Heavenly Hoax
Texas town has its own brush with a UFO
By Carlton Stowers
Long before there was the riddle of Roswell, Texas had its own
strange story of the crash of an unidentified flying object and
the recovery of its pilot. It happened in the Wise County
community of Aurora, west of Fort Worth - a decade before Orville
and Henry Wright got their flimsy plane off the ground.
According to an account that appeared in The Dallas Morning News
on April 19, 1897, "...early risers of Aurora were astonished at
the sudden appearance of an airship...it sailed directly over
the public square and when it reached the north part of town
collided with the tower of Judge Proctor's windmill and went to
pieces with a terrific explosion..."
The colorfully written article, authored by Aurora correspondent
S.E. Haydon, went on to explain how several tons of silver and
aluminum-looking debris from the crash were scattered for acres
and that the body of a dead "pilot," thrown from the craft, was
badly disfigured. "Mr. T.J. Weems, the United States signal
service officer and an authority on astronomy, gives it as his
opinion that he [the pilot] was a native of the planet Mars,"
Haydon reported.
He wrote that the funeral for the celestial visitor was
scheduled for the following day with burial in the Aurora Cemetery.
Thus began the cult legend that has inspired a movie ("The
Aurora Encounter," 1986) and kept the tiny community of 376 on the UFO map.
And while generally relegated to the category of hoax, it has
long fascinated the cosmic researchers. In 1973, Dallas Times
Herald aviation writer Bill Case visited Aurora to launch his
own investigation of the event, interviewing several old-timers.
G.C. Curley, 98 at the time, assured the reporter that he and
two of his boyhood friends had actually seen the crash site and
the "torn up body" of the airship's pilot. Several others told
him of hearing passed-along stories of the event.
Most remarkable was Case's claim that, with the aid of a metal
detector, he had discovered the grave site of the
extraterrestrial visitor in the nearby cemetery. It was, he
reported, marked by a small headstone that featured what he
described as a crudely drawn, cigar-shaped object, complete with
a series of circular "windows."
Soon, the International UFO Bureau, a group that investigates
extraterrestrial phenomena, came running, seeking a court order
to have the grave opened and the body exhumed. Aurora Cemetery
Association members said no-way-in-hell and the local sheriff
began guarding the entrance. Vigilant though he was, the
headstone that marked the alleged alien grave ultimately disappeared.
Today, only a historical marker at the entrance to the graveyard
alerts visitors to the presence of the heavenly visitor
supposedly buried there over a century ago.
In time, the exact location of the unmarked grave was forgotten
and Aurora historian Etta Pegues provided her own take on the
story: "It was all a hoax cooked up by [newspaper correspondent]
Haydon and a bunch of men sitting around the general store," she
wrote. She added that Haydon had a well-known reputation for
telling tall tales. Some in the community, she added, suspected
that Judge J.S. Proctor, owner of the property where the airship
was said to have crashed, might actually have instigated the story.
Standing behind the counter at the "alien green"-painted Area
114 Gift Shop, Iona Reed says, "People around here don't like to
talk about it anymore."
Does she believe something actually crashed no more than 100
yards from where her daughter's gift shop now sits on the side
of Highway 114? She smiles, shrugs and points to a 45-minute
video produced and narrated by veteran conspiracy writer Jim
Marrs. "It tells the whole story," she says. For only $19.95
plus tax.
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