Aurora, Texas
Some time back I was having a discussion on the ERRIE Radio forums about Aurora, Texas. The guy I was having a discussion with turned out to be a hammerhead so I went else where. I thought that you might be able to get some information out of this. so here it is.
Well I’ve been looking around and have also put my hands on some of the casework from the 1997 MUFON investigation. I am still trying to work through the MUFON stuff there is a lot of it. A friend of mine over at MUFON say he thinks the case is still open.
Let’s start with “airship”. We as human beings tend to use the language of the time in which we live to describe things. Old Hags is a good example. Incubus, Witches, The Old Hags, Shadow people and Aliens have all been explanations for some instances of sleep paralysis. The first cars were referred to as “Horseless Carriages”. Some even believe that the phrase “Chariots of fire” describe extraterrestrial vehicles. So in the 1890’s in north central with the minimal literacy level that prevailed there at the time most people might describe the “cigar shaped craft” described in some of the literature surrounding the Aurora crash as an “Airship”.
In the 1890’s there was a rash of sighting not only in Texas but many other states. The majority of the sightings in Texas were in the pine forest of east Texas but a few were in north Texas. Most were described as cigar shapes craft that seemed to move under their own power. My first thought was Blimp or Zeppelin. So I did a little digging.
In 1852 Henri Giffard attached a steam powered engine to a hot air balloon and traveled seventeen miles at five miles an hour. That was the first dirigible.
David Schwarz constructed the first dirigible airship in 1896, which was tested with partial success November 3, 1897.
Alberto Santos-Dumont was the first to use a gasoline for his airship which flew for the first time on September 18, 1898 in France, The gasoline engine being invented in 1896.
Ferdinand von Zeppelin obtained a patent for his “dirigible balloon” on August 31, 1895. Construction of the first Zeppelin began in 1899. The first Zeppelin flight occurred on July 2, 1900.
It would have been difficult for this new technology to show up in Texas in the 1890’s in my opinion.
OK, the town of Aurora. The town of Aurora Texas is situated within an hours drive from most parts of Ft. Worth Texas. It has never been very large and today only has about nine hundred residents. It has been a military town off and on since the 1860’s. Starting as a cavalry outpost of the original Fort Worth and continued to be used by the military for most of the twentieth century. Most notably In world war two it was a used as refueling point for planes being transported from coast to coast. Most people think that Texas is one big desert but Aurora is situated in a part of the state that in more like southern Oklahoma. The area is largely grassy rolling plains with lots of trees.
Most of the of the articles I find calling Aurora a hoax seem to stem from an interview with the town historian in 1973. In that article she said that the town cooked up the story to attract people to the town because the railroad had passed them by. Town historians in a small town in Texas are normally someone that works at the local library or a busy body that has nothing better to do than sit around and listen to stories from others in the town. The crashed was almost eighty years in the past in 1973. The historian must have been very young or not even born when the crash occurred.
Last but not least in this post. There is still the issue of the grave and the artifacts in the well. The body of the pilot of the craft is supposed to be buried in the local cemetery and some metal that was recovered from the crash is said to have been dropped down a well. the owner of the well later became sick from contaminated water and sealed the well. In 1997 when a request was made to exhume the body in the cemetery the local judge denied the request. The current owner of the property where the well is located has refused to allow the excavation of the well.
There you go, a little food for thought. I think I’ll keep digging. What are your thoughts?
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