The Phantoms of Los Angeles: War Nerves, Friendly Fire, and the Making of an American Myth

Section 1: The Precipice of Panic: The American West Coast in Early 1942

The chaotic events that unfolded in the skies over Los Angeles in the pre-dawn hours of February 25, 1942, were not a spontaneous eruption of panic. Rather, they were the predictable culmination of a period of intense and escalating psychological pressure, where a generalized national anxiety was progressively focused and amplified onto the civilian population and military defenders of the American West Coast. The "Battle of Los Angeles" can only be understood when viewed as the final stage of a process of psychological priming, in which a series of real and perceived threats conditioned a population for a massive, and ultimately misguided, defensive reaction.

1.1 The Pearl Harbor Effect and "Invasion Paranoia"

The foundational layer of this anxiety was the profound national trauma of the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.1 The surprise assault shattered the long-held American belief in its own geographic invulnerability, a sense of security provided by the vast Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Overnight, the West Coast was transformed from a distant rear area into the nation's front line in a new and terrifying war.4 The fear of a follow-up Japanese attack, or even a full-scale invasion, became a pervasive and dominant feature of public life.6

This "invasion paranoia" was not unique to Los Angeles but was a regional phenomenon that gripped coastal communities from Seattle to San Diego. In Oakland, rumors of a Japanese aircraft carrier cruising offshore led to the closure of schools and the implementation of city-wide blackouts.5 In Seattle, a mob of 2,000 residents smashed the windows of businesses that failed to comply with blackout orders, a stark illustration of the public's frayed nerves.5 Across the region, civil defense protocols were hastily implemented. Anti-aircraft guns were installed in public parks and along coastlines, bunkers were constructed, and civilians were drilled in air raid precautions.5 While these measures were intended to provide security, they also served as constant, visible reminders of an imminent threat, keeping the populace in a sustained state of high alert.

1.2 Tangible Threats: Japanese Submarine Activity off the California Coast

This atmosphere of generalized fear was given concrete validation by a series of real attacks. Throughout late December 1941 and into February 1942, Imperial Japanese Navy submarines actively targeted American merchant shipping in the waters off the West Coast.5 Vessels like the SS

Larry Doheny and the SS Montebello were sunk, while others were damaged, providing tangible proof that the enemy was not a distant abstraction but a real and present danger lurking just beyond the horizon.5

The event that served as the direct catalyst for the "Battle of Los Angeles" was the Bombardment of Ellwood on the evening of February 23, 1942.3 During one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's fireside chats, the Japanese submarine I-17 surfaced near Santa Barbara and fired more than a dozen shells from its deck gun at the Ellwood oil field and refinery.1 From a military perspective, the attack was a failure. Damage was minimal, estimated at only $500, and there were no casualties.5 However, its psychological impact was immense.6 It was the first enemy shelling of the continental United States during the war, a dramatic and widely reported event that confirmed the public's worst fears: the American mainland was indeed within range of enemy attack.3 The abstract threat of invasion had become a visceral, local reality.

1.3 The Final Trigger: The Naval Intelligence Warning

The sequence of events—from the general anxiety following Pearl Harbor to the validated threat of submarine warfare, culminating in the tangible proof of the Ellwood shelling—had already created a hair-trigger environment. The final element that made a large-scale reaction almost inevitable was an official warning issued by the Office of Naval Intelligence on February 24, 1942. The bulletin explicitly stated that an enemy attack on mainland California could be expected within the next ten hours.5 This warning transformed the military's posture from one of general readiness to one of imminent expectation. For the soldiers manning the anti-aircraft batteries and the radar stations around Los Angeles, the question was no longer

if an attack would come, but when and where. Any ambiguous stimulus appearing in this hyper-alert state was almost certain to be interpreted through the lens of this official, time-sensitive warning, making a massive overreaction a near certainty.

Section 2: The "Great Los Angeles Air Raid": A Chronological Reconstruction

The night of February 24-25, 1942, unfolded as a cascading series of alerts, sightings, and reactions, culminating in an hour-long artillery barrage that was as bewildering as it was intense. A detailed reconstruction of the timeline reveals not a coordinated defense against a clear enemy, but a feedback loop of sensory overload and confirmation bias, where the act of defense itself created the illusion of an attack.

