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| | When the attack on Wolverine from Clan Wolf was about to occur, half of the bloodnames escaped and travaled to a unknown star system wher they created a Protestant Christian culture. | | When the attack on Wolverine from Clan Wolf was about to occur, half of the bloodnames escaped and travaled to a unknown star system wher they created a Protestant Christian culture. |
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| | + | [[Clan Wolverine]] survived to attack the Draconis Combine worlds of [[Svelvik]], [[Trondheim]], [[Jarett]], and [[Richmond]], as the "[[Minnesota Tribe]]" in the year [[2825]]. |
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| − | <br />[[Clan Wolverine]] survived to attack the Draconis Combine worlds of [[Svelvik]], [[Trondheim]], [[Jarett]], and [[Richmond]], as the "[[Minnesota Tribe]]" in the year [[2825]].
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| − | '''Aurora''' was a rumored mid-1980s [[United States]] [[reconnaissance aircraft]]. There is no substantial evidence that it was ever built or flown and it has been termed a [[myth]].<ref name= asw>[http://aerospaceweb.org/aircraft/recon/aurora "Aurora, Strategic Reconnaissance."] ''AerospaceWeb.org.'' Retrieved: 17 October 2010.</ref><ref>"Aurora Myth." ''Aerospace Daily'', 9 October 1990, p. 34.</ref>
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| − | The U.S. government has consistently denied such an aircraft was ever built. aerospaceweb.org concluded, "The evidence supporting the Aurora is circumstantial or pure conjecture, there is little reason to contradict the government's position."<ref name= asw />
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| | Others come to different conclusions.<ref>"Evidence Points to Stealth Spy Plane." ''High Technology Business'', April 1988, pp. 8–9.</ref> In 2006, veteran black project watcher and aviation writer [[Bill Sweetman]] said, "Does Aurora exist? Years of pursuit have led me to believe that, yes, Aurora is most likely in active development, spurred on by recent advances that have allowed technology to catch up with the ambition that launched the program a generation ago."<ref name="secret">Sweetman, Bill. [http://www.popsci.com/popsci/aviationspace/95e16f096bd8d010vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html "Secret Warplanes of Area 51."] ''Popular Science,'' 4 June 2006. Retrieved: 1 October 2006.</ref> | | Others come to different conclusions.<ref>"Evidence Points to Stealth Spy Plane." ''High Technology Business'', April 1988, pp. 8–9.</ref> In 2006, veteran black project watcher and aviation writer [[Bill Sweetman]] said, "Does Aurora exist? Years of pursuit have led me to believe that, yes, Aurora is most likely in active development, spurred on by recent advances that have allowed technology to catch up with the ambition that launched the program a generation ago."<ref name="secret">Sweetman, Bill. [http://www.popsci.com/popsci/aviationspace/95e16f096bd8d010vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html "Secret Warplanes of Area 51."] ''Popular Science,'' 4 June 2006. Retrieved: 1 October 2006.</ref> |
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| | ==Background== | | ==Background== |
| − | The Aurora legend started in March 1990, when ''[[Aviation Week & Space Technology]]'' magazine broke the news that the term "Aurora" had been inadvertently included in the 1985 U.S. budget, as an allocation of $455 million for "black aircraft production" in [[Fiscal year|FY]] 1987.<ref name="aemann.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk">[http://web.archive.org/web/20060823172040/http://www.aemann.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/aircraft/black/aurora/aurora5.htm "Aurora Timeline."] ''aemann.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk,'' 29 September 2006 via ''webarchive''. Retrieved: 17 October 2010.</ref> According to ''Aviation Week'', Aurora referred to a group of exotic aircraft projects, and not to one particular [[airframe]]. Funding of the project allegedly reached $2.3billion in fiscal 1987, according to a 1986 procurement document obtained by ''Aviation Week''. In the 1994 book ''Skunk Works'', [[Ben Rich]], the former head of Lockheed's [[Skunk Works]] division, wrote that the Aurora was the budgetary code name for the stealth bomber fly-off that resulted in the [[B-2 Spirit]].<ref name="Skunk works">Rich and Janos 1996, pp. 309–310.</ref>
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| | ==Evidence== | | ==Evidence== |
| − | By the late 1980s, many aerospace industry observers believed that the U.S. had the technological capability to build a Mach-5 replacement for the aging [[Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird]]. Detailed examinations of the U.S. defense budget claimed to have found money missing or channeled into [[black project]]s.<ref>"Skunk Works Revenues Point to Active Aurora Program, Kemper Says." ''Aerospace Daily'', 17 July 1992, p. 102.</ref> By the mid-1990s, reports surfaced of sightings of unidentified aircraft flying over California and the United Kingdom involving odd-shaped contrails, sonic booms and related phenomena that suggested the US had developed such an aircraft. Nothing ever linked any of these observations to any program or aircraft type, but the name Aurora was often tagged on these as a way of explaining the observations.<ref name= asw />
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| | ===British sighting claims=== | | ===British sighting claims=== |
| − | In late August 1989, while working as an engineer on the jack-up barge ''GSF Galveston Key'' in the [[North Sea]], Chris Gibson and another witness saw an unfamiliar [[isosceles triangle]]-shaped delta aircraft, apparently refueling from a [[Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker]] and accompanied by a pair of [[General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark|F-111]] bombers. Gibson and his friend watched the aircraft for several minutes, until they went out of sight. He subsequently drew a sketch of the formation.
