Case file · Official inquiry
Bombardment of Ellwood
On 23 February 1942 the Japanese submarine I-17 shelled an oil field at Ellwood near Santa Barbara, the first attack on the US mainland in the war. The next night's jittery 'Battle of Los Angeles' followed.
1942 CE · 34.43, -119.89 · status: official
The account
Damage was minor, but the attack, two months after Pearl Harbor, primed coastal defences for an invasion that never came. Within 24 hours anti-aircraft guns over Los Angeles fired at unidentified targets.
The researched reading
A documented wartime attack. Its interest for this atlas is the panic it seeded, which led to the next night’s anti-aircraft barrage over Los Angeles.
| Explanation | Weight | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Secret human technology | 92% | Military hardware, not anything strange: the Japanese submarine I-17 surfaced and fired about 16 shells at the oil field. US witnesses saw it, and Japanese records confirm it. |
| Something known, misidentified | 3% | Reports of signal lights on shore guiding the submarine were never confirmed and were probably ordinary lights. |
| Perception, memory or mind | 2% | The invasion scare it set off led within a day to the “Battle of Los Angeles” false alarm. |
| A known natural phenomenon | 1% | Not relevant. |
| A hoax or fabrication | 1% | Fully documented. |
| Genuinely anomalous | 1% | Nothing unexplained. |
| A poorly understood natural phenomenon | 0% | Not relevant. |
Official position: A Japanese submarine attack, confirmed by both sides.