The 1897 Alien Crash Landing at Aurora, Texas

[zorgon]

The 1897 Alien Crash Landing at Aurora, Texas

There are some who believe the UFO phenomena gained popularity during the 1940's and 1950's, when airplane pilots started reporting numerous encounters with "foo fighters" and "flying saucers". However, sightings of unidentified flying objects were being recorded in earlier times and the lack of media coverage back then tended to keep things relatively localized.

Such is the case of the alien crash landing that happened in 1897 in Aurora, Texas. An article published in Dallas News in April 1897 reported a cigar-shaped UFO had crashed in a farmer's field and among the debris the body of an alien creature had been found. The little humanoid was buried in the local cemetery

While the Roswell Incident remains the most notorious event of this type, the crash in Aurora contained the same elements: debris strewn across a large area as well as an alien body but it occurred 50 years prior to Roswell.

In the early morning hours of April 17, 1897 a mysterious cigar-shaped object was seen flying at a low speed above the public square and as it reached the northern part of the town, it lost altitude and collided with Judge Proctor's windmill. The resulting explosion wrecked a well and the windmill tower and scattered debris over several acres.

The article reads: "the pilot of the ship is supposed to have been the only on board and, while his remains were badly disfigured, enough of the original has been picked up to show that he was not an inhabitant of this world."

At the time of the crash, a spotted fever epidemic was wreaking havoc among residents of the small town of Aurora so the event's importance quickly faded. According to reports, a small ceremony was held at the local cemetery where the remains of the alien pilot were buried and a headstone was placed over its grave. As pictures reveal, the gravestone depicted  crudely-carved cigar-shaped object with portholes on its side.

The tombstone was stolen in 2012

Some claim the event was a hoax, stating that there was no windmill or well on Judge Proctor's property. However, an investigation conducted by History Channel managed to find evidence of both the windmill and the well, which was sealed because the owner believed it had been contaminated with alien debris. Furthermore, aluminum scraps were found buried at the site. While this metal is commonplace today, at the turn of the 19th century it was quite rare.

Ground-penetrating radar also revealed a casket-shaped object where the alien body is allegedly buried.

It is hard to determine what really happened in Aurora. As strange as it may seem, between 1896 and 1897 numerous sightings of cigar-shaped airships were reported all over the US and especially in Texas. Could this be considered evidence of an alien crash landing really happening?

The absence of conclusive proof makes it impossible to determine but one thing is certain: something strange indeed happened in Aurora in April 1897.

source: http://locklip.com/

[A51Watcher]

Foo Fighters

"Another report of direct Presidential involvement in the flying saucer situation is President Truman's 1949 commissioning of a study into the "Foo Fighters" that plagued both sides during World War 11. The Foo Fighters were meter wide balls of light that paced both the German and Allied planes during the war. Both sides in the war considered the possibility that the objects were secret weapons being used by the other side. The issue of what the objects were was never really resolved during the war.

General Jimmy Doolittle headed up the study into what the Foo Fighters had been. The study done by General Doolittle concluded that both sides had reported having been paced by the objects. Doolittle reported to the President that the objects had not been secret German or Allied weapons.

Finally Doolittle told President Truman that the objects were "most likely of extraterrestrial origin."


http://www.presidentialufo.com/harry-s-truman/64-president-harry-s-truman


The above link also details the dastardly implementation of oral- only Presidential briefings on UFO's.

[Sinny]

I'm sceptical of any History Channel investigation. I would like to see a professional Investigation take place.

Dig the bloody hole up.

The Mystery Airships were a class of unidentified flying objects, the best-known series of which were reported in newspapers in western states of the U.S., starting in 1896 and continuing into 1897.

The reported ships were usually said to be a type of dirigible, and were usually differentiated from gliders or hot air balloons. The best-known wave of airship tales were largely confined to North America, but according to Jerome Clark, similar reports were made worldwide, early as the 1880s, and late as the 1990s.

1896-1897

The best-known of the Mystery Airship waves began in California in 1896. Afterwards, reports and accounts of similar airships came from others areas, generally moving east. There were a number of mystery airship reports from the U.S. east coast in 1887.

