CNN.com reports on the Battle of Los Angeles

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[Graphic:  BREAKING NEWS]
[Graphic:  MYSTERY ATTACKS]

MYSTERIOUS NAVAL FORCES ATTACK PORT CITIES WORLDWIDE; CIVILIAN CASUALTIES HIGH

By R.D. Fox, Lee Toop, CNN
Updated 9:03 AM ET, Mon June 25, 2018 | Video sources:  CNN, KTLA, CBC/CBMT

[Video:  Port cities worldwide under mysterious attack]

SAN PEDRO, CALIFORNIA (CNN)--Nearly a half-dozen major port cities worldwide were struck by attacks from the sea by
bizarre, seemingly mutated versions of obsolete warships from the 19th and early 20th centuries in what appears to have
been a coordinated opening strike against humanity as a whole.

Within minutes of each other, mysterious storms arose just off the coast of Los Angeles; Montreal; Portsmouth, England;
Kiel, Germany; and Tokyo.  From the storms came black warships of another era, which proceeded to bombard the ports and the
cities themselves.

Little information is available on the attackers, but naval historians contacted by CNN agree that, based on what footage
of the attacks is available, they appear to be using ships that come from before World War One.  The few ships they were
able to positively identify only deepen the mystery of the source of these attacks, as they appear to have been ships that
sunk or were scrapped more than a century ago.

ATTACK ON AMERICA

The greatest mysteries, however, have come out of the attack we have the best documentation of--the attack on the Port of
Los Angeles.

[Video:  Raw footage of the battle off Los Angeles from KTLA's news helicopter]

At the beginning of the attack, the US Navy guided missile destroyer Higgins was leaving port, escorted by the Coast Guard
cutter Sherman; a Navy spokesman stated that the Sherman was providing a security perimeter against Greenpeace vessels
protesting the presence of depleted uranium aboard the Higgins.  Video of the battle indicates that this included the
icebreaker MV Arctic Sunrise.

While both Higgins and Sherman engaged the attackers, their weapons proved to be of limited use against the attackers,
which seem to have been heavily armored.  Both ships fought valiantly, with the captain of the Sherman, after his ship was
mortally wounded, electing to ram a low-profile enemy ship that neither one had managed to successfully engage.

After the ramming, the Higgins used the wreckage of the Sherman as an aiming point for its missile armament, setting off
the magazines of both Sherman and the enemy ship.  There have been no confirmed reports of survivors among the Sherman's
crew at this time.

[Video:  Sherman rams the attacker]

Shortly after this, the Higgins was hit and seemingly crippled by the enemy, which began to move to shell the port--and
here begins the greatest mystery of the day.

Because immediately after this, the battleship Iowa, retired by the Navy in 1990 and turned into a museum ship in 2012,
apparently broke free of its moorings and sailed into the battle.

[Video:  Iowa enters the fight]

According to the curators of the USS Iowa Museum, this should be impossible.  Not only does the ship require a crew of over
1600 to operate, but its fuel tanks were drained and cleaned when the ship was retired, and the magazines for its sixteen-
inch guns were emptied at the same time; the gun turrets were welded into their stowed position before the Navy turned it
over to the museum foundation.  Even if a crew was found to operate the ship, it would take hours to refuel it, and the
better part of a day to rearm it, and its guns could not be trained on a target.

Yet the ship is seen clearly sailing into the battle under its own power, using its guns to deliver devastating blows
against the attackers, rapidly sinking the smaller ones and proceeding to target the large, seemingly immobilized ship that
had been bombarding the Port until Iowa's arrival.

Indeed, it was Iowa, acting in concert with Air Force F-15E Strike Eagles from Edwards Air Force Base, that destroyed this
final attacker to end the battle.  While the crippled Higgins limped back to port, the Iowa continued to sail inexplicably,
seemingly patrolling the mouth of the harbor until sunrise, when it sailed back to its berth at Terminal Island, guns still
trained out to sea.

[Video:  National Guardsmen seal off public access to the battleship Texas]

While the entire involvement of the Iowa is unexplained, and seemingly completely inexplicable, action was immediately
taken to ensure that such a thing would not happen again with any other museum ship.  Acting under Presidential order, the
National Guard was deployed to set up a security cordon around all museum ships in the United States, partly to prevent any
possibility of these ships being "awakened" by visitors, and partly to ensure that, if they do spontaneously "awaken"
during an attack, no civilian visitors will be in harm's way.

RESULTS OF DEFENSE ATTEMPTS MIXED

Local military forces and law enforcement in each city attempted to fight off the attacks.  Early reports indicate that the
attackers were able to overwhelm the defenders at Montreal and Portsmouth, with both cities suffering extremely heavy
damage, with their waterfront areas almost completely destroyed before the attackers withdrew.  Over 500 are already
confirmed dead in Montreal, with thousands more reported as missing; casualty figures for Portsmouth are not yet available,
but are reported to be "high."

[Video:  Helicopter view of devastation in Montreal]

Only sketchy reports have come out of Kiel and Tokyo, though they indicate that damage was not as severe, with the
attackers being driven off by mysterious human-sized figures that appeared on the water and proceeded to counterattack with
what seem to have the effects of large-caliber naval guns.  One unconfirmed report from NTV claims that, after the
attackers were driven off, the figures "skated" across the waters of Tokyo Bay, pulling survivors of the sunken Japanese
Maritime Self-Defense Force ships out of the water and bringing them ashore.

Both the JMSDF and the German Bundesmarine have stated that they suffered heavy losses in fighting off these attacks, and
have declined comment on the reports of the human-sized figures that assisted in the defense.

CONTINUED ATTACKS ELSEWHERE

Sketchy reports from around the globe indicate possible follow-up attacks on other port cities underway, including Hong
Kong; Singapore; Capetown, South Africa; and Mumbai, India.  The Pentagon confirms that an early-morning attack against
New York was beaten back by air and naval forces before it could get close enough to inflict damage to the city; while no
official comment has been made on losses, unnamed sources in the Pentagon indicate that "a significant number" of ships and
airplanes were destroyed or damaged in fighting off the attack.

Fires continue to burn in the Port of Los Angeles, despite efforts from firefighters from as far away as San Francisco and
Phoenix.  California has declared a state of emergency for the Los Angeles metropolitan area.

(CNN's R.D. Fox reported from Los Angeles.  CNN's Lee Toop wrote and reported from Atlanta.  The Associated Press, BBC,
ARD, CBC, and UPI also contributed to this report.)