2.1 The Initial Alerts (Evening of Feb. 24)

The tension began to build early in the evening. At 19:18 (7:18 p.m.) Pacific Time, an initial "yellow alert" was called in response to numerous reports of flares and blinking lights in the vicinity of vital defense plants.10 In accordance with civil defense plans, thousands of volunteer air raid wardens were summoned to their posts throughout Los Angeles County.13 However, after several hours of vigilance, the alert was lifted at 22:23 (10:23 p.m.).5 This temporary relaxation created a false sense of security, but also established a baseline for the seriousness of any subsequent alarm. When the sirens sounded again, they would not be perceived as a drill or a minor alert, but as a confirmed and escalating threat.

2.2 The Main Event (Morning of Feb. 25)

The calm was shattered in the early morning hours.

• Circa 02:00: Military radars detected an unidentified target approximately 120 miles west of Los Angeles, moving toward the coast.1

• 02:15: The 37th Coast Artillery Brigade, responsible for the region's anti-aircraft defense, was placed on "Green Alert," meaning its batteries were manned and ready to open fire.12

• 02:21: As radar continued to track the object's approach, the regional controller ordered a complete blackout of the city and surrounding areas.12

• 02:25: Air raid sirens wailed across Los Angeles County, jolting millions of residents from their sleep.2 Many, ignoring the blackout order, rushed into the streets and onto rooftops to watch the drama unfold.1

• 02:43 - 03:06: With the city now on high alert, the military's information center was inundated with frantic reports. The initial radar target seemed to vanish as it neared the coast, but it was quickly replaced by a flood of visual sightings from both military personnel and civilians.12 A coast artillery colonel reported spotting "about 25 planes at 12,000 feet" over the city, while another report described a balloon carrying a red flare over Santa Monica.10

• 03:16: Based on these sightings, the order was given to open fire. The first shells were fired by batteries in Santa Monica, and within moments, the night sky over a forty-mile arc of the coast "erupted like a volcano".1

2.3 An Hour of Chaos (03:16 - 04:14)

For the next hour, the city's defenses unleashed a furious barrage. Searchlights stabbed at the darkness while anti-aircraft batteries filled the sky with the "beautiful, if sinister, orange bursts of shrapnel".10 In total, approximately 1,440 rounds of 12.8-pound anti-aircraft ammunition were expended.1

Eyewitness accounts from this period became, as one official report noted, "hopelessly at variance".12 Observers on the ground reported seeing "swarms" of aircraft, sometimes balloons, of all shapes and sizes, flying at various altitudes and speeds.5 Some witnesses were convinced they saw enemy planes shot down, with one rumor claiming a fiery crash at a Hollywood intersection.1 The confusion was likely amplified by the barrage itself; the bursts of flak, caught in the powerful searchlight beams, were themselves mistaken for enemy aircraft by observers already primed to see them.12 This created a self-sustaining cycle of illusion: the "defense" was generating its own targets. Each new volley produced more smoke and explosions, which were then interpreted as new waves of enemy planes, justifying continued firing.

Critically, this feedback loop operated without any objective check. The Army Air Forces (AAF) made a deliberate decision to keep its limited force of pursuit planes on the ground, preferring to wait for a clear indication of the attack's main thrust before committing its fighters.12 While a sound tactical decision to conserve assets, it meant that no friendly aircraft were in the sky to confirm or deny the sightings, allowing the sensory illusion on the ground to escalate unchecked.

2.4 The Bewildering Dawn

The firing finally ceased at 04:14.4 An "all clear" was sounded at 07:21, and the blackout was lifted.3 As the sun rose over Southern California, residents and authorities surveyed the scene. They found no downed enemy aircraft, no bomb craters, and no evidence whatsoever of an enemy attack.8 The only damage to the city of Los Angeles had been inflicted by its own defenders.

Section 3: The Barrage and the Aftermath: An Analysis of Immediate Consequences

The "Great Los Angeles Air Raid" stands as a stark military case study in iatrogenesis—a situation where the remedy proves to be the source of harm. In the absence of any enemy action, the entire physical and human cost of the event was self-inflicted, a direct result of the defensive barrage and the city-wide blackout it triggered. This created a profound paradox for both the public and the authorities: an action intended to provide security had become the sole agent of destruction, a reality that would complicate all subsequent attempts to explain what had happened.

