1897: Aurora, Texas Crash

THINK ABOUTIT CRASH REPORT

Date: April 19, 1897

Sighting Time: 6 o’clock  

Day/Night: morning

Location: Aurora, Texas

Urban or Rural: Rural

Hynek Classification: CE-III (Close Encounter III) Close observation with animate beings associated with the object.

Duration:

No. of Object(s):  1

Size of Object(s):

Distance to Object(s):

Shape of Object(s):

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Number of Witnesses:

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Summary/Description: From the , Dallas Morning News ‘About 6 o’clock this morning the early risers of were astonished at the sudden appearance of the airship, which has been sailing around the country. It was traveling due north and much nearer the earth than before.  Evidently some of the machinery was out of order, for it was making a speed of only ten or twelve miles an hour, and gradually settling toward the earth. It sailed over the public square and when it reached the north part of town it collided with the tower of Judge Proctor’s windmill and went into pieces with a terrific explosion, scattering debris over several acres of ground, wrecking the windmill and water tank and destroying the judge’s flower garden. The pilot of the ship is supposed to have been the only one aboard and, while his remains were badly disfigured, enough of the original has been picked up to show that he was not an inhabitant of this world. 

Mr. T.J. Weems, the U.S. Army Signal Service officer at this place and an authority on astronomy gives it as his opinion that the pilot was a native of the planet Mars. Papers found on his person, evidently the records of his travels — are written in some unknown hieroglyphics and cannot be deciphered. This ship was too badly wrecked to form any conclusion as to its construction or motive power. It was built of an unknown metal, resembling somewhat a mixture of aluminum and silver, and it must have weighed several tons. The town is today full of people who are viewing the wreckage and gathering specimens of strange metal from the debris. The pilot’s funeral will take place tomorrow.’  From UPI, 1973, “A grave in a small north Aurora, Texas cemetery contains the body of an 1897 astronaut who “was not an inhabitant of this world,” according to the International UFO Bureau. The group, which investigates unidentified flying objects, has already initiated legal proceedings to exhume the body.  “After checking the grave with metal detectors and gathering facts for three months, we are certain as we can be at this point [that] he was the pilot of a UFO which reportedly exploded atop a well on Judge J.S. Proctor’s place, April 19, 1897,” Hewes said. He was not an inhabitant of this world.” 

A few days later, another UPI account datelined Aurora quoted a ninety-one-year-old who had been a girl of fifteen in Aurora at the time of the reported incident. She said she “had all but forgotten the incident until it appeared in the newspapers recently.” She said her parents had gone to the sight of the crash, but had refused to take her along. She recalled that the remains of the pilot, “a small man,” had been buried in the Aurora cemetery.  Not to be outdone, the Associated Press, in a story datelined Denton, Texas, reported “a North Texas State University professor had found some metal fragments near the Oates gas station (former Proctor farm). One fragment was said to be ‘most intriguing’ because it consisted of primarily of iron which did not seem to exhibit magnetic properties.” The professor also said he was puzzled because the fragment was “shiny and malleable instead of dull and brittle like iron.” The Aurora Cemetery Association was successful in blocking the attempts to dig up the grounds in search of the “Martian pilot.”

Full Report

Texas’ Roswell While the most famous UFO crash story of all time might be the one describing the Roswell, New Mexico incident, it is not the first. On April 17, 1897 a mysterious airship would promote the town of Aurora Texas to legendary UFO at Roswell fame. It was not first time that the Texas Airship had reportedly been seen, nor was it the last. The significance of the Aurora Encounter is that there was a alien body left to be studied, along with hundreds of reported sightings of the same description across the central United States at that time. The Dallas Morning News carried the story but, as current expectations would have it, the story was not a headline, nor was it even on page 1.

The story was on page 5, listed among more than 12 other articles discussing sightings of mysterious airships. In the two days prior to this incident, there were another 16 articles describing sightings by reputable people in the same area of Central Texas. In late November 1896, there were thousands of witnesses reporting a sighting of airships over California, some 1500 miles to the west. Between November 1896 and April 1897, many additional airship sightings were documented in several states from California to Michigan. Between April and May 1897, the airship sightings continued in more than 30 Texas counties reported by hundreds of real Texans with the most common element being that it was cigar shaped and could do things that today’s airships can barely do. What they saw may never be determined, but they did see something of extraterrestrial origin fly overhead. Granted, many UFO sightings and pictures are hoaxes, but at the turn of the century, people had no motive to make up a story such as this other than simply stating that they saw something and wanted to tell others about it. The story was all but forgotten until 2005 when Hayden Hewes, the founder of the International UFO Bureau would arrive in Aurora to reopen the UFO investigation.

The Aurora crash differs from the Roswell crash in that original documentation was not tampered with by the military nor were the still living eye witnesses debriefed, or told to keep quiet by the military.  Hewes found that many residents, wanted very little if anything to do with the story of the crash, but 3 or more people who were alive at the time were willing to talk to investigators.  Robbie Hansen although not a direct witness considered the incident to be untrue simply because her father laughed at the story and thought it was a hoax.  Two other witnesses provided first hand accounts of the sighting, contradicting Robbie Hansen.  Mary Evans, who was 15 at the time, recalled that something did crash; her parents went to see the crash, but would not let her view the scene.  Charlie Stevens was 10 years old the time, says he saw the smoke trailing airship fly overhead and disappear near Aurora, he heard an explosion and saw the smoke plume.  The young Mr. Stevens wanted to go and view the site but, his turn of the century farmer father would not let him because there were chores left to complete.  The following day after returning from town, his father told him about all of the scattered wreckage he saw at the scene.

