I remember when I was a kid and first heard of the Battle of LA. I remember thinking that FINALY we had real proof.... or as close as we could get without an actual crashed alien ship.

God damn it!!

[S2F]

Hey s2f,

No. That type of AA rounds were never designed to work without the Directors. The guns themselves were aimed by two crew members who had wheel cranks and the directors turned two dials one for each crew member. One crew member controlled the angle of the gun by cranking his wheel until the dial being controlled buy the director reached a zero on the dial and he would crank his wheel which moved the gun to try and maintain a zero reading with the dial being controlled by the director. The other crew member seated on the opposite side of the gun did exactly the same thing but his crank controlled the direction the gun pointed. The director also determined how long the shell would travel through the air after being fired before it explodes. So when everything works the Shell will intersect the target and explode at just the right moment so the fragments destroy the aircraft being targeted.

Yes, I do seem to remember now from our previous run-through from the BE thread. My memory of that entire discussion is a bit fuzzy though, I'll have to go back and re-read it again. No worries though, I remember enough to know that revisiting it won't be a waste of time. It was one of my favorites.

*Edit: What ever happened to DrunkenParrot? I miss his insights and he always had good information to share...

Edited January 25, 2014 by Slave2Fate

[Rafterman]

The Gun Directors were computers not people. And they required a target being tracked in order to work. The crews couldnt just get "war nerves" and start blindly firing into the air!

By director I meant the commanders on the scene. The system was not 100% automated. There were still humans involved. It was also a fairly new system and the operators were not exactly seasoned veterans.

Not to mention, in addition to the larger guns that were used, there was also quite a bit of .50 cal. fire.

[Antilles]

Given that the US had radar on the Jap fighters as they flew over Oahu towards Pearl, I wouldn't doubt that they fired the kitchen sink at anything that showed up over LA that they couldn't immediately explain. Something about once bitten...

[lost_shaman]

By director I meant the commanders on the scene. The system was not 100% automated. There were still humans involved. It was also a fairly new system and the operators were not exactly seasoned veterans.

Not to mention, in addition to the larger guns that were used, there was also quite a bit of .50 cal. fire.

Of course it would have been a non-event if it had just been some .50 cals being shot off blindly at nothing.

No. They were not 100% automated at all. The Guns using the Optical Range finders required crew members to use an instrument to visually track a target. It was like a long tube with two scopes one on each end and by focusing on the target with the two scopes being seperated by a distance the range to the target could be calculated by the director. Everything was hardwired together through the director so that the Target being optically tracked went through the director and the director turned dials on the gun and the searchlight so that two crew members on the gun and two on the searchlight all attempted to crack their wheels and Zero their dials so that everything is tracking the same Target while the director calculated the trajectory of the shell to be fired and how far to lead the Target and exactly how long the shell should travel through the atmosphere before it is set to explode. If everything worked right the shell would explode very close to where the target should be.

None of that works at all without a target being tracked. The photo of the event actually proves that all the Guns were actually tracking the same Target.

What is interesting, is that some of the guns were not using the optical range finders but Radar range finders. These guns and searchlights were also firing on the same Target. So whatever it was, the crews could see it and the RADAR could also see it. The photo proves this.

It would be nice if the "war nerves" myth would stop being Parroted. It is a myth, there was some type of Target being fired upon.

[Kludge808]

Well, I see that's decided once and for all and my own experience with and knowledge of radar isn't needed.

[Sir Wearer of Hats]

It's all well and good to say "they had a radar target" but I do seem to recall a flap in the 80s of radar picking up the "launch" of nuclear missiles from one side of the Cold War and the other side having to decide of it was Judgment Day or a technological SNAFU.

More then once even.

Radar's good. Radar's amazing. Radar isn't perfect. They picked something up and the firing started. What they picked up only history knows.

[lost_shaman]

Well, I see that's decided once and for all and my own experience with and knowledge of radar isn't needed.

Wow!

Do you have a problem with anything I've said so far?