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| − | Gibson, who had been in the [[Royal Observer Corps]]' trophy-winning international aircraft recognition team since 1980, was unable to identify the aircraft. He dismissed suggestions that the aircraft was a [[Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk|F-117]], [[Dassault Mirage IV|Mirage IV]] or fully swept wing F-111.<ref>Gray, Simon. [http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread60770/pg1 "Chris Gibson's Aurora Sighting (1989)."] ''abovetopsecret.com,'' 21 June 2004. Retrieved: 17 October 2010.</ref> When the sighting was made public in 1992, the British [[Secretary of State for Defence|Defence Secretary]] [[Tom King, Baron King of Bridgwater|Tom King]] was told, "There is no knowledge in the MoD of a 'black' programme of this nature, although it would not surprise the relevant desk officers in the Air Staff and Defence Intelligence Staff if it did exist."<ref>Randerson, James. [http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2006/jun/24/freedomofinformation.usnews "Is it a bird? Is it a spaceship? No, it's a secret US spy plane."] ''The Guardian,'' 24 June 2006. Retrieved: 17 October 2010.</ref>
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| − | A crash at [[RAF Boscombe Down]] on 26 September 1994 appeared closely linked to "black" missions, according to a report in ''AirForces Monthly''. Further investigation was hampered by aircraft from the USAF flooding into the base. The crash site was protected from view by firetrucks and tarpaulins and the base was closed to all flights soon after.<ref>[http://www.dreamlandresort.com/black_projects/boscombe.htm "RAF Boscombe Down's Black Day."] ''dreamlandresort.com.'' Retrieved: 22 January 2011.</ref>
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| | ===American sighting claims=== | | ===American sighting claims=== |
| − | A series of unusual [[sonic boom]]s was detected in [[Southern California]], beginning in mid- to late-1991 and recorded by [[U.S. Geological Survey]] [[Seismometer|sensor]]s across Southern California used to pinpoint [[earthquake]] [[epicenter]]s. The sonic booms were characteristic of a smaller vehicle rather than the 37-meter long [[Space Shuttle orbiter]]. Furthermore, neither the Shuttle nor [[NASA]]'s single [[Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird|SR-71B]] was operating on the days the booms had been registered.<ref>[http://www.area51zone.com/aircraft/aurora.shtml "Aurora."] ''area51zone.com,'' 29 September 2006.</ref> In the article, ''"In Plane Sight?"'' which appeared in the ''[[Washington City Paper]]'' on 3 July 1992 (pp. 12–13), one of the seismologists, Jim Mori, noted: "We can't tell anything about the vehicle. They seem stronger than other sonic booms that we record once in a while. They've all come on Thursday mornings about the same time, between 4 and 7."<ref name="aemann.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk"/> Former [[NASA]] [[sonic boom]] expert Dom Maglieri studied the 15-year old sonic boom data from the [[California Institute of Technology]] and has deemed that the data showed "something at 90,000 ft (c. 27.4 km), Mach 4 to Mach 5.2". He also said the booms did not look like those from aircraft that had traveled through the atmosphere many miles away at [[LAX]], rather, they appeared to be booms from a high-altitude aircraft directly above the ground moving at high speeds.<ref>Sweetman, Bill. [http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/blogs/defense/index.jsp?plckController=Blog&plckScript=blogScript&plckElementId=blogDest&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&plckPostId=Blog%3A27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7Post%3A3b8e5ffb-467d-4030-9b63-d3f52cea5a4e "Boom, Why Does O.C. Go Boom?"] ''Aviation Weekly,'' 29 November 2010. Retrieved: 22 December 2010.</ref> The boom signatures of the two different aircraft patterns are wildly different.<ref name="secret" /> There was nothing particular to tie these events to any aircraft, but they served to grow the Aurora legend.