Some accounts during this wave of airship reports claim that occupants were visible on some airships, and encounters with the pilots were reported as well. These occupants were said to be human, though their behaviour, mannerisms and clothing were sometimes reported to be unusual. One witness from Arkansas-- allegedly a former state senator Harris -- was supposedly told by an airship pilot (during the tensions leading up the Spanish American War) that the craft was bound for Cuba, to use its "Hotchkiss gun" to "kill Spaniards". (Jacobs, 10)

In one account from Texas, three men reported an encounter with an airship and with "five peculiarly dressed men" who reported that they were descendant from the lost tribes of Israel; they had learned English from the 1553 north pole expedition led by Hugh Willoughby.

Case Histories

At least two airship tales were taken as at least possibly genuine by generations of later ufologists:


•An account by Alexander Hamilton of Leroy, Kansas supposedly occurred about April 19, 1897, and was published in the Yates Center FarmerÕs Advocate of April 23. Hamilton, his son, and a tenant witnessed an airship hovering over his cattle pen. Upon closer examination, the witnesses realized that a red ÒcableÓ from the airship had lassoed a heifer, but had also become entangled in the penÕs fence. After trying unsuccessfully to free the heifer, Hamilton cut lose a portion of the fence, then "stood in amazement to see the ship, cow and all rise slowly and sail off." (Jacobs, 15) Some have suggested this was the earliest report of cattle mutilation (In 1982, however, UFO researcher Jerome Clark debunked this story, and confirmed via interviews and Hamilton's own affidavit that the story was a successful attempt to win a Liar's Club competition to create the most outlandish tall tale).


•An account from Aurora, Texas (as related in the Dallas Morning News) reported that an airship had smashed into a windmill-- later determined to be a "sump pump" -- belonging to a Judge Proctor, then crashed. The occupant was dead and mangled, but the story reported that presumed pilot was clearly "not an inhabitant of this world." Strange "hieroglyphic" figures were seen on the wreckage, which resembled "a mixture of aluminum and silver ... it must have weighed several tons.Ó"(In the 20th Century, unusual metallic material recovered from the presumed crash site was shown to contain a percentage of aluminum and iron admixed.) The story ended by noting that the pilot was given a "Christian burial" in the town cemetery. In 1973, MUFON investigators discovered the alleged stone marker used in this burial. Their metal detectors indicated a quantity of foreign material might remain buried there. However, they were not permitted to exhume, and when they returned several years later, the headstone -- and whatever metallic material had lay beneath it -- was gone.


•In April, 1897, hoaxers manufactured a large Òtissue paperÓ balloon and set it loose over Burlington, Iowa. The Des Moines Leader received reports from citizens who swore the balloon had 'red and green lights; one reputable citizen swore he heard voices.'


There was a series of mystery aiship sightings in 1909. Some came from various European locations, some from New England and from New Zealand. Later reports came from the Uk in 1912 and 1913.

Later Research

Jerome Clark writes that "One curious feature of the post 1887 airship waves was the failure of each to stick in historical memory. Although 1909, for example, brought a flood of sightings worldwide and attendant discussion and speculation, contemporary accounts do not allude to the hugely publicized events of little more than a decade earlier." (Clark 2000, 123)

Clark writes that attempts to "uncover the truth about the late-nineteenth-century airship scare comes up against some unhappy realities: newspaper coverage was unreliable; no independent investigators ('airshipologists') spoke directly with alleged witnesses or attempted to verify or debunk their testimony; and, with a single unsatisfactory exception, no eyewitness was ever interviewed even in the 1950Õs, when some were presumably still living."(Clark 1998, 37)

The "single unsatisfactory example" Clark cites is a former San Francisco Chronicle employee interviewed via telephone by Edward J. Ruppelt in 1952. Ruppelt wrote that the man "had been a copy boy ... and remembered the incident, but time had cancelled out the details. He did tell me that he, the editor of the paper, and the news staff had seen 'the ship', as he referred to the UFO. His story, even though it was fifty-six years old, smacked of others IÕd heard when he said that no one at the newspaper ever told anyone what they had seen; they didnÕt want people to think they were 'crazy.'"

Jacobs notes that "Most arguments against the airship idea came from individuals who assumed that the witnesses did not see what they claimed to see. This is the crucial link between the 1896-97 phenomenon and the modern unidentified flying object phenomenon beginning in 1947. It also was central to the debate over whether unidentified flying objects constituted a unique phenomenon." (Jacobs, 33-34)


Possible Explanations


Hoaxes or Misidentification

During the 1896-1897 wave, there were many attempts to explain the airship sightings, including suggestion of hoaxes, pranks, publicity stunts and hallucinations. One man suggested the airships were swarms of lightning beetles misidentified by observers (Jacobs, 30).

