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Texas
| Features | Ghosts
The Aurora
Incident
by James
L. Choron
One hundred and seven-odd years ago, a most unusual incident occurred
in the tiny North Texas town of Aurora.
It was here that one of the earliest documented encounters with an
alien life form took place, in the early morning hours of April 19,
1897.
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| Aurora,
Texas, is literally "the town that almost was" as the town’s tiny
history book states, and one of its few, if not its only, claim to
fame is the burial site of an alien pilot that crashed there in his
“airship”, the most memorable event in a string of UFO sightings which
covered a three state area between 1895 and 1898. |
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| Aurora
is located just off US 287 west of Rhome,
about a mile south, on State Highway 114 to Bridgeport. There is a
sign beside the highway that says CEMETERY, and points south toward
the graveyard. Interestingly enough, the historical marker at the
site actually includes the word "spaceship". Newspapers, along with
diaries and letters by local residents, reported that an alien craft
hit a windmill and was torn to pieces, along with its occupant in
April, 1897. A 1986 movie, "The Aurora Encounter," produced
by Charles B. Pierce, tells the tale. The official historical marker
was installed by the State of Texas, and although nobody knows exactly
where the grave is located, it is certain that the alien was, in fact,
buried in the Aurora Cemetery, after the efforts of the local doctor
failed to save it’s life following the crash. There is, unfortunately,
no sign of the tombstone. It was stolen some years ago and never recovered.
There are, however, picture records of its existence. There is currently
a renewed movement in town to exhume the body of the alien, replace
the headstone and do a complete search for remains of the crash. Also,
there have been several interesting pieces of metal found in the area
that have been confiscated for analysis by the military and never
returned. |
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Aurora Cemetery
TE Photo, 2-04 |
The
historical marker reads as follows:
“Aurora Cemetery”
“The oldest known
graves, here, dating from as early as the 1860s, are those of the
Randall and Rowlett families. Finis Dudley Beauchamp (1825-1893),
a Confederate veteran from Mississippi, donated the 3-acre site to
the newly- formed Aurora Lodge No. 479, A. F. & A.M., in 1877. For
many years, this community burial ground was known as Masonic Cemetery.
Beauchamp, his wife Caroline (1829-1915), and others in their family
are buried here. An epidemic which struck the village in 1891 added
hundreds of graves to the plot. Called "Spotted Fever" by the settlers,
the disease is now thought to be a form of meningitis. Located in
Aurora Cemetery is the gravestone of the infant Nellie Burris (1891-1893)
with its often-quoted epitaph: "As I was so soon done, I don't know
why I was begun." This site is also well-known because of the legend
that a spaceship crashed nearby in 1897 and the pilot, killed in the
crash, was buried here. Struck by epidemic and crop failure and bypassed
by the railroad, the original town of Aurora almost disappeared, but
the cemetery remains in use with over 800 graves. Veterans of the
Civil War, World Wars I and II, and the Korean and Vietnam conflicts
are interred here”. |
Aurora
brings up images of high-speed space travel. In fact, the newest space
shuttle in the NASA fleet is named 'Aurora' after the UFO incident
that took place in 1897. In 1997, the 100th anniversary of the crash
of the unknown “airship” in Aurora,
the TV show "Sightings" brought renewed interest to the topic with
a special called “One Hundred Years of UFO Cover-ups”, that featured
the crash, the efforts of the local doctor to help the dying alien,
and the burial of his body in the town cemetery.
This incident has been covered up and ridiculed by the U.S. Government
(a standard operating procedure of the MAJESTIC 12 group) and has
been widely reported to be a hoax (a weather balloon?). This, to say
the least, sounds a lot like Roswell in 1947? The US government has
a long history of cover-ups in regards to such occurrences. It is
hoped that the current, renewed interest in the incident will last,
and that a new investigation will clear up the Aurora event for good,
although much time has passed. It is tragic that most, if not all
of the original witnesses are long dead, for, at one time, up until
around the early seventies, there were quite a few people still living
who had been children at the time and not only remember the crash,
but remember a rash of “airship” sightings, all over East
and North-Central
Texas, as well as the stories which were passed down to them from
their “elders”. Almost everyone who grew up in those parts of the
state have heard stories from their grandparents, or other “old folks”
about such events, many of whom were “substantial” citizens, including
doctors, clergymen, judges, army personnel, sheriffs and other professionals.
