Aurora Collection

Aurora is a unique 30-minute film inspired by the prompt, "What if Alejandro Jodorowsky created a Twilight Zone episode?"

The first documented UFO crash in American history

It is widely believed that Roswell, New Mexico is the site of the first UFO crash in American history- but that distinction actually goes to a small town in Texas. According to an historical account reported in the local newspaper, early in the morning on April 17, 1897, the residents of Aurora (located just outside of Fort Worth) were awakened by a loud explosion as an inexplicable airship crashed to Earth–six years before the first flight of the Wright Bros, and 40 years before the town even had electricity. A body was found at the site and buried in an unmarked grave in the town cemetery, the wreckage was thrown into a deep well, and a legend was born.

Signal Service officer T. J. Weems, the military presence at the site, was coincidentally (or not) an expert in Astronomy and reported that the creature was a Martian. The well water where the wreckage was reportedly dumped appeared to be tainted in some way from that point forward, causing strange afflictions. Almost 80 years later in the 1970s, a grave widely believed to be that of the unknown pilot was robbed before the body could be exhumed by university scientists, and a fragment of metal unearthed in Aurora defied scientific explanation.  

All this leads to the question:

What crashed in Aurora, Texas, in 1897?