Jacobs notes that many airship tales were due to ÒEnterprising reporters perpetrating journalistic hoaxes.Ó (Jacobs, 16) However, Jacobs notes that many of these accounts Òare easy to identify because of their tongue-in-cheek tone, and accent on the sensational.Ó (ibid.) Furthermore, the supposed authors of many such newspaper hoaxes make their hoax obvious "by saying--in the last line--that he was writing from an insane asylum (or something to that effect)." (Jacobs, 17-18)


Human Flown Airships

Some argued that the airship reports were genuine accounts. Steerable airships had been publicly flown in the US since the Aereon in 1863, and numerous inventors were working on airship and aircraft designs (the idea that a secretive inventor might have developed a viable craft with advanced capabilities was the focus of Jules Verne's 1886 novel Robur the Conqueror).

Several individuals, including Lyman Gilmore and Charles Dellschau, were later identified as possible candidates for being involved in the design and construction of the airships, although little evidence was found in suppport of these ideas.


Extraterrestrial Origin

Early citations of the extraterrestrial hypothesis, all from 1897, include the Washington Times, which speculated that the airships were "a reconnoitering party from Mars"; and the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch, which suggested of the airships, "these may be visitors from Mars, fearful, at the last, of invading the planet they have been seeking." (Jacobs, 29) In 1909, a letter printed in the Otago Daily Times (New Zealand) suggested that the mystery airship sightings then being reported in that country were due to Martian "atomic-powered spaceships." (Clark 2000, 123)

www.crystalinks.com/mysteryairships.html

[ArMaP]

I'm sceptical of any History Channel investigation. I would like to see a professional Investigation take place.

Dig the bloody hole up.

Why the image of "The Summit Of Mount Washington During The Winter Of 1870-71"?

[Sinny]

1) It was attached to the article
2) Visual aid?

[astr0144]

For some reason today, the 1897 Texas UFO crash came into my mind...probably due to now having seen more related UFO TV programs like Ancient Aliens and Hanger 1, conspiracy and History channel like series...



I recall seeing one Program about the 1897 incident that I think involved Jim Marr's who investigated it..

If I recall he found and interviewed some old aging witnesses who were still alive who claimed to had witnessed it...

It was claimed that they witnessed what ever it was and seen a small child sized body that has since been suggested to have been a dead occupant of the crashed object that since has been suggested was a dead Alien.

The Aurora, Texas UFO Incident is quite fascinating and speaks of the crash of something and the burial of a small body the size of a child, in the cemetery of this small town. There we find the story of a local cemetery that once claimed to hold a body from an 1897 UFO crash.

http://www.crystalinks.com/aliensoldwest711.html


And later found the nearby  Cemetery where it was suggested that the body of the occupant had been buried and that it had been put in an unmarked grave.





Click on the link to read a closer up description of what the sign reads



https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/find-a-grave-prod/photos/2010/127/52130170_127334940341.jpg





If I recall, It was later suggested that I think they wanted to try to investigate the occupant within the Coffin...and not too long after that the grave or coffin had disappeared.

Now having found this thread along with some quick further reading of some articles that I have found... there is suggestions that it had been just a crashed airship...and not a UFO..

Upon doing some brief research... which I was not aware existed at the time in the 1890s...I can see that airships did exist..and may have done so for many years prior...

So it may well have been an airship... but I suspect very few in Texas in those days would have ever seen such a thing...

Who ever it was that was buried,  could have been the Pilot or someone that the airship OR WHAT EVER THE OBJECT WAS that it hit when it crashed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airship

I also wonder if such an incident had occurred.. be it a crashed Airship or a real UFO with an Alien Body.... would it have been photographed ?....

Was there ever any real Photos taken of such possible incident back in that time.

Did cameras exist back then one may wonder

(if not aware what if any cameras may have existed back then)

It does seem that maybe they had evolved enough that you would think there would have been newspapers with reporters that had them, that they would send out to try to investigate and photograph the incident scene or the crashed object.

This suggest that this camera had been around 10 year before the crash.. so you would think local reporters or someone in a local town would have had such cameras..

Kodak cameras and the birth of film.