3.1 The Human Cost of "Friendly Fire"

While no lives were lost to enemy bombs, the chaos of the morning was not without fatalities. Five civilians died as an indirect result of the anti-aircraft action and the accompanying blackout.4 Three of these deaths were the result of traffic accidents, as panicked drivers navigated the completely darkened streets while distracted by the spectacle in the sky.1 The other two fatalities were attributed to stress-induced heart attacks, suffered by individuals overwhelmed by the terror and confusion of the hour-long barrage.3

3.2 Property Damage from the Sky

As nearly one hundred and fifty tons of steel rained down on the metropolitan area, property damage was widespread.12 Buildings and vehicles across the city were peppered with shrapnel and falling shell fragments.5 News reports and official accounts documented numerous specific incidents. In one residential district, a garage door was ripped from its hinges.17 In another home, shell fragments shattered windows and tore into a bed just moments after its occupants, Miss Blanche Sedgwick and her niece, had fled.17

In some cases, entire 12.8-pound anti-aircraft shells failed to detonate in the air and fell to earth. A bomb squad was dispatched to Santa Monica to remove an unexploded shell that had landed in a driveway.10 Another dud was found embedded in a fairway on a Long Beach golf course.10 The home of Hugh Landis was severely damaged when a faulty shell with a broken fuse failed to explode in the sky, instead falling into his backyard where it finally detonated, spraying his house and car with shattered steel.16 The damage extended beyond the urban landscape; one farmer reported that an exploding shell had killed one of his cows and sent the rest of his herd stampeding.10 By dawn, it was clear that every piece of ordnance that had fallen on Los Angeles had been fired by American guns.

3.3 Military and Civic Response

The military response was characterized by a massive expenditure of ammunition, with the 37th Coast Artillery Brigade firing over 1,400 rounds in just over an hour.1 The civic response in the immediate aftermath was one of confusion. With no enemy wreckage to be found, authorities focused on the only available scapegoat. In a move that foreshadowed the larger injustices to come, police arrested 20 Japanese-Americans, baselessly accusing them of violating the blackout in an attempt to signal the non-existent enemy aircraft.1

The following table provides a consolidated summary of the direct costs of the incident, starkly illustrating that all tangible negative outcomes were caused by the defensive action itself.

Category of Consequence

Specific Details

Number of Incidents/Fatalities

Civilian Fatalities (Indirect)

Traffic Accidents in Blackout

3

Stress-induced Heart Attacks

2

Total Civilian Fatalities

5

Documented Property Damage

Buildings damaged by shrapnel

Dozens 10

Vehicles damaged

Multiple 5

Unexploded ordnance recovered

Multiple 10

Livestock killed

At least one 10

Military Expenditure

12.8-pound Anti-Aircraft Shells Fired

Approx. 1,440 12

Section 4: Competing Narratives: Official Confusion and Media Frenzy

In the wake of the barrage, the absence of a clear enemy created a narrative vacuum. The American public, having witnessed what appeared to be a full-scale battle over a major city, turned to its leaders for an explanation. What they received was a series of confused, contradictory, and ultimately unsatisfying statements that eroded official credibility and allowed media speculation and a single, powerful image to define the event in the public consciousness.

4.1 A Tale of Two Secretaries: The Army/Navy Split

The official confusion began at the highest levels of the government, with the Army and Navy offering mutually exclusive accounts of the incident. On February 25, the day of the event, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox held a press conference and summarily dismissed the entire affair. He declared it a "false alarm" caused by "anxiety and 'war nerves'".3 This explanation, while perhaps close to the truth, failed to account for the sheer scale of the military response and the numerous military eyewitness reports of enemy aircraft.

The very next day, the Army forcefully contradicted the Navy's position. Secretary of War Henry Stimson, echoing sentiments from Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall, announced that as many as 15 unidentified aircraft had indeed been over Los Angeles.1 Stimson advanced the theory that these were not military planes but commercial aircraft operated by enemy agents, launched from secret fields in California or Mexico on a psychological warfare mission designed to sow panic.5 This official schism was disastrous for public confidence. With the nation's two top military departments providing completely different explanations, the government failed to establish a single, coherent narrative, leaving the public to wonder which version, if any, to believe.

4.2 Media Amplification and the Iconic Photograph

Into this vacuum of authority stepped the press, which amplified the confusion with sensationalist coverage. The Los Angeles Herald Examiner ran a "War Extra" with the headline "Air Battles Rages Over Los Angeles".13 Newspapers across the country published the wildly imaginative and contradictory eyewitness accounts of swarms of planes and dramatic dogfights.5

The single most influential piece of media to emerge from the event was a photograph published in the Los Angeles Times on February 26, 1942.3 The image depicted a nexus of powerful searchlight beams converging on a small, dark shape in the night sky, surrounded by the white puffs of exploding anti-aircraft shells. This photograph would become the definitive visual artifact of the Battle of Los Angeles, cementing in the public mind the idea that there was, in fact, a tangible, singular object being targeted.