Aurora crash was, in fact, the culminating event in a rash of “airship”
sightings in East and Northeast
Texas, Oklahoma, North and Central Louisiana in the period between
1895 and 1898. Robert Atkinson, of Center,
Texas, a veteran of the Spanish
American War, often told of seeing, as a teenager, strange, “flashing
lights” in the sky, as did Polk Burns of the same city. Similar incidents
were recountered by Bud Knight, a prominent resident of San
Augustine, Texas, who died in 1981 at the age of 108. Lee Choron,
who died in 1976 at the age of 94 recalled seeing “moving lights flashing
in the sky” while living in Swift, Texas (near Nacogdoches)
while in his “teens”. Nor, were civic records and town newspapers
of the time completely silent on the matter. Reports, although not
common, do exist. On April 22, 1897 in the small central Texas town
of Rockland, John M. Barclay was intrigued when his dog barked furiously
and a high-pitched noise was heard. He went out, saw a flying object
circling about 20 feet above ground. He described it as having an
elongated shape, with protrusions and blinding lights, it went dark
when it landed, only a short distance from his home. Barclay was met
by a man who informed him that his purpose was peaceful and requested
some common hardware items to repair the craft. He paid with a ten-dollar
bill and took off "like a bullet out of a gun."
On that same day, April 22, 1897, some one hundred miles away, in
the community of Josserand, Texas, Frank Nichols, who lived some five
miles east of Josserand, and was one of its most respected citizens,
was awakened by what he called a “machine noise”. Looking outside,
he saw a heavy, lighted object land in his wheat field. He walked
toward it, but was stopped by two men who asked permission to draw
water from his well. He then had a discussion with half a dozen “short,
dark men” men, apparently the crew of the strange machine. He was
told how it worked but could not follow the explanation.
Three days later, on April 25, 1897, in Merkel,
Texas. People returning from church served a heavy object being
dragged along the ground by a rope or cable, attached to a “cigar
shaped” lying craft. As the assembled crowd watched, the line managed
to get caught in a railroad track. The craft was too high for its
structure to be visible but protrusions and a light could be distinguished.
After the craft hovered in place for about 10 minutes, a man came
down along the rope cut the end free, and went back aboard the craft,
which flew away toward the northeast. The man was described by all
witnesses, as being small and dressed in a light blue uniform.
The next day, late in the evening of April 26, 1897, near the town
of Aquila, in South Texas.
A local lawyer, whose name was not reported by the press, was surprised
to see a lighted object fly quietly overhead as he was riding from
his office to his home, just outside the city limits. His horse was
scared and nearly toppled his carriage. The object was large, and
“oblong”, and sported a bright light that was observed to be sweeping
the ground below the object. When the main light was turned off, a
number of smaller lights became visible on the underside of the dark
colored, metallic craft, which revealed an elongated, transparent
canopy. It continued forward, toward a hill, some seven miles to the
south of Aquila.
When the witness passed the same way, approximately one hour later,
he saw the object rising. It reached the altitude of the cloud ceiling
and flew to the northeast at a fantastic speed with periodic flashes
of light.
These
accounts, all given by respectable witnesses, separated by several
hundred miles, yet all in a direct line with Aurora,
describe a very similar object. It must be remembered that in 1897,
distances were much greater than they are today, and news traveled
at a much slower rate. It is inconceivable that there could have been
any collusion between witnesses, and highly unlikely that people living
in towns separated by several hundred miles, could have heard news
or read accounts of happenings in other towns within the space of
two or three days. This was a time, it must be remembered, when most
news traveled by wire, or by railroad, and unless there was a critical
need for residents of one region to have news of another, the expense
of wiring such news was avoided.
Much may be made, in some quarters of the “quaint” descriptions given
of the object… it, indeed, must be a single object, or at least identical
objects… such as the presence of “machine noises” and “ropes”. This
is perfectly understandable in light of the fact that this was a time
before sophisticated machinery, especially sophisticated flying machinery
was common, or even, for that matter, known. It would be six years
before the Wright Brothers would take their first, halting, leap above
the ground, and the dirigible airships of such pioneers as the Count
von Zeplein, were in the very early stages of development, a continent
and an ocean away. Certainly no native of East,
Central
or South Texas had ever
seen such an object. It is highly unlikely that very many of them
had even heard of such things. Science Fiction of the day was limited
to the works of Jules Verne, and the very early works of Herbert George
Wells, and it is unlikely in the extreme that residents of a tiny
Texas town, only a few years removed from fighting for it’s survival
with the Apaches and Comanches would have access to such current works.
