Was America's Top Secret Aurora spy plane real? Here's the evidence

So, from about 1950 - 1975, the US develops planes like the U2, X15, XB70, SR71, F117, etc, but then from about 1980-onward, and for no particular reason, they just stop? Not only that, but all the ones they've built are just retired, with nothing to replace them? Or is it more likely the US continued developing the technologies but decided not to tell the public about it?

I know it, or something like it, existed back in 1995. I was an electronic warfare technician. (Simplified job description: We detected radars) We were off the coast of Virginia & we were told to turn off our systems. Our officer told us just to turn down our monitor. The radar operator detected a faint target traveling at 7+ Mach. I turned my monitor on an confirmed, whatever it was, it was using one of our radars for navigation. Edit: I’d like to add that we relied on “Janes” booklets as a very accurate resource. I can tell you that they were shockingly accurate, when it came to our weapons systems operating frequencies and capabilities.

Desert Storm. I was the Base Weather Station Commander at Riyadh. We supported the "heavies." AWACS, tankers, and J-Stars. We were too far from the front lines to have fighters. One of my weather forecasters, a Staff Sergeant, called me outside. He happened to have a four year degree in aeronautical engineering. We saw a matte black, HIGHLY advanced aircraft taxi to the end of the runway, and immediately take off. No markings, of ANY kind. It wasn't a Saudi plane. The Saudi's couldn't make bed pans. Every US Air Force plane that EVER takes off has to get a DD Form 175-1, Pilot Weather Briefing. It has to be attached to his flight plan. This is a hard requirement. The ONLY time a pilot wouldn't talk to me or one of my troops is when there is a "Special Support Cell", providing highly specialized (and Top Secret) briefings in lieu of the normal process. This was 32 years ago, and I remember it like yesterday..and could draw a pretty good sketch of it.

I was at Lockheed from 1983 to 1993. We had a monthly company magazine, and one issue had a drawing of the follow-on to the SR71 called Aurora said to fly higher and faster. The depiction closely showed an aircraft resembled the photos and drawings shown here.

I was driving US50 westbound around 4am at about 125mph in the late summer of 1987. I looked to my left to see an F117 landing next to me at NAS Fallon. At the time I had no clue what it was, but knew it was not a typical airplane.

I once spoke with a guy from West Virginia who had worked on some of the special access programs for the US Gov between 92 and 08. Obviously he couldn't say very much, but he did suggest a couple of things. I'll never forget two of the things he said: "what makes you think ufos are aliens?" and then later on, he said "there are things that would leave you speechless that we have discovered". I thought that was amazing. I've never forgotten it.

I have asked about this at the Air Force Museum in Dayton Ohio and they said it wouldn’t surprise them if it shows up out of the blue someday. They have received several prototypes that were classified and never officially announced that were sent to them when the Air Force had no further use for them.

My Dad told me about Aurora a long time ago. He was Air Force with a pretty high clearance. He heared about, in certain circles, and even caught a glimpse of a part of the aircraft. He always laughed off my conspiracy theory mindset for a long time. He told me about knowing about Project Aurora when he was close to his death and that they cancelled the project because of the cost. So, I don't know.

It's also well known, that a ton of high altitude supersonic testing was done in the 1990's with modified F-15's. Modified F-15's easily exceed 60,000ft.

There were no shuttles in orbit and a double sonic boom happened over los angeles back in the early late 80s or early 90s.

So I'm a contractor and have been for 20 years in an area that was huge for National Defense. One of the customers I worked for was the particular one who built the flight simulators for new aircraft for the pentagon. I had caught him up in a line of questioning and he basically admitted to me that he built the simulator for the tr3b and they referred to it as the "taco chip". He also told me they had fully autonomous F-16 armed drones.

Fact: The US Air Force has had operational technologies decades before being released to the public. High heat paints, Infra-red cameras, Side looking radars are examples. I was actually shocked These type things became available on the civilian market 30/40 years after I got out. Little known is the fact that personnel working in high tech career fields frequently work with scientists, engineers, and inventors. Therefore, if the AF was dealing with these things many decades ago. What are they dealing with now??

I remember playing Command and Conquer Generals and seeing the aurora in there, gave me a little smile. I can’t remember where I read it but someone suggested aurora, sr72 or something comparable existed simply because the military wouldn’t have retired the sr71 unless there was something to cover the capability. Satellite imagery has come a long way but at the time of the rumors and the sr71’s retirement, satellites weren’t good enough to render the need obsolete. Suppose we might never know

That was great! I'm glad you're doing this in two parts. Very interesting and I think you're doing it justice.

Dude it’s so awesome seeing creators give credit to others for using their work!!! Props man!

We all WANT the Aurora to be true, but . . . In New York, where I am, we have the Intrepid Air and Space museum and on the deck of the carrier is an A-12, not an SR 71, the log books of which are still top secret. If only that plane could talk.

In the 80s Aviation Weekly magazine wrote an article about External Pulse Detonation using a crafts external pressure cones as the combustion chamber. Think about that, by spraying fuel externally into these pressure cones trailing the aircraft then igniting it. This could be what created the Donuts on a rope which a friend and I witnessed and heard in the late eighties from his shop in Hawaiian Gardens CA. The direction what ever was creating those contrails was coming from the Pacific heading toward Edwards. I never see anything written about this.

78yr old American veteran. It was in the fall of 1983 or 84, just at dusk, antelope hunting out on the Sweetwater, Wyoming, my family observed a black wedged shape aircraft flying the nap of the earth, coming out of the north and flying south. Raising up and passing over Green Mt. Yes, I, believe.

This Aurora story made me remember a sighting I had in So. Calif near the San Gabriel mountains in 2010. I am a Mechanical Engineer, so I know and appreciate machinery, especially aircraft. I was standing outside on a clear day and happened to look up in the sky and I saw a perfectly round aircraft at very high altitude traveling at an unbelievable rate of speed from west to east. I don’t believe in aliens or alien craft, so I figured it was an advanced research aircraft. It didn’t ‘scare’ me or shake me up. I just marveled at it because of its incredible speed. It was out of sight in only a few seconds and if I hadn’t looked up by chance at that moment I would have never seen it. I could not see the craft’s profile, only that it was perfectly round. Have you ever heard of any research aircraft with such a shape and performance?

It's hard to believe that an aviation platform like the SR-71 would just end without a next stage replacement. At least one or two aircraft.