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AURORA, Texas -- An anniversary quietly passed in March without much notice in Aurora, Texas. [...]

By Kevin Reece www.khou.com 5-10-17

The story is Aurora’s biggest. The Dallas Morning News wrote about it in 1987. In the report, they wrote about a "terrific explosion" that occurred when a flying saucer collided with a windmill, and that the"badly disfigured" and deceased pilot "was not an inhabitant of this world."

There's an historic marker bearing that same story at the old Aurora Cemetery. Amid the gravestones of Aurora's founding fathers and mothers, we were able to have a conversation with the city administrator while she sat on a large rock.
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The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency — or DARPA — just launched a one-fifth-scale model of its LightningStrike aircraft for the first time.

By Bryan Clark thenextweb.com 4-18-16

Built by Aurora Flight Science, the ‘Subscale LightningStrike’ relies on 24 fans to propel the 325 pound scale model and enable vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL). Not shown in the video, but planned on the full-sized version, is the ability for these propellers to rotate to provide thrust in addition to assisting in take-off and landing.

The full-sized LightiningStrike, once completed, is said to be capable of speeds of 400 knots (about 460 mph) while carrying several thousand pounds of cargo (without a pilot) and running entirely on electric power. [...]
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AURORA–Toni Wheeler holds fond memories of growing up in the rural town of Aurora, sitting on the porch of an elderly resident named Mr. Mayfield and listening to him tell about the time a UFO crashed into a windmill, killing a spaceman.

By Gordon Dickson www.star-telegram.com 4-14-16

“He would tell us it did in fact happen,” said Wheeler, now the city administrator, recounting one of the highlights of her Wise County childhood in the late 1970s. “He said tons of people went rushing up there to the [crash] site, but they made all the kids stay back underneath the hill, because they were afraid it might have a disease.”

The legend of the 1897 crash of an alien spacecraft 27 miles northwest of downtown Fort Worth certainly put Aurora on the map — having been retold in books, movies and TV shows — although many residents would just as soon their community not be known for such a tale.

But many others — Wheeler among them — are ready to embrace the extraterrestrial adventure, and on Saturday they will host the first of what they hope will become an annual event known as the Aurora Alien Encounter. [...]
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WASHINGTON – The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has selected Aurora Flight Sciences to build the so-called “X-Plane,” an unmanned aircraft that will take off and land vertically.

Lara Seligman Defense News 3-4-16

DARPA awarded Aurora the prime contract for phase two of the agency’s Vertical Takeoff and Landing Experimental Plane, or VTOL X-Plane, program, the company announced March 3.

The Aurora team’s design, named LightningStrike, is an unmanned aircraft that features a Rolls-Royce AE 1107C turboshaft engine that will power three Honeywell generators, according to a company statement.
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