The use of photographic film was pioneered by George Eastman, who started manufacturing paper film in 1885 before switching to celluloid in 1888-1889. His first camera, which he called the "Kodak," was first offered for sale in 1888. It was a very simple box camera with a fixed-focus lens and single shutter speed, which along with its relatively low price appealed to the average consumer. The Kodak came pre-loaded with enough film for 100 exposures and needed to be sent back to the factory for processing and reloading when the roll was finished. By the end of the 19th century Eastman had expanded his lineup to several models including both box and folding cameras.

If Cameras did exist back then, and say it had been a real Crashed UFO.... One wonders how the authorities may have acted back then on such incidents.... Would they try to cover it up ?  or is that unlikely back then that they would have considered such things..


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora,_Texas,_UFO_incident

http://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/micah-hanks-jim-marrs-and-the-1897-aurora-ufo-crash


Sinny suggests that they should have dug up the grave..

but If I recall Jim Marrs had said that the Authorities would not allow anyone to do so..

Zorgon makes a ref that they investigated that in ref to the grave disappearing only as far back as 2012...

He made ref to this....

The tombstone was stolen in 2012

But as far as I was aware the grave never had a Tombstone as the body was buried as an unmarked grave..

so I wonder why it took UFO researchers such a long time to try to investigate it and suggest that they should investigate that grave....and then maybe that the grave disappeared soon after having been said to had been there since 1897..


Sinny

I'm sceptical of any History Channel investigation. I would like to see a professional Investigation take place.

Dig the bloody hole up.

Content of Zorgon's initial post that unfortunately due to some past changes within the forum , it does not allow to show the content very clearly to read.

There are some who believe the UFO phenomena gained popularity during the 1940's and 1950's, when airplane pilots started reporting numerous encounters with "foo fighters" and "flying saucers". However, sightings of unidentified flying objects were being recorded in earlier times and the lack of media coverage back then tended to keep things relatively localized.

Such is the case of the alien crash landing that happened in 1897 in Aurora, Texas. An article published in Dallas News in April 1897 reported a cigar-shaped UFO had crashed in a farmer's field and among the debris the body of an alien creature had been found. The little humanoid was buried in the local cemetery

While the Roswell Incident remains the most notorious event of this type, the crash in Aurora contained the same elements: debris strewn across a large area as well as an alien body but it occurred 50 years prior to Roswell.

In the early morning hours of April 17, 1897 a mysterious cigar-shaped object was seen flying at a low speed above the public square and as it reached the northern part of the town, it lost altitude and collided with Judge Proctor's windmill. The resulting explosion wrecked a well and the windmill tower and scattered debris over several acres.

The article reads: "the pilot of the ship is supposed to have been the only on board and, while his remains were badly disfigured, enough of the original has been picked up to show that he was not an inhabitant of this world."

At the time of the crash, a spotted fever epidemic was wreaking havoc among residents of the small town of Aurora so the event's importance quickly faded. According to reports, a small ceremony was held at the local cemetery where the remains of the alien pilot were buried and a headstone was placed over its grave. As pictures reveal, the gravestone depicted  crudely-carved cigar-shaped object with portholes on its side.


Some claim the event was a hoax, stating that there was no windmill or well on Judge Proctor's property. However, an investigation conducted by History Channel managed to find evidence of both the windmill and the well, which was sealed because the owner believed it had been contaminated with alien debris. Furthermore, aluminum scraps were found buried at the site. While this metal is commonplace today, at the turn of the 19th century it was quite rare.

Ground-penetrating radar also revealed a casket-shaped object where the alien body is allegedly buried.

It is hard to determine what really happened in Aurora. As strange as it may seem, between 1896 and 1897 numerous sightings of cigar-shaped airships were reported all over the US and especially in Texas. Could this be considered evidence of an alien crash landing really happening?

The absence of conclusive proof makes it impossible to determine but one thing is certain: something strange indeed happened in Aurora in April 1897.

 

[Irene]

I read somewhere along the way that the entity had died and been respectfully buried by the people of the town with a small marker. That same article said that the grave in recent years had attracted too much attention and the marker was removed in order to ensure the grave was not disturbed.

[astr0144]

That may be one possibility Irene..

No doubt there maybe many theories..

I am mainly initially trying to determine could it had been a Airship that crashed back in 1897...is there anyway to try to determine that....

IF not and we then wonder could it had been a UFO crashed..

How would they had thought back in 1897 about UFOs and Aliens ?

My imagination thinks well maybe they were amazed but would they have considered trying to preserve an Alien body in some way....as a form of weird evidence to some unknown species...

