- Long Beach Independent EXTRA February 25, 1942
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- MYSTERY RAID!
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- TWO WAVES OF PLANES SWEEP OVER CITY AS ANTI-AIRCRAFT
GUNS ROAR
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- As Long Beach Citizens shivered in the pre-dawn hours
of this momentous morning war with all its terrors and beauty burst over
the city in full display. Two waves of unidentified enemy planes flying
high and slow crossed over the entire perimeter of the Long Beach-Los Angeles
war zone.
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- All anti-aircraft batteries in the entire area opened
fire as scores of brilliant searchlights caught the mystery planes in their
glare. Official reports state no plane were downed and no bombs were dropped.
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- The first wave of planes came over at 3:15 a.m. This
was exactly 49 minutes after the city was blacked out at 2:25 a.m. Again
at 4:16 a second wave came over and again all guns in the area blazed into
action
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- Watching from a roof top vantage point it appeared as
though heat lightning was flickering on the ground as the flare of the
anti-aircraft batteries reflected into the moon-light, star bright sky.
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- No less then a minute after the guns started firing,
the whispering, swishing sound of shrapnel could be heard as it dropped
over the city in a deadly rain. Sparks could be noticed as the shrapnel
struck on paved street surfaces.
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- It was a spectacle of tremendous beauty with ominous
overtones of sudden death.
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- As the anti-aircraft shells burst in the air virtually
all of them appeared to be short of their objectives. What some people
thought were enemy signals and flares were found to be on investigation
tracer shells fired by army batteries. These were apparently in strings
of six, eight and twelve red balls of fire at a time.
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- Deny Plane Bagged
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- In spite of the heavy anti-aircraft fire, Army Defense
Command flatly denied any reports of any hits or any bombs dropped in this
area. However, persistent eye-witness reports were that a plane was downed
at 185th street and Vermont ave. The area was roped off and spectators
were not permitted to approach what appeared to be a wrecked plane.
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- Heavy guns at Fort MacArthur added their rumbling heavy-throated
roar to the thunderous cannonading. During the action the black-out was
virtually 100 percent effective save for momentary accidental lighting
of homes in the confusion. These were quickly extinguished.
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- Today the city is in a fever of excitement and Long Beach
now knows what it is to experience a raid. That no bombs were dropped was
one of the incredible facts of the raid.
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- Top Secret IPU Document*
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- In march 5, 1942, George C. Marshall writes a top-secret
memo to the President, which states: "regarding the air raid over
Los Angeles it was learned by Army G2 that Rear Admiral Anderson... recovered
an unidentified airplane off the coast of California... with no bearing
on conventional explanation... This Headquarters has come to the determination
that the mystery airplanes are in fact not earthly and according to secret
intelligence sources they are in all probability of interplanetary origin."
Marshall goes on to state: "As a consequence I have issued orders
to Army G2 that a special intelligence unit be created to further investigate
the phenomenon and report any significant connection between recent incidents
and those collected by the director the office of Coordinator of Information."
The memo bears correct Office of Chief of Staff (OCS) file numbers and
has "Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit" (IPU) typed on it at a later
time by a different typewriter. It is logical to believe that this is the
order that sets up the IPU.
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- *Courtesy http://www.majesticdocuments.com/documents/pre1948.html
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