Roswell may be the most famous of the UFO encounters in this country, but it is not the first. Sightings of "airships" have been recorded in the United States since 1896 (some six or seven years before the Wright Brothers' first flight). One of the most interesting one of these sightings comes from Aurora, Texas on April 19, 1897. On that day, Aurora resident S.E. Haydon wrote an article in the Dallas Morning News about the sudden appearance and crash of an alien spacecraft. Like the reports of the day, witnesses described a cigar-shaped and apparently damaged airship which traveled north over the town and collided with Judge J.S. Proctor's windmill, resulting in a "terrific explosion." The people who investigated the crash found a single occupant of the vessel who did not appear to be "an inhabitant of this world." The pilot was buried at the nearby Aurora Cemetery in an unmarked grave. 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. The well was later sealed with a concrete slab, and an outbuilding built on the slab when a Mr. Brawley Oates, who purchased Judge Proctor's property around 1945, developed an extremely severe case of arthritis as a result of ingesting contaminated water from the well. In the mid to late 2000s, a couple of UFO investigative television programs investigated this incident using advanced equipment and techniques. In 2005, The Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) located and interviews several witnesses of the crash. Mary Evans, who was 15 at the time, told of how her parents went to the crash site (they forbade her from going) and the discovery of the alien body. Charlie Stephens, who was age 10, told how he saw the airship trailing smoke as it headed north toward Aurora. He wanted to see what happened, but his father made him finish his chores. Later, he told how his father went to town the next day and saw wreckage from the crash. In 2008, 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, but it was stated that any large pieces of metal had been removed from the well by a past owner of the property. The cemetery was also 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.
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