Firstly, let us be clear: the US government consistently denies that it has ever built the Aurora. But rumors of this supposed American reconnaissance aircraft built in the 1980s refuse to go away.
Aircraft of this type have long since been suspected of existing however, with an Aurora-type classified aircraft even appearing in the latest Top Gun movie. However, there is no substantial evidence that it ever existed and has been categorized as a myth.
And most observers have followed the government line. The Aviation and Space reference site has concluded that there is little to no factual evidence for the existence of Aurora. They claim that it is purely conjecture and that anything hinting at the existence of the spy plane is merely conjecture.
And yet, these stories refuse to die.
Let’s Look at the Evidence
The legend of the Aurora began in 1985 when the Los Angeles Times and then later the Aviation Week and Space Technology magazine claimed that the Aurora had been included accidentally in the 1985 US budget. In 1987, an allocation was documented for black aircraft production which cost $455 million was reported by the government.
Aviation Week claimed that Project Aurora was a group of exotic aircraft rather than just one plane. They further claimed that the project gathered $2.3 billion in the 1987 fiscal year. The astronomical figure however is yet to have been verified.
Furthermore, the US had the need for a black-ops plane to replace the legendary SR-71 Blackbird. Such a plane would likely need to fly at hypersonic speeds, and in the late 1980s, aerospace industry experts claimed that the US had the capability and the technology to build that plane.
When the US defense budget was examined, many people claimed that there was money missing or unaccounted for. This is the basis for many people to claim that the US was funneling funds into black projects.
By the mid-1990s, there were also reports of strange and unidentified flying aircraft traveling over California, as well as the United Kingdom. It left odd-shaped contrails and “strings” of sonic booms in the sky, hinting at a technologically advanced engine.
It was not long until people began to believe that the US had developed a dangerous new plane. However, nothing ever linked the US to any kind of aircraft, but the name Aurora was tagged on to reports of these kinds of observations.
Sightings
In August 1989, Chris Gibson, an engineer on the GSF Galveston Key in the North Sea, saw an isosceles triangle-shaped delta aircraft in the sky. It was refueling from a Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker and was followed by a pair of F-111 fighter bomber planes.
Gibson claimed that he watched the plane for several minutes before they disappeared out of sight. Following this, Chris Gibson sketched the formation and what he saw. The sighting was not revealed until 1992 when British Defense Secretary Tom King claimed that there was no knowledge in the Ministry of Defense of a program by the US of this nature.
Another report that caused interest to be garnered was a crash at RAF Boscombe Down in Wiltshire in 1994. These reports claimed that the crash was related to the so-called black missions of the US.
When investigations were started, they were soon hampered by the United States Air Force which flooded the base. The Special Air Service personnel arrived in civilian clothes. The crash site was soon covered and protected before the entire base was closed to all other flights. Recent analysis has suggested that rather than this being related to any kind of top-secret mission, It was the result of a towed missile decoy.
In the early 1990s, there were also a series of unusual sonic booms detected and recorded in Southern California. It was recorded by the United States Geological Survey Sensors.
These surveys were typically used to pinpoint earthquake epicenters but were able to identify the sonic booms as the result of a smaller vehicle. Some claim that it was the Space Shuttle orbiter, but NASA was not operating the shuttle on that day. This led to a mystery about the sonic booms being created.
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One of the seismologists, Jim Mori, claimed that he could tell nothing about the vehicle, but it seemed stronger than the sonic booms that they usually record. He also noticed that the sonic booms seemed to occur on Thursday mornings between the hours of 4 am and 7 am.
A former NASA sonic boom expert named Dom Maglieri studied the data generated in a 15-year-old window and believes that the data showed something that flew in around 90,000 feet (27,500 m) and was a plane in the range of Mach 4 to Mach 5.2. The booms did not look like those of an aircraft that had travelled through the atmosphere for a long amount of time, as if it had come from somewhere like LA. It instead seemed to operate like an aircraft that was a high-altitude vehicle. However, nothing was tied to any particular aircraft, but all were labeled with the Aurora tag.
In 1992, Steven Douglass photographed air trails that he said looked like doughnuts on a rope. He said that he noticed them because of a loud, pulsating roar that vibrated his house and made a similar sound to a rocket engine.
He also claimed that he had intercepted radio transmissions between aircraft. He claimed that the messages usually transmitted alphanumeric signals. Many radio enthusiasts then began to monitor the radio channels, but nothing was ever found to link the mysterious Aurora plane to the real world.
The Rumors Persist
By 1996, reports about Aurora had begun to fade. People had stopped believing. However, interest was reignited when Nic Outterside wrote an article in the Aberdeen Press and Journal in Scotland about US stealth technology.
He cited confidential sources and claimed that there was a base in Kintyre. It had the right size of runway to make it suitable for experimental crafts and was well fenced off from public eyes.
Additionally, he claimed that Oceanic Air Traffic Control in Prestwick noticed fast-moving radar blips which could only be explained by a hypersonic jet. However, as of yet, no foolproof evidence has been presented. Those who wish to believe in it still cite the so-called “black holes” in the American budget in the 80s and cling to reports of fast-moving planes as evidence. It is unlikely that the truth will come out any time soon.
Top Image: The Aurora is believed to be a secret US spyplane, the successor to the SR-71 Blackbird and capable of hypersonic flight. Source: Henrickson; Foxbat / CC BY-SA 3.0.
By Kurt Readman
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