When we look at how they preserve dead Animals... which they could in terms of stuffing their bodies outer skin to display them...

But I don't think that could be done with Humans..and I suspect maybe not with Aliens (If they exist)

In terms of burying an Alien body in a grave...

Then maybe deciding to move it if too much attention had been brought about to the story...and they wanted to respect it and hide it from the public...


I am not sure just how well known the story had been back between the 1890s to present date...

BUT if it has only recently been suggested by the likes of Jim Marrs that the grave had been around since 1897 and few prior to 2012 had suggested that it should be dug up.... one wonders why it had not been attempted prior..

With what we may believe today about Govt  cover ups.. that may had started after Roswell... Would such authorities had claimed it back then I wonder and removed it.. ?

If they had not and that the locals had moved the grave and put it in a unknown location.. maybe we will never know..

But if anyone does know where that maybe ! ... Maybe some would think that they may tell where it is hidden...to those seeking the truth... 

I read somewhere along the way that the entity had died and been respectfully buried by the people of the town with a small marker. That same article said that the grave in recent years had attracted too much attention and the marker was removed in order to ensure the grave was not disturbed.

[ArMaP]

I read somewhere along the way that the entity had died and been respectfully buried by the people of the town with a small marker. That same article said that the grave in recent years had attracted too much attention and the marker was removed in order to ensure the grave was not disturbed.

I remember reading exactly that, but I don't remember where I read it, several years ago.

[Irene]

Astr0,

The article said that they knew it was not of this Earth, but they treated it as one of their own and respected it.

The body is still there and the current caretakers have a rough idea of where it is, but they don't want to draw attention to it.

ArMaP,

I also saw a documentary about it on TV that said the same thing as the article I read.

The body is buried near a Texas Live Oak.

[astr0144]

I will later try to find such an article or ref to what you are suggesting Irene...

It would be most interesting if it really is what happened....


I would however be sceptical if now having read that surprisingly that there may had been stories around that Airships had been flying around ....and certainly would be more so if there is some proof to suggest that there had been on in the area of the incident back in April 1897.. I am not sure if the article below may be suggesting that...

I find that surprising that such  flying objects were in the area and may have crashed into a windmill...

even if it was  without any UFO being involved.

or have they created such a story even back then similar to the Roswell Balloon story as another form of cover up ?....that if they had done so back in the 1890s would seen very hard to expect that they would be acting in such a way..

but even the article wrote below later does make ref to the remains of the body not being of this World even after it to me just seemed to had  mentioned that the flying object may had only have been an airship...



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora,_Texas,_UFO_incident#/media/File:Haydon_article,_Aurora,_Texas,_UFO_incident,_1897.jpg

Original newspaper article describing the incident, by S. E. Haydon, "A Windmill Demolishes It," The Dallas Morning News, April 19, 1897, p. 5.

Astr0,

The article said that they knew it was not of this Earth, but they treated it as one of their own and respected it.

The body is still there and the current caretakers have a rough idea of where it is, but they don't want to draw attention to it.

This was some ref to some investigations that have been done by certain UFO researchers or on certain UFO related TV programs../ UFO like series.. that took place since 1998 with two others between 2005 to 2008....There is a ref to someone researching this story as far back as in 1973.

The incident has been investigated on numerous occasions. One was broadcast by local television station KDFW FOX 4 and two were aired on cable television,.
KDFW report[edit]

In 1998, Dallas-based TV station KDFW aired a lengthy report about the Aurora incident. Reporter Richard Ray interviewed former Fort Worth Star Telegram reporter Jim Marrs and other locals, who said something crashed in Aurora. However, Ray's report was unable to find conclusive evidence of extraterrestrial life or technology. Ray reported that the State of Texas erected a historical plaque in town that outlines the tale and labels it "legend."

UFO Files investigation[edit]
On December 2, 2005, UFO Files first aired an episode related to this incident, titled "Texas' Roswell". The episode featured a 1973 investigation led by Bill Case, an aviation writer for the Dallas Times Herald[6] and the Texas state director of Mutual UFO Network (MUFON).

MUFON uncovered two new eyewitnesses to 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.

MUFON then investigated the Aurora Cemetery, and uncovered a grave marker that appeared to show a flying saucer of some sort, as well as readings from its metal detector. MUFON asked for permission to exhume the site, but the cemetery association declined permission. After the MUFON investigation, the marker mysteriously disappeared from the cemetery and a three-inch pipe was placed into the ground; MUFON's metal detector no longer picked up metal readings from the grave, thus it was presumed that the metal was removed from the grave.
MUFON's report eventually stated that the evidence was inconclusive, but did not rule out the possibility of a hoax. The episode featured an interview with Mayor Brammer who discussed the town's tragic history.

