The Battle Of Los Angeles
Installation
May 2008

location:
2226 e. 4th St.
Long Beach, CA

about the piece:

j.frede – The Battle of Los Angeles

On February 24, 1942 there was a barrage of anti aircraft shells fired into the skies above Los Angeles, 15 unidentified planes were tracked from the sea to above land forcing a citywide blackout and the unleashing of 1408 rounds of ammunitions into the nights sky. The planes were witnessed going from very slow to up to 200 miles per hour, heading south towards long beach.

The Los Angeles Times displayed a photograph of a number of searchlights all focusing in on the objects as they flew over the city and avoided all shots fired at them. The incident was never explained.

Below is a section of the official memorandum given to the president:

"1. Unidentified airplanes, other then American Army or Navy planes, were probably over Los Angeles, and were fired on by elements of the 37th CA Brigade (AA) between 3:12 and 4:15 AM. These units expended 1430 rounds of ammunition.

2. As many as fifteen airplanes may have been involved, flying at various speeds from what is officially reported as being very slow to as much
as 200 MPH and at elevations from 9000 to 18000 feet."

I have taken the above sections and translated them into Morse Code and presented them on a 12 foot by 2 foot board. More than 1000 sequins make up the piece, the black discs represents a bar in the code and silver discs represent the dots.

The piece is presented in this manor as a reference to both the secret government documents stating that they had no explanation for what happened, as well as the secrets themselves that were never explained.

j.frede - 2008