However, later analysis of the original negative, housed at the UCLA Library, confirmed that the published photograph had been heavily retouched.3 This was a common practice in the era's newspaper industry, done to improve the contrast and clarity of black-and-white images for printing.5 In this case, the retouching had the unintended effect of making the light-saturated area at the convergence of the beams appear more solid, distinct, and "object-like" than it was in the original negative.20 In the absence of a trusted official story, this dramatic and manipulated visual became the

de facto truth for many, providing seemingly incontrovertible proof that something was up there. The power of this single image would far outlast the contradictory government statements, ensuring the event's place in history as an enduring mystery.

Section 5: A Catalyst for Injustice: The Battle of Los Angeles and the Internment of Japanese-Americans

While the Battle of Los Angeles did not cause the policy of Japanese-American internment, its timing and visceral impact served as a powerful accelerant and a convenient public justification for one of the most egregious violations of civil liberties in American history. The event provided a dramatic, albeit illusory, validation of the racial paranoia that underpinned the policy, helping to silence dissent and galvanize public support for the forced removal of over 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry from their homes.

5.1 Timing and Context: Executive Order 9066

A critical examination of the timeline reveals that the legal framework for internment was already in place before the first shots were fired over Los Angeles. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, a full six days before the "air raid".9 This order granted the Secretary of War broad powers to designate military areas and to exclude "any or all persons" from them as deemed necessary for national security.23 Though its language was neutral, the order was understood to be aimed at the Japanese-American population on the West Coast.25 The policy was the culmination of decades of anti-Asian racism and weeks of intense political pressure following Pearl Harbor, not a direct response to the events in Los Angeles.23

5.2 The "Battle" as Post-Hoc Justification

The policy of internment was law, but its implementation required public acceptance and logistical mobilization. The Battle of Los Angeles, occurring at this crucial juncture, provided a timely and spectacular justification for the policy. The terrifying sight of searchlights and the sound of anti-aircraft guns made the abstract threat of sabotage and espionage seem terrifyingly real and immediate.6 It allowed proponents of internment to shift the narrative from a debate over civil rights to an urgent discussion of military necessity.

The immediate actions of local authorities demonstrate how pre-existing racial suspicions were instantly mapped onto the unexplained chaos of that morning. With no downed enemy planes to show for the barrage, the police arrested 20 Japanese-Americans, accusing them of violating the blackout to send signals to the non-existent attackers.1 This act served as a microcosm of the larger logic of internment: in the absence of evidence of wrongdoing, racial identity itself was treated as proof of disloyalty.

In the days that followed, the "battle" was used to accelerate the implementation of Executive Order 9066. On March 2, military leaders issued a public proclamation that divided the Western states into military zones, with one designated as a restricted area from which all people of Japanese ancestry would soon be banned.6 The phantom air raid over Los Angeles provided the perfect pretext, allowing officials to point to the skies and argue, "This is why we must act now." The event thus functioned as a political accelerant, transforming a controversial policy into what was portrayed as an unavoidable security measure, thereby speeding the course of a national tragedy.

Section 6: From "War Nerves" to Flying Saucers: The Enduring Legacy

The Battle of Los Angeles has had a long and peculiar afterlife in American culture. The initial failure to provide a single, credible explanation for the event ensured its longevity as a historical puzzle. Over the decades, as the immediate context of wartime fear faded, the narrative of the "Great Los Angeles Air Raid" evolved, transforming from an embarrassing episode of military incompetence into a foundational myth of the modern UFO era.

6.1 The Official Explanation Solidifies: Weather Balloons

In the years immediately following the incident, the official narrative, despite the initial Army/Navy split, slowly coalesced around a more mundane and less alarming explanation. In 1949, the United States Coast Artillery Association, in a historical review, concluded that a single meteorological balloon released at 1:00 a.m. had "started all the shooting" and that "once the firing started, imagination created all kinds of targets in the sky".5

This explanation received its most definitive form in a 1983 report from the U.S. Office of Air Force History. After a thorough review of the records, the historians attributed the event to a case of "war nerves," initially triggered by a lost weather balloon.1 The report concluded that this initial misidentification was then exacerbated by stray flares and the disorienting effect of anti-aircraft shell bursts being illuminated by searchlights, leading gunners to believe they were firing on actual enemy planes.1 This remains the most widely accepted historical explanation. An anecdotal account from a serviceman even suggests the possibility that the targets were nickel balloons with attached metal wires, released by a radar crew to test their new equipment, which were then blown back over the city by an onshore breeze.13

6.2 The Birth of a UFO Legend

While the historical consensus pointed toward weather balloons and mass hysteria, the official denial by the Japanese government after the war that they had flown any aircraft over Los Angeles had a powerful effect on the public imagination.4 By definitively closing the door on the "enemy attack" theory, it paradoxically left the door open for more exotic explanations.

