The Aurora, Texas UFO incident of 1897 - Part 2 of 3

In 1897, six years before humans took to the sky by airplane, eyewitnesses from California to Michigan to Louisiana reported seeing mysterious cigar-shaped crafts sailing gently through the sky. But one of them stood out from the others. Something had crashed.

Part 2 - MUFON investigates - uncovers physical evidence

This incident was soon forgotten and it became just a tall tale that spread from resident to resident. That was until May, 1973 when it was commented in UPI like this:

"Aurora, Tex. -- (UPI) -- A grave in a small north Texas cemetery contains the body of an 1897 astronaut who was 'not an inhabitant of this world,' according to the International UFO Bureau.

The group, which investigates unidentified flying objects, has already initiated legal proceedings to exhume the body and will go to court if necessary to open the grave, director Hayden Hewes said Wednesday."

"After checking the grave with metal detectors and gathering facts for three months, we are certain as we can be at this point [that] he was the pilot of a UFO which reportedly exploded atop a well on Judge J.S. Proctor's place, April 19, 1897," Hewes said." "He was not an inhabitant of this world."

As by over a night, the crash was big news again. And in article published some days, an interview with a living witness to the crash was. The 91-year old lady was fifteen at the time for the incident. She stated that her parents had been to the crash site, but that she wasn’t allowed to join for fear of what might be in the debris. She also recalled a burial of “a small man” at Aurora Cemetery.

MUFON INVESTIGATES – UNCOVERS PHYSICAL EVIDENCE
Not only became the press interested in this story. Later that year, Bill Case, an aviation writer Texas state director of MUFON, decided to investigate the alleged crash. MUFON was able to uncover a new eyewitness to the crash. Charlie Stephens, who was 10 in 1897, told MUFON how he saw airship heading north toward Aurora. He continued to tell that his father went to the town the next and saw the wreckage from the crash.

Eyewitnesses aside, were there any actual physical evidence from the crash? According to MUFON, there was. Under the investigation, MUFON was able to uncover a piece of metal that was said to be from the wreckage. The metallic piece was analyzed and it was revealed that it was composed 95 percent aluminum and 5 percent iron. This alloy is very uncommon in nature and after further analysis they were able to conclude that it had been air-cooled on the ground. This led to the assertion raised in MUFON's report that, given the presumption that it originated in 1897, the sample could not be of terrestrial nature, but they also stated that it just could have been an object put there at any time during the last century.

MUFON continued their investigation at the Aurora Cemetery and found a grave maker that appeared to show a flying saucer. Near the grave maker, detectable readings from a metal-detector were made. MUFON asked the cemetery association for permission to exhume the grave, but they declined.

After MUFON’s investigation, the grave marker mysteriously disappears and a three-inch pipe was placed into the ground. MUFON’s metal detector could no longer pick up any readings from the grave, thus it was presumed that the metal was removed from the grave.

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