The Real "Battle of Los Angeles"

Sixty-nine years ago today, one of the first unidentified flying objects to receive substantial national press coverage was spotted and fired upon in Los Angeles. The incident would come to be known as "The Battle of Los Angeles". As most of you have probably heard, there's a movie based on the incident coming out next month.

At the time there wasn't a lot of discussion of aliens. For one thing, Roswell hadn't happened yet and aliens weren't firmly embedded in the American consciousness. But we were also newly at war with Japan, who had launched a strike on Hawaii less than three months previously. Attention immediately turned to the Japanese rather than extraterrestrials.

The government concluded it was a weather balloon. But then, that's what we'd expect them to say, isn't it?