The Backstory: America’s Biggest False Alarm Causes Mass Hysteria in L.A.

interesting story. Yeah, we've all faced a false alarm, right. It's kind of nerve racking, but depending on the circumstances, it's easy to understand overreacting. It's a bit of PTSD. Maybe it comes after an actual disaster that has people skittish about what could happen next, similar to what folks went through after nine to eleven. But that's really what this story is about. It's in Los Angeles and it's

a night that shook the city to its core. Okay, let's take a look at where the nation was in February of nineteen forty two. It was just a couple of months since the US had literally been shocked into World War II with the early Sunday morning attack on Pearl Harbor. It happened on the Hawaiian island of Oahu on December seventh, nineteen forty one. Two thy four hundred three people were killed, including sailors, soldiers, marines, and civilians.

At the time, the US was still a neutral country in the war, so the attack was even more unexpected. Two frantic months later, in February of nineteen forty two, the shock hasn't even remotely begun to wear off. Plus, now the US has declared war, so it's full steam ahead, right. People are on edge, they're thinking what's ahead. A lot of folks are sure that enemy air raids on the

US mainland are on the way. In fact, two days after Pearl Harbor, just a rumor of approaching enemy aircraft causes invasion panic in New York City, But the only thing torpedo that day was the stock market. On the West Coast. People mistook fishing boats, logs, and even whales for Japanese warships and submarines. It didn't help that the Secretary of War warned the public that US cities should be prepared for what he called possible blows from enemy forces.

Now it's February twenty third, nineteen forty two, and a Japanese sub has surfaced off the coast of Santa Barbara, California. It fires about a dozen artillery shells at an oil field and refinery. Nobody's heard, and there isn't a whole lot of damage, but now the threat looks even more real. The next day, nerves on edge leads to one of

the craziest home front incidents of the war. It's late in the evening and naval intel Jens tells units on the coast to ready themselves for a possible Japanese attack. Everything stays calm for several hours, but you can imagine the tension while you play that waiting game. Right Then, just after two am on February twenty fifth, military radar picks up what looks like some sort of enemy contact over the water about one hundred and twenty miles west

of Los Angeles. Now, air raid sirens are going off and a city wide blackout goes into effect. Within minutes, troops man anti aircraft guns and sweep the skies with searchlights. It must have looked incredible. Finally, just after three am, the shooting starts. Following reports of an unidentified object in the sky. Troops in Santa Monica start pumping out a barrage of anti aircraft and machine gun fire. Soon other

coastal defense weapons begin to open fire. Stop and think about what this looks like when you're already on edge. Hundreds of powerful searchlights flashing through the sky, anti aircraft AMMO everywhere with its deep orange explosive bursts. It seems that Los Angeles is under attack and it's total chaos. But if you look past the searchlights and exploding US AMMO, it doesn't look like there are any planes, said one colonel.

Imagination could have easily disclosed many shapes in the sky in the midst of that weird symphony of noise and color, but we couldn't see planes of any type in the sky, friendly or enemy for a while. That doesn't matter. People are convinced, and reports pour in describing Japanese aircraft flying in formation bombs, falling even enemy paratroopers. One report claims that a Japanese plane has crash landed in the streets

of Hollywood. The barrage continues for over an hour by the time time a final all clear order is given later in the morning, LA's artillery batteries have fired over fourteen hundred rounds of anti aircraft AMMO into the sky, along with an uncounted amount of machine gun fire. But it was only after the sun rose that American military

units realized there appeared to have been no enemy attack. Sure, there were conflicting reports, but after a thorough investigation, it was clear no bombs were dropped and no planes were shot down. The only damage came from friendly fire. Shrapnel from the anti aircraft barrage had rained down across the city, shattering windows and a few homes that were damaged by

artillery shells, but there were no serious injuries from the shootout. Unfortunately, at least five people died due to heart attacks and car accidents that happened during the blackout. On top of that, authorities arrested around twenty Japanese Americans for trying to signal the enemy aircraft, which were of course nonexistent. That hysteria accompanied the interment of one hundred and twenty thousand Japanese

Americans as ordered by President Roosevelt. That same week, at the end of the day, it seems jittery nerves were to blame. Look, it's understandable. Problem is fear is a really powerful component when it comes to making rash decisions about what we think is going on around us. The Japanese military later said it had never flown aircraft over LA during World War II. So then there were the conspiracy theorists who blamed the government, and even visits by

UFOs and extraterrestrials. When documenting all of this in nineteen forty nine, the US Coastal Artillery said a meteorological balloon was sent up at one am that night, and it seems to have started all the shooting. They said, once the firing started, imagine created all kinds of targets in the sky, and everybody joined in. When all was said and done, it was time to pause and take a deep breath. The Great Los Angeles Air Raid, as they called it, appears to have been a case of war nerves. Again.

I want to thank Will Kushner of West Orange, New Jersey for letting me know about this wild story. I hope you like the backstory with Patty Steele. Please leave a review. I would love it if you'd subscribe or follow for free to get new episodes delivered automatically, and feel free to DM me if like will you have a story you'd like me to cover? On Facebook, It's Patty Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele. I'm Patty Steele. The Backstory is a production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks, the

Elvis Duran Group, and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is Doug Fraser. Our writer Jay Kushner. We have new episodes every Tuesday and Friday. Feel free to reach out to me with comments and even story suggestions on Instagram at Real Patty Steele and on Facebook at Patty Steele. Thanks for listening to the Backstory with Patty Steele, the pieces of history you didn't know you needed to know.