In April 1897, decades before Roswell captured the public imagination, the small community of Aurora, Texas, made international headlines with a tale of extraterrestrial catastrophe. Local merchant and correspondent S. E.
Haydon wrote an article for the Dallas Morning News describing a cigar-shaped airship that collided with a windmill on the property of Judge J. S. Proctor.
According to Haydon, the craft shattered, and the pilot—described as not an inhabitant of this world—was killed in the crash. The townspeople supposedly gave the alien a proper Christian burial in the local Aurora Cemetery and dumped the metallic wreckage into a nearby well. However, historical context reveals a far more earthly motive.
Aurora was facing economic ruin. A severe boll weevil infestation was destroying the region's cotton crops, and to make matters worse, the Dallas and Wichita Railroad had bypassed the town after promises of a line fell through. Desperate to attract foot traffic, attention, and commerce, Haydon concocted the story out of thin air.
While modern investigators and ufologists have searched the graveyard with ground-penetrating radar, no physical evidence of an alien corpse or spaceship materials has ever been authenticated. Today, the legendary crash remains one of early America's most creative media hoaxes.