Aurora, Texas airship "crash"

On April 19, 1897 the Dallas Morning News printed a report from Aurora. It said an airship had struck Judge J. S. Proctor's windmill around 6 a.m. and exploded, and that the pilot, "not an inhabitant of this world", had been buried in the town cemetery. It came at the very end of the 1896–97 airship wave and has been re-investigated many times since the 1970s.

Explanation

Widely regarded as a newspaper hoax written to draw attention to a town in decline. Later digs, metal samples and a search of the cemetery found nothing unusual.

What was seen

Shape: Airship
Witnesses: Newspaper account by S. E. Haydon
Duration: —

Browse

• United States
• Before 1900
• Explained
• Tracked object events
• Many independent witnesses
• Physical traces
• Cylinders and cigar shapes

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