AURORA, TEXAS UFO CRASH
During 1896 and 1897, several years before the Wright Brothers’ first successful flight, people across the United States from California to Texas reported seeing a mysterious cigar-shaped airship. Hundreds of people witnesses a cigar shaped “ship or craft.”
One of these reports was published in the Dallas Morning News on April 19, 1897. Aurora resident S. E. Haydon wrote that two days earlier, around 6:00 AM Central time, a strange craft struck a windmill on the property of Judge J. S. Proctor and crashed. The pilot, described by a reported Army officer from nearby Fort Worth as a being “not of this world” and a “Martian,” died in the impact. The townspeople were said to have buried the body “with Christian rites” in the Aurora Cemetery, which today has a Texas Historical Commission marker referencing the incident. Why was this buried on page 5?
According to the story, debris from the crash was dumped into a nearby well under the damaged windmill, while some pieces supposedly ended up buried with the pilot. The tale grew even stranger when Mr. Brawley Oates, who bought Proctor’s property around 1945, cleaned out the well so he could use it for water. Oates later developed a severe case of arthritis, which he blamed on contaminated water from the wreckage. He eventually sealed the well with a concrete slab and built a small structure on top of it, with the slab’s writing indicating this was done in 1957.
Some claim this was nothing more than a hoax off the back of reports of the time. The main argument that the incident was a hoax comes from research by former Aurora mayor Barbara Brammer, which was featured in an episode of UFO Files. Her findings showed that Aurora had faced a series of hardships shortly before the alleged crash and used this for notoriety:
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A boll weevil infestation destroyed the local cotton crop—Aurora’s main source of income.
- A fire on the west side of town destroyed several buildings and took lives.
- Soon after, a spotted fever outbreak nearly wiped out the remaining residents and forced a quarantine.
- A railroad that was planned to reach Aurora stopped short—never getting closer than 27 miles from town.
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At the time, Aurora had nearly 3,000 residents but was in danger of collapsing.
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Brammer also found that Haydon had a reputation locally as a jokester.
She concluded that his article might have been a final attempt to draw attention to the struggling town. Supporting this idea was the fact that Haydon never wrote a follow-up story, something unusual for an event so dramatic, especially one involving a burial. Rumors have even circulated that the Federal Bureau of Invesgtigation came and exhumed any potential body.
In 1979, Time magazine interviewed Etta Pegues, who claimed Haydon made up the entire story “as a joke and to bring interest to Aurora,” adding that the railroad had bypassed the town and Aurora was dying. She also said Judge Proctor never had a windmill, a statement later disproven in a UFO Hunters episode that documented remains of a windmill base.
In 1998, Dallas station KDFW aired an in-depth report on the incident. Reporter Richard Ray interviewed Jim Marrs (formerly of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram) along with local residents who believed something had crashed in Aurora. However, Ray found no definitive evidence of extraterrestrial life or technology. His report noted that the State of Texas had placed a historical plaque in Aurora that recounts the story and labels it a “legend.”
On December 2, 2005, UFO Files aired an episode titled “Texas’ Roswell,” which covered a 1973 investigation led by Bill Case, an aviation writer for the Dallas Times Herald and the Texas state director of MUFON (Mutual UFO Network).
MUFON located two additional eyewitnesses:
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Mary Evans, age 15 at the time, said her parents went to the crash site (though she was not allowed to go) and saw the alien body.
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Charlie Stephens, age 10 at the time, said he saw the airship trailing smoke as it headed toward Aurora. He wanted to follow it, but his father insisted he finish his chores. Stephens later said his father went to town the next day and saw the wreckage.
During their investigation at the Aurora Cemetery, MUFON found a grave marker that appeared to depict a flying saucer, along with metal detector readings. They requested permission to exhume the grave, but the cemetery association denied the request. Soon after MUFON’s visit, the marker vanished and a three-inch pipe appeared in its place. Metal detector readings also disappeared, leading investigators to believe that whatever metal had been in the grave was removed.
MUFON eventually concluded that the case remained inconclusive but did not eliminate the possibility of a hoax. The episode included an interview with Mayor Brammer, who discussed the town’s earlier tragedies.
On November 19, 2008, the series UFO Hunters aired another documentary about the Aurora incident, with one major new development: Tim Oates, nephew of Brawley Oates and current owner of the property with the sealed well, allowed investigators to reopen the well.
Water samples showed normal results except for unusually high aluminum levels, and the well itself contained nothing significant. According to the episode, a previous property owner had already removed any large metal pieces. Investigators also discovered remnants of a windmill base near the well, contradicting Etta Pegues’ earlier claim that Judge Proctor never had a windmill.
The team also revisited the Aurora Cemetery. While exhumation was again denied, ground-penetrating radar and earlier photos identified an unmarked grave among other graves from the 1890s. However, the grave was in such poor condition that the radar could not determine what, if anything, remained inside.
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