The legend of the Battle of Los Angeles as an extraterrestrial encounter did not emerge in 1942. Its origins lie in the post-war period, particularly after the "flying saucer" craze began with Kenneth Arnold's sighting in 1947.21 Ufologists, looking back at historical records, seized upon the Los Angeles incident as a possible early case of human-alien contact. The foundational "evidence" for this theory was, and remains, the heavily retouched

Los Angeles Times photograph.5

Within this new framework, the very details that pointed to a lack of a target were reinterpreted as proof of a technologically superior one. The fact that a single, slow-moving object had apparently withstood a direct barrage of over 1,400 artillery shells without suffering any damage was no longer seen as evidence that there was nothing there to hit; instead, it became evidence of an invulnerable alien craft protected by an advanced energy shield or armor.14 The event was thus recast from an embarrassing failure into a momentous, secret history: the first documented battle between humanity and an extraterrestrial force. This narrative has proven remarkably durable, kept alive in popular culture through books, documentaries, and films like Steven Spielberg's comedy

1941 and the action movie Battle: Los Angeles.21 The truth of the event is likely mundane, but the myth it spawned is far more compelling, ensuring that the phantoms of that February night continue to haunt the American imagination.

Conclusion: A Microcosm of Wartime America

The Battle of Los Angeles persists in historical memory not as a battle, but as a potent and revealing paradox. It was an event defined by a profound absence—of an enemy, of bombs, of a coherent explanation—yet its consequences were undeniably real. In its strange and chaotic unfolding, the incident serves as a unique microcosm of the American home front during the Second World War, encapsulating the era's defining tensions in a single, bewildering night.

The event laid bare the deep anxieties of a nation suddenly thrust into a global conflict, demonstrating how the psychological shock of Pearl Harbor could transform a coastal metropolis into a tinderbox of fear, ready to be ignited by the slightest spark. It was a stark illustration of the fallibility of military systems and human perception under extreme pressure, where the very tools of defense created a self-perpetuating illusion of attack, resulting in a barrage of "friendly fire" as the only source of destruction. The aftermath highlighted the power of the media to shape reality in a crisis, as conflicting official reports created a narrative vacuum that was filled by sensational headlines and a single, retouched photograph that would define the event for generations.

Most tragically, the Battle of Los Angeles stands as a testament to the ease with which pervasive fear can be weaponized to justify racial injustice. While not the cause of the Japanese-American internment policy, the phantom air raid provided a timely and powerful pretext, accelerating the implementation of Executive Order 9066 and cementing in the public mind the necessity of a policy born of prejudice. Finally, its long afterlife as a cornerstone of UFO lore reveals an enduring human tendency to create grand myths to make sense of inexplicable or embarrassing chaos. The probable truth—a case of mass hysteria and military error—is unsatisfying. A story of a secret battle against otherworldly visitors is far more compelling. The Battle of Los Angeles was a battle with no enemy, but its impacts on the five civilians who died, the thousands of Japanese-Americans whose persecution it helped to justify, and the collective American psyche were, and remain, all too real.

Works cited

1. The Mysterious Battle of Los Angeles, 1942, accessed on October 5, 2025, http://www.laalmanac.com/history/hi07s.php

2. The Battle of L.A. — A Historical Mystery of UFOs, Possible Military Coverups, and the American Psyche. | by Jeremy McGowan | Medium, accessed on October 5, 2025, https://medium.com/@osirisuap/the-battle-of-l-a-e89aa6c72eff

3. WWII Battles: The Battle of Los Angeles - Warfare History Network, accessed on October 5, 2025, https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/wwii-battles-the-battle-of-los-angeles/

4. Battle of Los Angeles | Research Starters - EBSCO, accessed on October 5, 2025, https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/battle-los-angeles

5. Battle of Los Angeles - Wikipedia, accessed on October 5, 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Los_Angeles

6. The Great Los Angeles Air Raid Terrified Citizens—Even Though No ..., accessed on October 5, 2025, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/great-los-angeles-air-raid-terrified-citizenseven-though-no-bombs-were-dropped-180967890/

7. California during World War II - Wikipedia, accessed on October 5, 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_during_World_War_II

