Thousands of citizens were very anxious and frightened. Not so long ago, only ten weeks earlier, in the morning of December 7, 1941, Japanese submarines and carrier-based planes attacked the US Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor. Nearby military airfields were also attacked by the Japanese planes.
Eight American battleships and 10 other naval vessels were sunk or badly damaged, almost 200 American aircraft were destroyed, and approximately 3,000 naval and military personnel were killed or wounded.
Everybody in town expected yet another attack of the Japanese planes and may be even an invasion from Japan. Especially because a Japanese submarine already surfaced 2500 yards off Ellwood, located about eight miles north of Santa Barbara, and fired continuously on gasoline-storage tanks in the vicinity.
Southern California was in danger and all knew it. However this time it was another completely different danger that was threatening the region, from the sky over Los Angeles. First around 7:00, the twenty-fourth, lights and flares were observed. This caused widespread alarm but as nothing happened it was lifted at 10:23 and four more quiet hours passed. At 2:15 a.m. radar tracked an unidentified object approaching at the distance 120 miles to the west. Then the night silence suddenly ended....
Read more here