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Post by Joanna on Apr 19, 2016 18:38:17 GMT -5
Texas Town Celebrates 1897 UFO CrashAccording to legend – and a Texas historical marker – early in the morning of April 17, 1897, something strange happened in the small town of Aurora approximately 30 miles northwest of Fort Worth. A cigar-shaped airship was seen falling from the sky before it crashed through a windmill and exploded. The airship, it is said, was not of this world. The pilot – from Mars, people thought at the time – was allegedly buried with Christian rites at the nearby Aurora Cemetery.
The Wise County town recently hosted a conference to commemorate the UFO crash. Folks have different opinions about what happened nearly 120 years ago. Toni Wheeler first heard the story of the crash when she was a kid growing up in Aurora. An older neighbor would sit on his porch and tell stories. “Then I started asking my grandfather about it and he would snicker about it,” Wheeler said. “And my grandmother said ‘it’s hogwash.’ But my uncles would discuss it. Especially my uncle Marvin. He loved to tell tall tales anyway and he really got on telling all kinds of stories, and Ned’s story was one of them.”
They call him Ned. Many folks in Aurora call the alien Ned. He’s the extraterrestrial pilot that is said to have been buried in the town. Wheeler came up with the name – and it stuck. Wheeler’s family has been in Aurora for several generations. She’s been Aurora’s city administrator for more than a decade. On Saturday, she spent the day leading bus tours to the crash site and the old town cemetery. It was part of the Aurora Alien Encounter conference she helped organize.
Researchers have looked into the story for years, testing water in the well where the wreckage was said to be stored, digging metal out of trees at the crash site as proof something exploded and using radar to see if there really is a Ned in Ned’s grave. In the 1970s, Wheeler says people even tried to exhume the remains.
Texas a UFO hotbed. This wasn’t the only UFO sighting in Texas in the spring of 1897. New telescope technology had allowed people to see the face of Mars more clearly than ever, though maybe not quite clearly enough. An Italian astronomer in 1888 announced he’d seen evidence of canals on the red planet. “People kind of freaked out,” says E. R. Bills, an author who wrote about the Aurora incident in his book Texas Obscurities. “It was the first serious discussion of maybe there being life. So when this crash happened here, you know, people had heard of that, and that’s why they assumed the pilot was from Mars.”
The Dallas Morning News, taking at face value that it was indeed an extraterrestrial event, linked Ned's ship to a series of UFO sightings around the country and quoted a U.S. signal service officer who “gives it as his opinion that he was a native of the planet Mars.” He continued: “Papers found on his person – evidently a record of his travels – are written in some unknown hieroglyphics and cannot be deciphered,” the newspaper reported. The ship was too badly wrecked to form any conclusion as to its construction or motive power. It was built of an unknown metal, resembling somewhat a mixture of aluminum and silver.”
 'Martian's' grave
Embracing the alien story? There were lots of theories about what happened back in 1897. There still are. Some thought it was a man-made dirigible that crashed, others called it a hoax. Some at the time saw it as a sign of Judgment Day approaching.
These days in Aurora, there’s more tension over whether the city should embrace the alien story. “There’ve been people that are a part of our city council, that are a part of other committees throughout the city who have threatened resignation for us being involved in this,” says Amanda Smith, Aurora Historical and Preservation Commission secretary. “It is that serious.”
The conference is just one way the town is cashing in on its lore. There are plans for an alien-themed haunted house this fall. A statue is in the works – featuring a broken windmill and the flying saucer Ned crashed.
“I live not far from here, and every day – every day – there are people lined up at the cemetery looking around,” Smith says. “And from a business standpoint, and a marketing standpoint, that is an asset we’re not capitalizing on.” More than just a business opportunity, though, she says embracing the town’s quirky history is a way to preserve its unique identity as it is enveloped into the outer suburbs of Fort Worth. Without that history, she says, “our heritage goes away, and [Aurora] becomes just another part of the conglomerate.” Smith adds she was pleased with the conference’s turnout. The venue, she said, was at capacity. Conference organizers say they want this to be a yearly tradition.
‘We’re not the only ones out here.’ Like a lot of attendees, Richard Wall says he’s had his own UFO encounter. Several years back, he saw glowing spheres in the night sky that flew off with a sonic boom. As for the 1897 crash, though, Wall is skeptical. “I’m sure somebody saw something and they’re trying to make something plausible of the story behind what they saw,” he says.
His wife, Dolly Moravitz-Wall, shook her head at her husband’s disbelief. “I believe it,” she says. “I really do. Because there are other beings out there. We’re not the only ones out here.”
The two together share the views that so many people who turned out to learn more about the event: That even if Ned didn’t crash land in Aurora in 1897, it doesn’t mean Ned’s cousins aren’t out there.
Sources: Christopher Connelly, KERA News, April 18, 2016; Texas Obscurities by E.R. Bills; and The Dallas Morning News, April 19, 1897.
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Post by Sam on Apr 19, 2016 22:38:09 GMT -5
I don't think that anyone just made up a story like that and got so many people to believe it that they still talk about it. Something had to have happened. There's also the grave. Would someone say that an alien was buried there for no reason?
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Post by steve on Apr 22, 2016 23:31:59 GMT -5
I've read about this case. There was a lot of detail for a hoax, like the spaceship knocking the windmill down.
