One witness compared it to the Saturn 5 rocket engine tests of the 1960s.
A double sighting occurred on June 19, 1990, near Mojave, California, (in the Edwards area). The first occurred at 3:44 A.M., while the second was at 4:50 A.M. Both were headed to the northeast, and it was not clear if the sighting was of one aircraft twice or two different vehicles. There were eight separate reports of the "pulser" from Mojave. All occurred between midnight and 5:00 A.M., and all the objects were headed northeast.
Similar sightings were also reported from central Nevada during 1989-90.
Again, it was a rumbling noise, with a one to two-hertz pulse rate and heard in the early morning hours. One Nevada sighting occurred on August 6, 1990. The aircraft was reported to have left the Groom Lake range and overflown a small town. A witness said it was "the loudest thing I've ever heard. It wasn't breaking the sound barrier, but it was rattling the windows!"[749]
The sighting reports sparked the interest of the technical press, and Aviation Week and Space Technology began a series of articles on the subject.
The first appeared in the December 18, 1989, issue, against the background of the fall of the Soviet Empire in Eastern Europe. Much of the article was a discussion of the role of Black development in the post-Cold War world.
It did note the sighting reports and quoted "officials close to the program" as saying, "Aurora is so black, you won't see anything about it [in public] for 10 or 15 years."[750]
A pair of articles followed in the October 1, 1990, issue. These gave more details about the sightings and included artist conceptions of possible designs. They also noted that many in government were "extremely skeptical" of the reports. One official said he was confident that there was no such thing as a family of high-speed aircraft. The articles argued, however, that very few officials would be told of such a project.[751] The Aviation Week and Space Technology articles sparked a flurry of newspaper articles on Aurora during November and early December 1990.[752]
In its December 24, 1990, issue Aviation Week and Space Technology published an extremely detailed account of a "theoretical" hypersonic aircraft "which could be cruising the skies tonight." The vehicle was shaped like a flattened diamond or football—110 feet long and 60 feet wide. The fuselage's edges were rounded, and the aircraft's contours were likened to a skipping stone. All surfaces were covered with black ceramic tiles. The article said, "They have a scorched, heat streaked appearance, and seem to be coated with a crystalline patina indicative of sustained exposure to high temperature. A burnt-carbon odor emanates from the surface. The aft body tiles are distinctly more pockmarked and degraded than those on the forward half of the aircraft, as if they had experienced the most heat."
The aircraft was powered up to supersonic speeds by jet engines. The "external burning mechanism" then took over. The jet engines were shut down, and the inlet and exhaust ports were closed. Misted fuel was sprayed from ports at the midsection of the fuselage and ignited. The shape of the aft fuselage and the shock wave formed at the midpoint acted as a "nozzle."
This external burning was used to propel it to Mach 6 to 8.
In the fuselage's underside, the article said, were ports for 121 nuclear weapons. The ports were covered with heat-tile-covered caps. The weapons were cone-shaped, like an ICBM's warhead, and sat in the ports nose down.
The airplane must slow to subsonic speeds to drop the weapons. The outer cap was discarded, the weapon was ejected, and then a second tile-covered cap moved into position. The aircraft was unmanned — it was preprogrammed, but could also be controlled via a satellite or ground station. Such Black aircraft were given as "the reason the Iron Curtain fell."
All these articles were written against the background of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, and the buildup of Allied forces. The Aviation Week and Space Technology article asked some pointed and angry questions:
As Persian Gulf tensions continue into 1991, one must question whether the U.S. commander in chief and his defense secretary are fully aware of super-black weapon systems' potential…
Hard as it may be to fathom, there is reason to wonder whether complete knowledge of the most exotic aircraft may reach "The Top," all for super-security.
One would like to think America's staggering black-world expenditures have yielded weaponry that could neutralize Iraq President Saddam Hussein's most valued military and political assets quickly.
Some say that capability is in hand and could be used… if the right people choose to do so. If they do not, why not?
If so, why are almost 400,000 U.S. and allied troops dug into the sand in Saudi Arabia, prepared to slug it out in a bloody ground war?
… the lives of those troops are worthy of wider consideration.[753]
Following the flurry of reports in late 1990, there was a drop-off in articles during 1991. What was being published was little more than a rehash of the earlier articles. For its part, the air force denied that Aurora existed.
Most statements were "no comment," but some were more direct. An air force public affairs officer stated, "We have no aircraft matching these descriptions."[754] A senior government official privately told the author that when the reports were published, they sparked a flap inside the U.S. government. An investigation was launched at a high level, which, despite diligent effort, could not discover such an aircraft. He officially stated that there was no such aircraft, as described in the articles.[755] Believers in Aurora were quick to point out the air force had also denied the existence of the F-19 stealth fighter.
Early 1992 saw a flood of Aurora stories. These were sparked by four "brief rumbles" in the Los Angeles area over a ten-month period. All occurred between 6:30 and 7:30 A.M. on Thursdays. The specific dates were June 27, October 31, and November 21, 1991, and January 30, 1992. Believing they were earthquakes, radio station KFWB called Caltech's Seismo Lab for the location and magnitude of the quakes. Caltech seismologists looked at computer records from a network of sensors and determined no earthquakes had occurred.
Jim Mori, a research seismologist at Caltech, concluded that the rumble was actually a sonic boom. The seismic record of a sonic boom is different than a small earthquake, even though they have the same magnitude. As Mori explained, "Sonic boom records look like a short pop; earthquakes have a longer decay period." At first, Mori thought it might be from a meteor, but the regular occurrence, always between 6:30 and 7:30 A.M. and always on a Thursday, ruled this out. That left an airplane. Since there are no commercial supersonic aircraft, KFWB called local air force and navy bases. They denied any of their aircraft were flying at the time. This seemed to point toward Aurora.
In 1989, Mori had worked on a team studying seismograms recorded during space shuttle landings at Edwards Air Force Base. Based on this, some information about the mystery plane could be determined. It was possible to calculate how fast and how high the plane was flying, based on the pattern of the arrival times of the sonic boom across the seismic network.
749
"Multiple Sightings of Secret Aircraft Hint at New Propulsion, Airframe Designs,"
750
William B. Scott, "Black Programs Must Balance Cost, Time Savings with Public Oversight,"
751
"Secret Advanced Vehicles Demonstrate Technologies for Future Military Use,"
752
J. Antonio Huneeus, "Were Recent UFO Flaps Caused by Secret Military Aircraft?"
753
William B. Scott, "Scientists' and Engineers' Dreams Taking to Skies as 'Black' Aircraft,"
754
Gregory T. Pope, "America's New Secret Aircraft,"
755
Curtis Peebles,