Message posted by Chris on December 13, 2002 at 8:40:54 PST:

About a year and a half ago I exchanged a few e-mails with Steve Douglass. In the early 90's Steve photographed, in my opinion, the best evidence of Aurora we may have up until this point. His photos clearly show the classic "Donut-On-A-Rope" contrails. The interesting thing about the Douglass photos is, that Steve actually managed to briefly see the aircraft that caused them fly over his home in Texas. He said the aircraft made a "tremendous roar" and it was moving at an "incredible rate." I guess the aircraft was simply too sophisticated and expensive to keep in the air, and reliability problems with it's engine, ultimately grounded it for good. My guess is, according to TDC's "Return To Area 51" that either the USAF buried it somewhere within the confines of the range or it is held up in a hangar on the base, still grounded. Certainly some of the signs that would leave one to believe that a Mach 5+ aircraft was still flying out of Groom has dwindled over the past few years, but is it really a dead program? I guess only time will tell.

In Reply to: X-43A Being Readied for Flight...aurora is DEAD posted by darkhorse on December 12, 2002 at 12:51:39 PST:

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