UFO Hunters investigation[edit]
On November 19, 2008, UFO Hunters first aired another television documentary regarding the Aurora incident, titled "First Contact".
The documentary featured one notable change from the UFO Files story – Tim Oates, grandson 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 Ms. Pegues' 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.[7][8] However, the condition of the grave was badly deteriorated, and the radar could not conclusively prove what type of remains existed.

[astr0144]

1897: Aurora Texas UFO Crash

This may have some interesting facts about the story.

In the video it make a ref that there was a headstone of some sort that was filmed or photographed in 1973... then it shows another ref to show where it once was back in 1993...(see 11 min 23 secs....)

The Aurora, Texas, UFO incident is a UFO incident that reportedly 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 alleged alien body is reportedly buried in an unmarked grave at the local cemetery.




                     -----------------------------

Another video from Ancient Aliens series about the Aliens and the Wild west...

Ancient Aliens S03 E01 Aliens and the Old West


Opening with clips from the 2011 film Cowboys & Aliens, this episode looks at American Old West legends that may have involved ET contact, such as the Aurora, Texas UFO incident where a local cemetery claims to hold a body from an 1897 UFO crash; Native American legends surrounding the Serpent mound in Adams County, Ohio; reports of a Thunderbird that periodically emerged from California's Elizabeth Lake, and a story of ranchers shooting at "metallic birds" near Tombstone, Arizona.

[astr0144]

Another video from Ancient Aliens series about the Aliens and the Wild west...

Ancient Aliens S03 E01 Aliens and the Old West

This does refer to a reporter having visited the site around the time the story had been reported ..but no mention if he has a camera !

I THINK this is the Program that I saw with Jim Marrs where he referred to the burial site...

See from the 4 mins to 9 mins section of the video.

He does say that when he first became aware of the story in 1973 that he visited and a Head stone had been there...but on another later visit that it had disappeared..



He also said that they had taken some metal detector like readings and was aware of something where the grave was...  but on a later visit when they did the same check again, nothing showed up.. They believe whatever was detected underground below had been removed..

Look at what it says about the suggestion that the landowner claimed that he placed the wreckage down a WELL...



and when he sold the land to a new owner.... the new owner decided to clear the Well of the wreckage and ended up getting severe arthritis problems with his hands that went disfigured as it shows in a photo..that later were suggested due to contamination  radiation effects from the wreckage he removed from the Well..
It is suggested that he died from the effects of it.

The picture of his hands look very severe...



It is later suggested that they cemented up the Well....but I am not sure what happened again to the wreckage...maybe they reburied it and cemented over it.. (or maybe that is a cover story)

                   ----------------------------

Opening with clips from the 2011 film Cowboys & Aliens, this episode looks at American Old West legends that may have involved ET contact, such as the Aurora, Texas UFO incident where a local cemetery claims to hold a body from an 1897 UFO crash; Native American legends surrounding the Serpent mound in Adams County, Ohio; reports of a Thunderbird that periodically emerged from California's Elizabeth Lake, and a story of ranchers shooting at "metallic birds" near Tombstone, Arizona.

[Irene]

Yes, I saw that and, yes, the townspeople dumped the debris down a well. It was capped after the landowner became sick and realized the debris was toxic.

It was later excavated and no evidence was found to corroborate the dumping of the debris or the toxicity of it and the well.

[The Seeker]

Astro, the first item you need to consider is that other than hot air balloons,airships of any kind did not exist yet. It was many years before the Wright Brothers made their first flight...

The crash is documented fact; the death and burial of the dismembered pilot is documented fact.
The tombstone was removed and the location of the grave hidden after modern public inquiry in to the history of the event; it is also documented that the local authorities denied a request to exhume the grave, and subsequently it was discovered by the research team that someone had opened the grave one night and everything in it had been removed.

Bill Byrnes' UFO Hunters were involved in the uncapping and search of the well, only to discover all the crash debris had already been removed and the well cleaned. The land owner was a judge; there are several different programs available that cover the Aurora incident in detail...

As to cameras, they were very new and very rare; we are talking a rural community a very long way from any large city or population center in 1897...



Seeker