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Post by Joanna on Apr 16, 2018 10:21:36 GMT -5
Reward for Return of Aurora Extraterrestrial's Grave MarkerStratton Horres, a Dallas lawyer, is offering $1,000 for the return of a grave marker stolen from the cemetery in Aurora, Texas, that marked the grave of an extraterrestrial killed in a spaceship crash that occurred April 17, 1897.
Horres doesn’t necessarily believe a spaceship actually crashed in the small town 27 miles north of downtown Fort Worth, but he enjoys reading about and researching unidentified flying objects and wants to see if his financial offer turns up any evidence one way or the other. “It’s a legend that persists after 120 years. It’s pretty remarkable,” he said in a telephone interview. “I’m skeptical, but would love to find some evidence that something has happened that we could not explain.”
The grave marker was stolen in 1972, around the time the nonprofit Mutual UFO Network published an investigative piece about the Aurora incident. A replacement marker was stolen in 2012, said Aurora city administrator Toni Wheeler, a longtime resident. The marker was an asymmetrical stone that featured a crude etching of the cigar-shaped aircraft with three holes.
Today, the grave site is marked by a boulder, although some visitors to the cemetery have used ink to inscribe the rock with messages such as “Rest in peace, my alien brother.” A small wooden cross and flowers also were seen at the grave during a recent visit.
On April 17, 1897, a story attributed to Aurora cotton buyer S. E. Haydon appeared in The Dallas Morning News: “About 6 o’clock this morning, the early risers of Aurora were astonished at the sudden appearance of the airship which has been sailing through the country.” The story went on to explain that an aircraft smacked into a windmill just a few hundred feet north of what is now Texas 114 and crashed into a field. Supposedly, the pilot – whom townsfolk subsequently nicknamed “Ned” – was buried in the town cemetery.
The incident occurred six years before the Wright brothers’ historic first human flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, and almost a half-century before the much more famous unidentified flying object reportedly crashed in Roswell, New Mexico.
Horres said he got the idea of offering a reward after visiting the cemetery on a whim one recent Saturday. He encountered a father and his young son who also were visiting the site and shared with them tidbits of information he had read about the Aurora UFO incident during his research. “Another generation will remember that story because of that visit,” he said.
If someone comes forward with the grave marker, Horres indicated he will not pursue criminal charges. “It will be no questions asked. I don’t want anyone to feel like they were in trouble.”
Horres also said he will hire an investigator he uses in some of his cases to oversee an investigation concerning the grave marker, possibly including a study into who did the etchings and the type stone used. Once such work is complete, he will consider donating the grave marker to either Aurora city officials or the local cemetery association, or otherwise taking steps to ensure it is maintained safely for future generations. “It would be for the return and examination to the original grave site, for everyone to see it.”
Anyone wishing to contact Horres to discuss the reward or other aspects of the case may email him at stratton.horres@wilsonelser.com
Officials in Aurora were unaware of Horres’ interest in the grave marker, but would be delighted if he turned up any evidence, new or old, Wheeler said.
Two years ago, the city held an Aurora Alien Encounter to celebrate the anniversary of the reported crash. A subsequent encounter event was canceled after the 2017 death of UFO researcher and former Star-Telegram reporter Jim Marrs, who created a documentary about the Aurora incident and wrote and spoke extensively about the JFK assassination and numerous conspiracy theories. Marrs died of a heart attack on August 2, 2017, at age 73.
This year, the city will host a toned-down event to celebrate the 121st anniversary of the reported UFO crash, featuring a memorial service for Marrs and tour of the cemetery and area near the crash site, Wheeler added.
This year’s event is scheduled to begin at 11 a.m., April 28, and information can be found on the city's Facebook page. Later, additional information will be provided on the city’s website.
Sources: Gordon Dickson, The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, March 30, 2018, and Texas Obscurities by E.R. Bills.
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Post by pat on Apr 16, 2018 12:13:36 GMT -5
This happened before there were airplanes or secret weapons or weather balloons. I've read that it was all a hoax, but an entire town full of people couldn't all be in on a story like that and pretend to bury a spaceman in the local cemetery. I'm surprised that someone hasn't dug up the grave.
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Post by Sam on Apr 17, 2018 3:16:37 GMT -5
This happened before there were airplanes or secret weapons or weather balloons. I've read that it was all a hoax, but an entire town full of people couldn't all be in on a story like that and pretend to bury a spaceman in the local cemetery. I'm surprised that someone hasn't dug up the grave. There was an investigation where somebody who had been supposedly been a child in 1897 said that the judge had never had a windmill and that the story of the crash was made up. But later on, somebody else found the foundations of the old windmill. Also, the man who bought the farm where the crash happened said that he got arthritis and blamed it on the water from the well where it was said the metal from the airship had been thrown, so the well was cleaned out. Also, other people who were children when the airship crashed remembered the windmill and the crash.
MUFON wanted to dig up the grave, but they couldn't get permission, but they got positive readings on a metal detector. Then when they went back again, they didn't get any positive readings and they thought that it was because whoever and whatever was in the grave had been moved to keep people from digging it up.
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Post by jason on Apr 17, 2018 15:16:20 GMT -5
Stealing a grave marker is really low. One person couldn't have stolen something that size, so there had to be two or more thieves involved.
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