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| − | On 23 March 1992, near [[Amarillo, Texas]], Steven Douglas photographed the "donuts on a rope" [[contrail]] and linked this sighting to distinctive sounds. He described the engine noise as: "strange, loud pulsating roar... unique... a deep pulsating rumble that vibrated the house and made the windows shake... similar to rocket engine noise, but deeper, with evenly timed pulses." In addition to providing the first photographs of the distinctive contrail previously reported by many, the significance of this sighting was enhanced by Douglas' reports of intercepts of radio transmissions: "Air-to-air communications... were between an AWACS aircraft with the call sign "Dragnet 51" from [[Tinker AFB]], [[Oklahoma]], and two unknown aircraft using the call signs "Darkstar November" and "Darkstar Mike". Messages consisted of phonetically transmitted alphanumerics. It is not known whether this radio traffic had any association with the "pulser" that had just flown over Amarillo." ("Darkstar" is also a call sign of AWACS aircraft from a different squadron at Tinker AFB)<ref>''Aviation Week & Space Technology'', 11 May 1992, pp. 62–63.</ref> A month later, radio enthusiasts in California monitoring [[Edwards AFB]] Radar (callsign "Joshua Control") heard early morning radio transmissions between Joshua and a high flying aircraft using the callsign "Gaspipe". "You're at 67,000 feet, 81 miles out" was heard, followed by "70 miles out now, 36,000 ft, above glideslope." As in the past, nothing linked these observations to any particular aircraft or program, but the attribution to the Aurora helped expand the legend.
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| | ===Additional evidence=== | | ===Additional evidence=== |
| − | In the controversial claims of [[Bob Lazar]], he states that during his employment at the mysterious [[S-4 (Sector Four)|S-4]] facility in [[Nevada]], he briefly witnessed an Aurora flight while aboard a bus near [[Groom Lake]]. He claimed that there was a "tremendous roar" which sounded almost as if "the sky was tearing." Although Lazar only saw the physical aircraft for a moment through the front of the bus, he described it as being "very large" and having "two huge, square exhausts with vanes in them." Upon speaking with his supervisor, Lazar claims he was informed that the aircraft was indeed an "Aurora," a "high altitude research plane." He was also told that the aircraft was powered by "liquid [[methane]]."<ref>[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZKjdYLDAec "Bob Lazar Speaks Publicly About Area 51".] ''youtube.'' Retrieved: 22 December 2010.</ref>
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| − | By 1996 reports associated with the Aurora name dropped off in frequency, suggesting to people who believed that the aircraft existed that it had only ever been a prototype or that it had had a short service life.<ref name= asw />
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| − | In 2006, aviation writer [[Bill Sweetman]] put together 20 years of examining budget "holes", unexplained sonic booms, along with the Gibson sighting and concluded, "This evidence helps establish the program's initial existence. My investigations continue to turn up evidence that suggests current activity. For example, having spent years sifting through military budgets, tracking untraceable dollars and code names, I learned how to sort out where money was going. This year, when I looked at the Air Force operations budget in detail, I found a $9-billion black hole that seems a perfect fit for a project like Aurora."<ref name="secret" />
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| | ==See also== | | ==See also== |
| − | *[[Ayaks]], a Soviet hypersonic aircraft
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| − | *[[Black triangle (UFO)]], UFOlogy related aircraft, SR-95 and TR-3B Ad Astra.
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| − | *[[Blackstar (spaceplane)]], another alleged "Black Project".
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| − | *[[TR-3A Black Manta]], another alleged "Black Project".
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