The Battle of Los Angeles, 1942: The Mystery Air Raid

makosoft (25)in #mystery • 7 years ago

The story:

“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 extra-terrestrial 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.
Los Angeles Times writer Larry Harnish noted that the retouched photo along with faked newspaper headlines were presented as true historical material in trailers for the film Battle: Los Angeles. Harnish commented, “if the publicity campaign wanted to establish UFO research as nothing but lies and fakery, it couldn’t have done a better job.”

Possible explanation:

You pretty much just read it… the photo was heavily retouched and it was actually a weather balloon.

#story #old #beautiful #curiosity

7 years ago in #mystery by makosoft (25)

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sflaherty (58) 7 years ago

Where did you get the photo retouching info on this? The only photo retouching is the one photo your showing and that was done for the 2011 film of for Battle: Los Angeles, the original one from the 40s has been proven authentic and untouched by numerous labs. Kind of confused lol...are you meaning the producers of the film are trying to lay claim that photo was a hoax when it wasn't? Here is the original untouched photo from the 40s that is untouched, that above is the one the film makers recreated and touched up for the film:

I have actually done a lot of research on this over the years. Biggest key thing isn't about the news reports its the eye witness accounts from the soldiers and citizens that witnessed the thousands of rounds being fired off. Not one said it was weather balloon, most thought it was secret military aircraft, possibly the Japanese military which kind of ruled out for me even a remote chance at minimum a weather balloon was involved. Think about it this way, back then ammo was scarce due to the wars we had, military officials know a weather balloon due to working with them, why would they all freak out and fire so many wasted rounds on a suspected weather balloon?

Not sure what source you got about a retouched photo from the 40s but I dug just in case I missed something and all that pops up was the film makers for the 2011 film recreated the photo for the film due to the grain issues in the picture. So that photo above isn't the original at all, a recreation.

This is that same very photo taken from the Battle: Los Angeles IMDB