Did I See the Aurora?

On Thursday, April 29th 20004, I was driving across the Mojave Desert near Edwards AFB on my way home from Arizona. My girlfriend and I heard a sonic boom. We didn't think much of it, since we know stuff is tested there all the time.

Not more than five minutes later, my girlfriend is excitedly pointing to the sky saying "Whoa, what's that?"

When I looked up, I saw a plane like nothing I've ever seen. It was pretty low...about 2500 ft AGL and it was flying directly over the highway. It lookes like it was on approach for landing. It had the silhouette of the Space Shuttle, with short, curved Delta wings. The nose section had a profile similar to the SR-71. The bottom was flat...I saw no air inlets and no jets. It was a dull-gray color.

I can't imagine something so secret flying in broad daylight, but I know of no plane that looks like this. I wanted to include a drawing I made of what I saw, but for some reason it wouldn't post. So here is a link to my pic...maybe someone else can post it here for me:

Aurora?

Could this be the Aurora? IF it's something else, I'd like to know. Thanks in advance.

[Edited on 11-5-2004 by Station]

Wow, we have a time traveller! Welcome to the 11th of May, sir. How was your trip from the future?

Oops!! I meant April.

Just kiddin you about the date.

All I can tell from the pic is that it was probably taken with a Nikon Coolpix. It's a damn good photo, considering the sun appears to be directly in the field of view. Alternatively the "sun" could just be the sun's reflection of a shiny surface.

The aircraft can't be an F4D Skyray because the trailing edge is the wrong shape. It doesn't match up with the old Testors "F-19 Stealth" plastic model, either.

There are very few aircraft with ogive delta wings. (That's the s-curve shape of the leading edge). Concorde, F5D Skylancer, MiG-21-I "Analog", etc, but that's about it. If that's a real airplane, I'm stumped.

The photo shows an aircraft with too much wing to be presumed hypersonic. The presumed Aurora aircraft has an engine on the underside and simpler wings with straight edges. Your mystery plane looks like it might have jet intakes in the wing roots and an exhaust on the upper surface.

It has the swoopy lines of a 1950's or 1960's jet fighter. The wing shape is rather complex and unsuited to a UAV where the construction is often simple and chunky.

[EDIT: DOH! it's a drawing, not a photo. That explains why the sun looks weird]

[Edited on 11-5-2004 by Amet Khan]

Some current threads:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

I aint got a clue wether it is or isnt but thats a damn good drawin better than i could do anyway

Yes, it's a nice drawing for sure. Had me fooled too!

I drew that!! It's NOT a real pic.

There is no attempt to mislead anyone. I clearly stated in the original post that it's a drawing of what I saw.

Having said that, I took a pic of my drawing with a coolpix. Good eye, Amet!!

Station... how fast was the plane going? Did it make a noise? Give a little bit more information if you will.

It wasn't going terribly fast. It looked like it was descending/decelerating on approach to land. I have a pretty noisy car (S2000), so I heard no noise other than my engine. I've heard the Aurora is loud, but whatever this was I couldn't hear it at all.

Hmm. My girlfriend and I agree this looks a LOT like what we saw:

external image

Just a drone? I couldn't tell much from just the bottom of the aircraft, but this is a strong candidate.

Yeah... I was thinking "Wow, that's a really good photo for a digital camera. The sun's almost blinding the camera, yet the image turned out pretty sharp."

Anyways, fantastic drawing. It looks like a reasonable airplane. I mean, whatever it was may have been exerimental but it is certainly more believable than Elvis-in-a-ufo.

If it wasn't for the shape of the rear end it'd be a dead ringer for a Douglas F4D.

Very similar looking, but the D-21 hasn't officially been flown since the early 70's.

Maybe somebody has resurrected the D-21 or a variant thereof to act as a low budget UAV replacement for the SR-71. With modern avionics onboard a renewed D-21 would make a great recon drone.

If it was a D-21, that leads to 2 more concerns-
1) What's the mothership? The D-21 could be launched from a modified A-12, or by a B-52 (with the help of a rocket booster).
2) The original D-21 used parachute recovery. It's unlikely that such a drone would descend as low as 2500 AGL before opening its parachutes.

[Edited on 11-5-2004 by Amet Khan]

like amet said, the wing is rather large for a hypersonic plane. it certainly doesnt look like a D-21, the wings doesnt match. maybe it's some other experimental aircraft thats better then aurora, it is soundless you know

You can't say it's soundless, you can just say it wasn't louder than Station's car which he said was pretty noisy so it could have drowned it out. Maybe it uses some sort of electrogravitic propulsion. It has been getting more and more scientific attention nowadays. Maybe the veil is gonna be lifted on so-called ufo technology hmm? Did you notice anything that hinted on what type of propulsion it used?

I have a special log here of information from a source off of ATS... Station did infact whitness some supersonic plane. I have all of the logs right here in front of me as a matter in fact. So don't try to prove otherwise

its a flying spade. your drawing could almost fit in a deck of cards.

Station, I recommend you do some research on the Aurora yourself. We may have a project open, but that shouldn't stop you from looking into details and information yourself. Then you can create your own opinion and be happy with it.

Those threads are there as recommendation on information on this site. But, there are many other sites out there with information.

One being the Aurora Aircraft Page... there are some picture sites, and so on, and so forth. There is a lot of information on Aurora throughout the site and the web.

Please tell us more about your special log.

intensity, if you're gonna act like an idiot then don't waste my time... this log is from another site to which Station submitted, claiming the fact of:

"A bright gray aircraft traveling at subsonic speeds"

You can not argue with the details expecially when you've got records on hand that prove otherwise. If you want to try and dis-credit me, it's not going to work this time.