8. The Battle of Los Angeles: The Enemy Attack That Never Happened ..., accessed on October 5, 2025, https://www.warhistoryonline.com/instant-articles/battle-of-los-angeles-the-attack-that-never-happened.html

9. The Battle of Los Angeles: A Grim Reminder That “Simple Times” Weren't Always So Simple, accessed on October 5, 2025, https://blog.johnhartrealestate.com/2024/02/the-battle-of-los-angeles/

10. The World War II Battle of Los Angeles - LOST IN HISTORY, accessed on October 5, 2025, https://lost-in-history.com/the-world-war-ii-battle-of-los-angeles/

11. World War II's Bizarre 'Battle of Los Angeles' | HISTORY, accessed on October 5, 2025, https://www.history.com/articles/world-war-iis-bizarre-battle-of-los-angeles

12. The Battle of Los Angeles - 1942, accessed on October 5, 2025, http://sfmuseum.org/hist9/aaf2.html

13. The Battle of Los Angeles - Celebrate California, accessed on October 5, 2025, https://celebratecalifornia.library.ca.gov/february-24-1942-the-battle-of-los-angeles-2/

14. The 'Battle' of Los Angeles - Eastman Leather Clothing Blog, accessed on October 5, 2025, https://blog.eastmanleather.com/view-post/the-battle-of-los-angeles

15. en.wikipedia.org, accessed on October 5, 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Los_Angeles#:~:text=Several%20buildings%20and%20vehicles%20were,of%20the%20hour%2Dlong%20action.

16. Los Angeles Blackout Shrouded in Confusion | World War 2.0 - Seton Hall University, accessed on October 5, 2025, https://blogs.shu.edu/ww2-0/1942/02/26/los-angeles-blackout-shrouded-in-confusion/

17. A WWII Mystery: The 'Battle of L.A.' - GenealogyBank, accessed on October 5, 2025, https://www.genealogybank.com/blog/a-wwii-mystery-the-battle-of-l-a.html#:~:text=There%20were%20no%20reports%20of%20bombing%2C%20but%20several%20instances%20of,Josie%20Duffy%2C%20had%20been%20sleeping.

18. A WWII Mystery: The 'Battle of L.A.' - GenealogyBank, accessed on October 5, 2025, https://www.genealogybank.com/blog/a-wwii-mystery-the-battle-of-l-a.html

19. File:Battle of Los Angeles LATimes.jpg - Wikimedia Commons, accessed on October 5, 2025, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Battle_of_Los_Angeles_LATimes.jpg

20. UFOS: “The Battle of L.A.” - Escondido Times-Advocate, accessed on October 5, 2025, https://www.times-advocate.com/articles/ufos-the-battle-of-l-a/

21. UFOs or no, 'Battle of Los Angeles' nears 75th anniversary - Military Times, accessed on October 5, 2025, https://www.militarytimes.com/off-duty/2017/02/19/ufos-or-no-battle-of-los-angeles-nears-75th-anniversary/

22. Facts and Case Summary — Korematsu v. U.S. - United States Courts, accessed on October 5, 2025, https://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/educational-resources/annual-observances/asian-pacific-american-heritage-month/korematsu-v-us-balancing-liberties-and-safety/facts-and-case-summary-korematsu-v-us

23. There and Back: Los Angeles Japanese and Executive Order 9066 - LAPL, accessed on October 5, 2025, https://www.lapl.org/collections-resources/blogs/lapl/there-and-back-los-angeles-japanese-and-executive-order-9066

24. Japanese-American Incarceration During World War II - National Archives, accessed on October 5, 2025, https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/japanese-relocation

25. Executive Order 9066 - Wikipedia, accessed on October 5, 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_9066

26. Executive Order 9066 dated February 19, 1942, in which President Franklin D. Roosevelt Authorizes the Secretary of War to Prescribe Military Areas - DocsTeach, accessed on October 5, 2025, https://docsteach.org/document/executive-order-9066/

27. Japanese Americans at Manzanar - National Park Service, accessed on October 5, 2025, https://www.nps.gov/manz/learn/historyculture/japanese-americans-at-manzanar.htm

28. Revisiting The Mysterious Battle Of Los Angeles 1942 - Los Angeleno, accessed on October 5, 2025, https://losangeleno.com/strange-days/battle-of-los-angeles/

29. What Really Happened Over LA in 1942? | UFO Battle of Los Angeles | Full Documentary, accessed on October 5, 2025, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4U57ve7DXWo