Did you know I've left some things out and vauge just on purpose so someone who knows more than me can chime in?

Would you like to chime in here? Do you even know what I didn't say? Please enlighten us!

[lost_shaman]

It's all well and good to say "they had a radar target" but I do seem to recall a flap in the 80s of radar picking up the "launch" of nuclear missiles from one side of the Cold War and the other side having to decide of it was Judgment Day or a technological SNAFU.

More then once even.

Radar's good. Radar's amazing. Radar isn't perfect. They picked something up and the firing started. What they picked up only history knows.

It was infrared satelites not RADAR.

But who's counting?

[Likely Guy]

It was infrared satelites not RADAR.

But who's counting?

Infrared satellites, in 1942?

Edit: Okay, you're maybe talking about a different incident.

Edited January 25, 2014 by Likely Guy

[seeder]

Soo then, something was picked up, blasted at for a while, nothing came down except spent shells/bullets whatever... and nothing returned fire..

Shouldn't really be called a 'Battle' then should it?

[DONTEATUS]

It made for War time News ! So it sorta worked ! But for the few that had stuff come down upon them !

[Professor Buzzkill]

Wow. Have the skeptics given up on this one? I never thought I would see the day ...

[seeder]

Wow. Have the skeptics given up on this one? I never thought I would see the day ...

What? It wasnt even classed as an alien craft/UFO till 40 years after, and only then, by the fringe

Have a read of this

"As far as I could determine, this letter's late-1980's appearance was the earliest reference to anything UFO related happening at the Battle of Los Angeles. Since then, of course, innumerable references have appeared on the web.

Most UFO web sites discuss the battle and show the picture from the LA Times, describing the cloud of AAA smoke in the searchlights as a "large craft". But this was not the contemporary identification.

For more than 40 years, not a single person associated with the Battle of Los Angeles entertained any thoughts about extraterrestrial spacecraft or aliens, according to all available evidence (at least when you discard the hoaxed evidence).

The alien spacecraft angle is purely a post-hoc invention by modern promoters of UFO mythology.

Then read the whole page

http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4171

[seeder]

One more link showing 'the' real headlines and images...do read if you like this story!

Another Good Story Ruined -- The Battle of Los Angeles

http://latimesblogs....os-angeles.html

.

Edited January 25, 2014 by seeder

[Merc14]

I think if you look at the non-retouched photo (below) alongside the two retouched photos, all available here http://framework.lat...of-l-a-1942/#/0 you'll see that the image in the crossing searchlights actually doesn't exist as we see it later. An editor goes on to explain, in detail, how they painted the photos and made another negative for publication.

From the article:

This week I inspected the negatives from which the two versions were scanned at UCLA.

The non-retouched negative is very flat, the focus is soft and it looks underexposed. While I could not tell if the negative was the original or a copy negative made from a print, it definitely showed the original scene before a print was retouched.

The second negative is a copy negative from a retouched print. Certain details, such as the white spots around the searchlights’ convergence, are exactly the same in both negatives.

In the retouched version, many light beams were lightened and widened with white paint, while other beams were eliminated.

In earlier years, it was common for newspapers to use artists to retouch images due to poor reproduction — basically 10 shades of gray if you were lucky.

Thus my conclusion: the retouching was needed to reproduce the image. But man, I wish the retouching had been more faithful to the original. With our current standards, this image would not be published.

The Los Angeles Times published another retouched version of the image on Oct. 29, 1945. The white spots near the convergence of the searchlights are larger than in the 1942 version. This print is in The Times’ library and is in poor condition.

Also, I can't find, anywhere, that radar was used to track a bogie at this event. I may be wrong but would like to see a direct reference to radar tracking. Radar was not being widely utilized at that time and was not well understood by the troops and commanders (see Pearl Harbor failure to utilize radar correctly).

The non-retouched photo:

Edited January 25, 2014 by Merc14

[DONTEATUS]

Well in the documentary the Marines Blasted the Aliens back to from whince they came ,Right?

Well It was a long night of partying !