The “Incident” in Aurora, Texas

50 years before the Roswell incident, this tiny town witnessed a UFO crash.. and buried the non-human pilot in an unmarked grave

The Aurora, Texas, UFO incident is a UFO incident that occurred on April 17, 1897, in Aurora, Texas, a small town in the northwest corner of the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. The incident (similar to the more famous Roswell UFO incident 50 years later) reportedly resulted in a fatality from the crash. The alien body is reportedly buried in an unmarked grave at the local cemetery..

During the 1896–1897 timeframe (some six or seven years before the Wright Brothers’ first flight), numerous sightings of a cigar-shaped mystery airship were reported across the United States.
One of these accounts appeared in the April 19, 1897, edition of the Dallas Morning News. Written by Aurora resident S.E. Haydon, the alleged UFO is said to have hit a windmill on the property of a Judge J.S. Proctor two days earlier at around 6am local time,resulting in its crash. The pilot (who was reported to be “not of this world”, and a “Martian” according to a reported Army officer from nearby Fort Worth) did not survive the crash, and was buried “with Christian rites” at the nearby Aurora Cemetery. (The cemetery contains a Texas Historical Commission marker mentioning the incident.)

Reportedly, wreckage from the crash site was dumped into a nearby well located under the damaged windmill, while some ended up with the alien in the grave. Adding to the mystery was the story of Mr. Brawley Oates, who purchased Judge Proctor’s property around 1945. Oates cleaned out the debris from the well in order to use it as a water source, but later developed an extremely severe case of arthritis, which he claimed to be the result of contaminated water from the wreckage dumped into the well. As a result, Oates sealed up the well with a concrete slab and placed an outbuilding atop the slab. (According to writing on the slab, this was done in 1957.)

On November 19, 2008, UFO Hunters first aired a television documentary regarding the Aurora incident, titled “First Contact”.
Tim Oates, nephew of Brawley Oates and the now-owner of the property with the sealed well where the UFO wreckage was purportedly buried, allowed the investigators to unseal the well, in order to examine it for possible debris. Water was taken from the well which tested normal except for large amounts of aluminum present; the well had no significant contents. It was stated in the episode that any large pieces of metal had been removed from the well by a past owner of the property. Further, the remains of a windmill base were found near the well site, which refuted skeptic statements (from the 1979 Time magazine article) that Judge Proctor never had a windmill on his property.

In addition, the Aurora Cemetery was again examined. Although the cemetery association still did not permit exhumation, using ground-penetrating radar and photos from prior visits, an unmarked grave was found in the area near other 1890s graves However, the condition of the grave was badly deteriorated, and the radar could not conclusively prove what type of remains existed.

Those wishing to pay their respects to the space alien can do so by looking for the small, unmarked headstone with a flying saucer etched on it.

Space Alien Grave
Cemetery Road
Aurora, TX US

Crash