On the map are a few possible Aurora sightings sent in to me. Click on a dot for a detailed description.
Key: Blue - Many characteristics of the Aurora seen | Green - Aurora contrail | Red - Aurora roar | Orange - Aurora craft
On this page: Overview | The Aurora or the X-33 | The Aurora at the Pentagon? | Sources | Have you seen the Aurora? | Related Links
Overview
The Aurora is believed to be a hypersonic spy plane that can travel up to perhaps mach 20. It is said that the Aurora can go in and out of the atmosphere on its own and take off and land like a conventional aircraft. Can such a craft exist?
Around 7:00a.m. on a Thursday in June of 1991, the people of Southern California were awakened by a noisy shockwave. Many thought it was an earthquake, but it wasn't. It was a sonic boom from a plane traveling Mach 4. The same thing happened on January 30, 1992 in the Mojave Desert. It was registered on the local seismographs as an earth tremor. Further investigation showed it was an unidentified object traveling Mach 3.1!
Seismological sensors installed by the US Geological Service (USGS) have detected highly supersonic aircraft believed to be operating out of Groom Lake. On at least four occasions, sonic booms have registered on some of the 220 sensors across Southern California from Las Angeles Basin to the eastern edge of the Mojave Desert. Neither the shuttle nor the single SR-71B, which NASA maintains in flight status, was operating on the days the booms were detected.
You are probably asking, "How do you know it is a plane and not just one of the many earthquakes?" I can explain. The USGS registered Space Shuttle landings at Edwards AFB California. So they knew their seismographs could pick up sonic booms. These unknown sonic booms were picked up in June, October, November, and January of 1991 and 1992. Could this be the alleged Aurora?
Mach 3 blips were detected on radar over Machrihanish base in Scotland, famous for secret testing of the F-117 stealth aircraft. Chris Gibson, a man who worked for the British Royal Corps, was trained to recognize enemy aircraft. One day he saw a triangular shaped, unidentifiable object from his Galveston Key oilrig. It was traveling with two F-111s and refueling from a KC-135 tanker over the North Sea's Indefatigable Field refueling airspace.
The alleged Aurora is the replacement for the SR-71 Blackbird. It is referred to as the SR-X (meaning Strategic Reconnaissance Experimental). The Aurora's exhaust trail was photographed over Amarillo, Texas and seen in Machrihanih. Its exhaust trail can best be described as "cotton balls on a rope." It is said that the SR-71 Blackbird also leaves a similar cotton ball trail.
It is true that, under certain conditions, any plane can exhaust cotton balls on a rope contrail. What makes some of these sightings interesting are the sonic booms associated with the sightings. Pulsing roars accompanied by this certain contrail rattle windows and houses. These contrails have been seen in Portland, Oregon, Denver, Colorado, and Amarillo, Texas. This does not necessarily mean that it is the Aurora, but it does put strong evidence in its favor.
An unusual sound called the "Aurora Roar," associated with the craft's low travel speed, has been heard around Rachel, Nevada. The sound came from the direction of Groom Lake, or Area 51, where the plane was most likely built and test flown. The extremely loud noise can be characterized as "a sound like the sky ripping."
The Aurora or the X-33?
It has been proposed that the X-33 may be what we think of as the Aurora. The new wedge shaped X-33 is a joint project between NASA and Lockheed Martin to produce a Reusable Launch Vehicle. The X-33 uses rocket engines and a metallic thermal protection system for low orbit space flight. It is an unpiloted vehicle taking off vertically like a rocket and traveling to speeds faster than 13 times the speed of sound; it then lands horizontally like an airplane. Could the X-33 be the alleged Aurora? The X-33 does fit some of the descriptions of the Aurora.
Assuming what I have said is true, I can list some similarities between the two aircraft.
Again, could the Aurora be the X-33? I personally think it is not. The Aurora, I believe, is piloted and the X-33 is not. Yet, the similarities between the two are interesting.
The Aurora at the Pentagon?
The Aurora first entered the Black Aircraft world when it showed up on a P-1 or procurement budget, and attached to the phrase "air-breathing reconnaissance." In the February 1985 budget, the Pentagon requested that planes like Lockheed's SR-71 Blackbird and the U-2 appear next to the project code named "Aurora." $80 million were spent on these Black Projects in 1986 and about $2.3 billion by 1987 before disappearing from sight. The National Aeronautics Space Plane (NASP) is suspected to be a cover for Aurora's big budget. While the term was later said to refer to the B-2 bomber, the Federation of American Scientist's-a private anti- secrecy organization in Washington D.C. concluded that, during the 1980s, the government had spent between ten and fifteen billion dollars on this program.
Many believe that the Aurora project may no longer exist. As with many other projects, this one may have cost too much and was terminated. The only problem I see with this scenario is that the Government is still keeping a terminated project classified. Surely they would have said something by now.
Another possible scenario that seems better is that maybe the Aurora project has changed its name. We have seen this with other programs during their stages of development. Have Blue went to Senior Trend and Senior Trend changed to F-117 Nighthawk.
In conclusion, billions of dollars in taxpayer money is being used of projects like these that we don't even know about. Don't we have the right to know? It is our money being spent. As stated in the December 18, 1989 issue of Aviation Week and Space Technology, officials close to the program have indicated that "Aurora is so black, you won't see anything about it [in public] for 10 or 15 years. Here we are in the year 2001 and have not heard anything. I expect we will hear something any day now. If we do not, the Aurora will just be another one of the many mysteries at Groom Lake.
Sources
Campbell, Glenn. "'Area 51' Viewer's Guide." 1995.
Douglass, Steve. The Comprehensive Guide to Military Monitoring. Ohio: Universal
Electronics, Inc. 1994.
Scott, William. "Black Programs Mush Balance Cost, Time Savings with Public Oversight, Aviation Week and Space Technology. December 12, 1992.
Sweetman, Bill. "Hypersonic Aurora: a secret dawning,?" Janes Defence Weekly. December
12, 1992.
X-33. http://x33.msfc.nasa.gov/x33specs.htm
Have you seen the Aurora?
If you think you may have seen the Aurora, its contrail, or heard the Aurora roar, tell me about it. Please include a detailed description, the date, number of witnesses, and the location of the sighting. If possible, include a picture.
A combined-cycle engine burning liquid methane most likely powers the Aurora. Traveling at very high speeds, the aircraft produces heat generated by air friction that needs some kind of cooling. A cooling medium such as helium is required to be circulated through the hottest parts of the structure; the nose and leading edges. According to reported characteristics, the combined-cycle engine sounds more like a rocket than a hypersonic spy plane.
