Aurora UFO Crash

**Aurora UFO Crash** was a UFO incident reportedly occurred on April 17, 1897, when, according to locals, a UFO crashed on a farm near Aurora, Texas. The incident (similar to the more famous Roswell UFO incident 50 years later) is claimed to have resulted in a fatality of the pilot. The pilot was "not of this world" and was said to be an alien. The pilot was buried at the Aurora cemetery. A stone was placed as a marker for the grave, but has since been removed.

## Sighting

In 1896 and 1897, there were many reports of flying metal "cigars" that moved slowly across the sky and illuminated the surroundings with a bright light at night. These reports were taken seriously, as airplanes and airships were not yet common at that time, so such reports caused concern.

One of the places visited by one such ship was the small rural town of Aurora, Texas. It was an inconspicuous place that would normally be just another dusty town in an inhospitable country that one could pass by without noticing. However, according to the Dallas Morning News of April 15, 1897, it appears that one of these mysterious ships reportedly came down from the sky and hovered over downtown. At first it was an astonishing sight for the witnesses, but apparently things quickly turned even stranger when the machine began to move erratically and appeared to be experiencing some mechanical difficulties. The UFO is said to have then collided with a windmill on Judge J.S. Proctor's property, causing a "tremendous explosion" that destroyed not only the mill, but also the water tank and the machine itself, with sparks and debris flying everywhere.

When shocked locals examined the wreckage, they discovered that much of it was made of a strange, light metal that none of them had seen before, "something like a mixture of aluminum and silver". According to reports, the pilot of the machine was also found lying on the ground dead in the debris, and although there was no real detailed description of the creature, the pilot was described as a small humanoid figure and labeled as a "Martian". His body was mutilated, but it was still clear to everyone that he was not from this world. On the creature were said to be sheets of paper-like material with some strange symbols drawn on them that resembled Egyptian hieroglyphs. However, their meaning did not mean anything to anyone present.

So it looked like there was a real crashed spaceship and an alien body in place; so what did the locals do? According to the story, they dumped the debris into an old well, sealed it, and then had a tiny alien arrange a Christian burial in a nearby cemetery in Aurora. They even carved a simple image of a spaceship on a small tombstone. Newspapers at the time sensationalized the story and it was soon the talk of the town, causing curious people to come to town to see the area and the cemetery for themselves. While it would be easy to say that the Dallas Morning News report, written by an Aurora local, must surely be a joke, other witnesses soon came forward. They also allegedly saw the vessel and the dead creature, or even witnessed the crash, which gave the news more credibility.

Later, there were also claims by the new owner of Judge Proctor's land, Mr. Brawley Oates, who in 1945 claimed to have found pieces of an alien ship buried in the well, which even made him sick and forced him to seal the well with cement. Equally unusual was the fact that the incident was somehow quickly forgotten, and for decades afterwards it was just a kind of incomprehensible historical oddity. The location of the alleged grave was forgotten until UFO enthusiasts later picked up on the story. The case quickly became popular again among UFO hunters in later years, with many investigations into the claims circulating over the years. One of the first investigators was Bill Case, Dallas Times Herald aviation writer and Texas state director of the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), who interviewed surviving witnesses and inspected the cemetery.

In 1973, he claimed to have found a tombstone that he believed marked an alien grave. It was nothing more than a small broken rock with an image carved into it that resembled a flying saucer. Using a metal detector, it was discovered that pieces of metal were buried underground, and an enthusiastic investigator tried to get permission from the city to exhume the grave, but without success. The story got even stranger because Case claimed that on his next visit, the metal pieces from the grave had seemingly disappeared or had been moved. Shortly thereafter, the headstone itself was stolen, and the exact location of the alleged alien body was once again unknown.

Another notable investigation was conducted by the television show UFO Hunters in 2008. The team approached current landowner Judge Proctor Tim Oates, nephew of Brawley Oates, who sealed the well. Oates gave them permission to have the well uncovered, but no pieces of foreign debris were found, and the water tested was quite normal, except for the elevated levels of aluminum present. If pieces of the alien ship were ever there, they've probably since been removed and subsequently lost. UFO hunters also explored a cemetery in Aurora and tried to locate an unmarked grave with a detector. It seemed that they had finally found a likely site, so they tried to get permission to dig, but it was refused. Without being able to exhume the remains from the grave, it was impossible to determine whether they were human or not, and so the mystery continued.

Thus, the location of the grave, if one ever existed, is unknown, although there is still a plaque in the cemetery itself listing the alien himself as one of those buried there. The story of the Aurora UFO crash and its lost alien grave has been discussed a lot in recent years, mainly on the Internet. One prominent hypothesis is that it was all just a publicity stunt to get people to visit the city for tourism. Another thought is that the crash was really an alien craft accident and the grave is still waiting to be discovered. However, many believe that the alien body was long ago seized by the government, similar to the case of Roswell. Given that the facts are dubious and real evidence has never been presented, we cannot be sure that such a thing really happened. So is there a real alien buried in Aurora? If yes.