Counterespionage efforts in 1942 California

Gentlemen, this is one of those stories that is so strange that it has to be true. It will also make a great story to tell the lads at the pub one night before things get out of hand and the bouncer throws you out.

Saw something last night on the TV that was interesting and a new thing that I learned about WW2. Pretty neat actually. The show was called Mysteries of the Museum or Mysteries at the Museum, something like that. Hit and miss type of programming. Anyway, seems that sometime in March 1942, screen actress Lucille Ball was motoring in her motorcar somewhere in the outlying Los Angeles area (and not in town), she heard deafening music. Immediately she turned the car radio off but the music was still there. It continued for a short time until it stopped. A short time later in her car (like days or maybe a week or so later) another incident took place, but it was not music this time but a series of throbbing beeps. She determined that the sound was coming out of her mouth. Ewwwww. Later on (again, another date and not the same evening) she related the story to her friend and mentor, the famous screen actor Buster Keaton. He said to her that he had read about this phenomena before and the source of the problem is the fillings in the cavities of her teeth. Sure enough she had dental work earlier in the year just prior to these incidents. Keaton continued in relating that the metals used in her fillings acted as a receiver for radio waves. The incidents were reported to the FBI, and surprisingly they took enough interest into the matter to investigate further. After careful interviewing and analyzing of taken information by specialists, the second incident was determined to be Morse code. Lucy said that she remembered driving past a radio station with a huge tower on the premises in the first incident but did not remember anything of the like in the second incident. When the vicinity of the second incident was pointed out to the FBI on a map, subsequent monitoring discovered a clandestine communications installation. Yes, very sinister indeed. The place was pinpointed and raided, and it yes it was manned by Japanese nationals. Those sneaky yellow bastards! Their shop was quickly closed up, materials and machines carted off and the operators whisked away into the night. Executive Order 9066 (authorizing the relocation of Japanese-American citizens in the states along the Pacific coast) was issued by FDR in February of 1942 with relocation commencing a month later. Obviously these unscrupulous types of East Asian orientation were not scooped up and shipped off like their American lookalikes, which was still going on at the time Lucille Ball and her fillings fingered their operation. Dang. What luck eh? Good thing that they didn't have to file a report of their failings and Lucy's fillings to the Emperor. Looks like those Japanese fellows would have had "some 'splaining to do" (get it?).

Yes it was a very strange story. It took awhile to absorb this business, but it was on TV so it had to be true. The History Channel at that. All I could come with was "WTF did I just watch?" I looked for further information to confirm it but all I found out that I also didn't know was that Lucille Ball was a Red, and not just a redhead. She was a registered card carrying commie as far back as 1936. Yes, sad but true. I wonder if David O'Selznick knew this when she auditioned for the part of Scarlet (yes, the irony here!) O'Hara in 1939? Frankly my dear, I don't give a dang....but what a story!

 

Strange, well not really, as it has been proven over and over again...So much so, that it used to be a TV trope - Even Gilligan's Island used it. Not to mention one recorded instance of shrapnel in a Vietnam Veteran receiving radio signals.

Now, is it true...

Nothing has ever been proven - she first publicly mentioned this in a 1973/74 interview with Dick Cavett, and it has been oft repeated since. However, there have been no FBI arrest reports or documents discovered to support her story about the raid & it's outcome.

 

The Venona Project proved quite alot like the guilt of the Rosenberg family . Still morem

 

Venona project once opened we will know more.

 

Well it made for a great story, if you like stories like that, and I do. Dang, it was on Mysteries at the Museum too, on the History Channel. Dang.

 

For some years now. It has been the Hysterical Channel. As the shows just keep getting more outlandish.

 

The Venona records showed the Rosenbergs were guilty of atomic bomb secrets so much more to find out.

 

But Lucy said it happened....