What happened
On April 19, 1897, the “Dallas Morning News” published a dispatch by S. E. Haydon from the small town of Aurora, Texas. According to the report, two days earlier, at around six in the morning, an airship flew over the town, struck a windmill on the property of Judge J. S. Proctor, and broke apart in an explosion. The wreckage was said to contain the body of the pilot – a being “not of this world,” probably a Martian – along with papers written in unknown hieroglyphics. The pilot was supposedly buried in the local cemetery. In the 1970s the story was revived: ufologists searched for the grave with metal detectors, and the organization MUFON took up the case. Today a historical marker at the cemetery mentions the legend.
Witnesses
The account rested solely on the article by correspondent S. E. Haydon; later statements by residents were contradictory.
Explanations and hypotheses
Historians and most researchers regard the article as a joke or an attempt to put struggling Aurora on the map after the railroad had bypassed it and an epidemic had struck. Older residents interviewed in the 1970s said that nothing of the kind had happened, and Proctor’s property reportedly had no windmill. Searches for the grave and the wreckage produced no conclusive results.
Hoax A proven or admitted hoax.
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