A twist to the legend was added in 1945 when Rolley Oats moved to Aurora, Texas. Needing water, he had the well that reportedly had the pieces of the spaceship thrown into it more than 40 years earlier, cleaned out. Under the presumption that radiation from the well, or the well water, caused him to develop severe arthritis conditions in his left hand, and after more than 12 years of getting drinking water from the well, he sealed it with a 6″ concrete slab. It has been suggested that the bulk of the debris was hauled away to a currently unknown location and the remaining, smaller items were thrown down the well.

In 1973, a small, yet significant piece of metallic debris was found by an investigator from Corpus Christi, Texas which is unlike anything that could have been developed either then or now. The item was tested twice, once at a specialized aeronautics failure analysis lab which prefers to remain anonymous and a second time at Anastas Technical Services Laboratories, in Houston, Texas. Both studies reached the same results showing that the item had been ‘there’ for a “long, long time” and that it was composed of 95% aluminum and 5% iron. Iron and aluminum do not normally mix that way in nature. Also, iron normally contains zinc, and other materials of which there were none in this particular sample. The theory is that upon impact, the explosion resulted molten materials being flung away from the site. The structural analysis of the material showed that it was molten and then air cooled on the ground. This material which was found and analyzed in 1973 could not have been made at that time, on that farm, in the town of Aurora, or anywhere around there. It would have had to been made in a very sophisticated laboratory using ultra pure refining techniques which are typically found today. A second set of samples were sent to Dr. Tom Gray, a professor at Kansas State University. The set included an interesting stone-like article, which was identified as a water pump impeller. The other items were found to be mostly comprised of iron. Testing on the items resulted in a lack of magnetic attraction which could seem unusual. This is not the case as depending on how the iron is cooled, it may or may not have magnetic properties. These items are certainly what you might expect to find on a farm of that time period.

Alien Burial site The story includes that the spacecraft had a single occupant who was found dead. The town folk had a Christian burial for the badly mangled body in the Aurora Texas Cemetery. At the time, an interesting looking headstone was found which could have been the marker for the burial site. Using metal detectors, investigators discovered that they got the same decibel reading from the grave site as they did where they found the mysterious Aurora fragment. The fact that they detected metal in the grave indicated that someone must have buried the metal fragment from the crash site along with the body. This gives the grave site more importance as it shows a direct relationship between the 2 locations. A certified letter was sent to each member of the cemetery association requesting to exhume the body. The association was dead set against this from happening and had the Wise County Sheriff post deputies at the cemetery to prevent any excavation from happening. MUFON suffered a crushing blow to their efforts due to the 2 week delay; the headstone had been removed along with the metal that had been previously detected as metal detectors were no longer able locate any metallic debris at the burial site. According to experts, someone had managed to drive a three inch pipe into the ground and then removed the metal debris from the ground.

Legendary status Like the 1947 Roswell story, the legend describing the Encounter at Aurora has grown over the years. Skeptics challenge the story and the investigation seeking to disprove the research by organizations like MUFON and the International UFO Bureau. The anti UFO stories range from saying it was a hot air balloon to the idea that the story was merely a publicity stunt to save a dying town. The most prevalent being the hot air balloon theory. Unfortunately for the naysayer, there is physically no way it could have been a balloon. There are no balloons that can rise or fall with lightening speed, they can’t turn right angles or go vertically up or down. Due to the detailed descriptions of the airships available at the time, it is unlikely that it was a balloon as that should have been easily recognized as such by any of the multiple viewers that had seen this particular airship all across the state as well as the nation. The secondary belief is that the story was concocted by the author of the original Dallas Morning News article of April 19, 1897. S. E. Hayden had a reputation as a great practical joker and a hoaxster. Jim Marrs, an investigative journalist reports that he has found no hard evidence supporting this idea nor has he found any article written by Mr. Hayden that turned out to be wrong. If Hayden was acting as a reporter, as opposed to a hoaxster, why wouldn’t he follow up the story with a line or two saying that people showed up for the funeral service?

Barbara Brammer, the Mayor of Aurora, Texas has spent many years researching the town’s history and believes she may have the answer to the Aurora legend. According to her, the legend’s roots can be traced to after several disasters suffered by the town. In the 1850’s, the location known as Aurora began as center of trade for area residents. The rapidly growing area was incorporated in 1882, and opened a Postal Office in 1883. By the Mid 1880’s, the thriving young city had 2 schools, several business’s and a population that would grow to nearly 3000. In the late 1880’s, a massive outbreak of spotted fever nearly wiped out the remaining population, led to the entire town being placed under house arrest followed by a max exit of the masses. In the early 1890’s Burlington Northern Railroad was scheduled to run through Aurora which provided a glimmer of hope. A spur was begun in the direction of Aurora and another railroad coming from the west was to tie into the spur. The westerly rail only made it to within 27 miles of Aurora before it was stopped becoming known as the “Railroad that never was”. The town also suffered a brutal bole weevil infestation which destroyed Aurora’s cash crop~ cotton. After that, a major fire on the west side of the town destroyed several buildings and killed many of the citizens. This string of events led up to an economically crippled town and the spirits of the residents was crushed and the population would never recover but is growing at a slight rate the early 1990’s. The once thriving community of Aurora Texas began a downhill trek at this time which could be the reason for creating such a story in an effort to boost local moral and bring some new interest in the community.