The point, is this. The residents of Aquila,
Hillsboro, Merkel,
Jossarand, Nacogdoches,
Swift and Aurora,
would describe what they saw in terms that they understood, and could
relate to. Any unusual sound, emanating from an obviously “manmade”
object would be described as a “machine sound”. Likewise, any form
of line, tie-down or connector would be described as a rope, cable
or line. A classic example of such a description would be the existence
of the “cargo” cults of the South Pacific… religious sects of islanders
who being members of a pre-industrial, stone age culture, worship
the airplanes that their ancestors first saw during the Second
World War, and revere the crews as Gods who brought gifts… “cargo”
from the sky. Far fetched? Not at all. Imagine how anyone living today
might describe an object from a thousand years or, or so, in our own
future.
It is also worthwhile, at this point, to repeat the fact that people
of this time and place, late 19th Century Texas,
were extremely conservative in nature, skeptical by necessity, and
most unlikely to take off on flights of fancy. There would simply
be nothing to be gained from concocting a story concerning such a
thing as an “airship." They would not only not be believed, their
sanity, sobriety and competence would have come into serious question.
Unlike today, when, as one must admit, such accounts are commonly
hoaxed as an attempt to gain attention and momentary fame, this simply
would not have been the case in 1897. The most likely result of such
a story, unless absolutely and verifiably true would have been shunning
by the community as the “village idiot” or as the “town drunk”. Worse,
in the primarily Protestant Fundamentalist religious atmosphere of
the time, which, by the way, has changed but little since that time,
one would have been considered “blasphemous”, “sacrilegious” and possibly
even “Satanic”, and definitely shunned by most “upright” and “upstanding”
citizens of the community.
The old “Judge Proctor” place in Aurora,
site of the crash, is still locatable, and the town square is still
in its original position, but unfortunately most of the original buildings
of the town, those dating to the 1890s, are long gone. Some evidence,
however, does endure to the present day. The original article, reporting
the Aurora Incident, as written in 1897, in the April 19th
edition of the Dallas Morning News reads as follows: ...
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© James
L. Choron August 5, 2004 |
Aurora Encounter
Forum:
Subject:
Aurora, Texas alien
I am the great-great-great granddaughter of Finis Dudley Beauchamp.
Dudley is the person who donated the family cemetery to the town
of Aurora. My great grandmother, Robbie Reynolds, was the 91 year
old person that so many of the online articles mention as having
been interviewed in the 1970's.
As much as I wish the whole story were true, the fact of the matter
is, it's not. My great-grandmother and I were very close. She said
that the whole story was a hoax, and the original interview included
that. I'm not sure how the story went from her saying it was a hoax
to the story that her parents went to check out the situation, and
wouldn't allow her to go. In your article you mention that most
people of the time were illiterate. I know for sure that my great-grandmother
and her mother and father could read and write very well. I also
know that Robbie Townsend, the woman for whom my great grandmother
was named, was a teacher.
I know the truth isn't nearly as cool as the stories that have been
told for the last 100 years. I just wanted to set the story straight.
- Sincerely, Robbie Fields, El Paso, Texas, April 09, 2005
The Aurora
story is a total hoax as far as I'm concerned. I spent eight hours
searching at the cemetery where the alien is supposed to be buried
and found nary a grave. Even if the headstone had been stolen you
would think that some one would put something in it's place so people
would at least know where he is buried. Plus it is said that photos
exist of the headstone but none are ever posted on the internet.
We have an eyewitness account that is completely false. The great
granddaughter of the woman who supposedly witnessed it said that
her grandmother had said it was a hoax at the time she was interviewed
but instead it said she is quoted as saying she remember it happening
as though it was real. As for the newspaper article in the Dallas
Morning News I have searched their archives and no such article
exists or was ever written. The only thing about Aurora in that
days paper is the farm report. Also mentioned is the city's town
square. Unless it was totally demolished in the last few years it
doesn't exist either. I drove every road in and out of town and
at some point I would have found the town square but never did.
This is a very small town. If traveling on highway 114 you pass
through the town in about 2:30 min and that's going 45 mph. I doubt
one could miss a town square. The newspaper article in all websites
but two I've seen credit it to a E.E. Hayden and on the other two
the say it was written by a S.E. Haydon who was an amateur writer
who wrote the story as a fictional account to help revitalize a
dying community. I never found signs of an old military airfield
although there is a road in town that is called old base road which
seems to [suggest] there was some sort of base in the area. The
town doesn't seem to be laid out in base fashion - it just looks
like a very small country town with a population of 376. No town
to speak of - just farms and houses no main street or town square.
If any one can give me better geographic info I would be glad to
go out there again and see what I can find because I could never
find the "old Proctor place." If someone knows where these things
are send it to me and I'll investigate. - Tomy Dudley, tomylee@rock.com,
December 27, 2005
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