Aurora - a Famous Speculative Project

Where ever did they put the tailings from the excavated areas that the lakebed and runway retract down into?
 
As a prospective A&P, can you get propwash in the five gallon size?
 
aim9xray said:
Where ever did they put the tailings from the excavated areas that the lakebed and runway retract down into?
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C. Spyro said:
Either they stay or they retract as well.
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Let me translate aim9xray's question for you: Where did they put all the dirt that they dug out to make the underground hangars and elevator pits?

Keeping in mind that you can tell the difference between surface soil and deep soil from air and satellite photos for decades after it was dug up...
 
C. Spyro said:
Either they stay or they retract as well.
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I would like to know which sources you have for your claims about Groom Lake facilities (methane tanks, retracting (!) runways), the 'upcoming SR-72 demonstrator' and TR-3B. Other than patents, please.

I approve of your enthusiasm for matters aeronautical, but I suggest you take a critical look at what, so far, you have presented as evidence. This forum attracts enthusiasts (like me), journalists, authors, and proper experts - with various combinations of those categories mentioned. You've made a hard landing in the crowd, but everyone in the crowd started as a newbie. An item like retracting 12,000ft runways will not do you any favours on this forum, though. Unless you post a Gary Larson cartoon in The Bar that shows one.
 
Then, Lockheed Skunkworks leader, Ben Rich put the rumors of Aurora to rest in 1994, when he said that Aurora, or an aircraft like it, did not exist. (Which he stated that some people may not believe him).

Recent (now retired from Lockheed) leader of the Skunk Works, Rob Weiss, said in 2017 of the SR-72, that it would become the first operational hypersonic aircraft. Indicating that there were none before it.

Any sightings or 'booms in the desert' are likely a mix of other programs that did not culminate into an operational hypersonic vehicle.
 
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Back in the 1980s Sandy McDonnell (CEO of McDonnell Douglas) told Paul Czysz (former member of SPF and chief of the X-30 program) in circa 1988, that he spoke to an AF general that said the AF had five classified aircraft. He said three doesn't fly very fast, one fly's Mach 6, and the other fly's much faster, which he was having problems with. Test of these vehicles (if flown) may have been sighted or spoken of, adding to the myth of Aurora. The timetable for these vehicles would possibly mean that they were tested in early to mid-1980s and the last vehicle in the mid-1980s to late-1980s and possibly in to early-1990s, the same time frame as the Aurora rumors.

If MDAC CEO was unfamiliar with these aircraft than other prime manufacturers could have been the developer of these five. That would leave Boeing, Lockheed, Grumman, Northrop, Rockwell, Martin, and General Dynamics. Lockheed, in terms of hypersonics, was second only to McDAC according to Czysz himself.

Maybe they still exist in Dyson's Dock or buried somewhere out West.
 
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The only real chance to have something like Aurora in mid-80's was only an X-24C/NHFRF derivative. If USAF would keep up the X-24C development in mid-70's maybe would have something flying for real about a decade later....
 
Here is an interesting quote from, not existent already, Skunk works-mailing list from 1997:
"The other interesting thing about thursday morning flyers (as the guys at
Mugu and China lake call them) is the times they're flying- early Thursday
mornings, and their flight tracks.
1. Groom Lake operates such that flight test programs generally "prep" for
a test Mon-Wed/thurs, fly Wednesday or Thursday night, and spend the
remainder of the week going over the flight test results and doing all of
that fun debriefing stuff. Almost everybody has the weekends off to visit
family, etc. Groom is largely unmanned on weekends and this of course
explains the recent airspace changes around Groom for sundays.

2. The flight tracks for the sunday morning flyers point almost directly
into the Groom approach. Looks almost like a Space Shuttle coming in.

3. Recently the thursday morning flyers have started up again, though there
is no way to tell if this is the same aircraft or something new, but it
definitely suggests hypersonic/supersonic aircraft are being tested off the
California coast once again."
http://skunk-works-digest.netwrx1.org/v06-n076.txt

I'm reading it as Thursday morning flyers being what is commonly believed to be a LA "skyquakes" type... but then, the Sunday morning flyers? Never heard about that statement anywhere else.
 
SpeedFanatic said:
I'm reading it as Thursday morning flyers being what is commonly believed to be a LA "skyquakes" type... but then, the Sunday morning flyers? Never heard about that statement anywhere else.
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At the time the airspace around Groom had relaxed restrictions on Sundays, which was a recent change.

Nellis Aerial Circumnavigation

Note: If you’ve linked directly into this page you should be aware this is all very old stuff! Like ancient! For a description of what this is and how old it it is, see this intro. A Grand Aerial Circumnavigation of Area 51 A Trip Report by Tom Mahood This is the account of an aerial...
www.otherhand.org www.otherhand.org
 
It's just me but I don't understand the message in the aforementioned quote of you. You said the sunday morning flyers looked like Shuttle coming to Groom, so I take it as something akin to it or with similar flight profile was observed coming down to Groom on Sunday mornings back then, did I read it wrong?

Or did I miss the point?
 
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Dynoman said:
Then, Lockheed Skunkworks leader, Ben Rich put the rumors of Aurora to rest in 1994, when he said that Aurora, or an aircraft like it, did not exist. (Which he stated that some people may not believe him).

Recent (now retired from Lockheed) leader of the Skunk Works, Rob Weiss, said in 2017 of the SR-72, that it would become the first operational hypersonic aircraft. Indicating that there were none before it.

Any sightings or 'booms in the desert' are likely a mix of other programs that did not culminate into an operational hypersonic vehicle.
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First operational hypersonic aircraft, there's still a little room for speculating an hypersonic prototype aircraft ;). Also mind if I ask what you think the booms in the desert belong to if it wasn't an hypersonic aircraft?
 
SpeedFanatic said:
It's just me but I don't understand the message in the aforementioned quote of you. You said the sunday morning flyers looked like Shuttle coming to Groom, so I take it as something akin to it or with similar flight profile was observed coming down to Groom on Sunday mornings back then, did I read it wrong?
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I probably made a mistake when composing the email 30 years ago and meant Thursday in item 2, not Sunday.
 
Let's make one thing clear: this is not the old AboveTopSecret forum. I have no interest in people posting wild, unsupported assertions without evidence. This really falls into conspiracy terrritory, which is specifically excluded from the forum:
  • Posts on alien UFOs, speculative Nazi wunderwaffen/flying saucers/atomic bombs, general conspiracy theories, alien crashes, moon landing denial and the like are specifically discouraged and would be better posted elsewhere.
Bear in mind that several of the people who 've been a key part of the Aurora research over 30+ years are members of the forum, posting in this topic even. This is possibly the worst place you could find to post delusional and unsupported fantasies about Aurora and Area 51.

If you want to contribute to the Aurora topic

1) Read the existing 18 pages. A lot has already been said on the topic.
2) There's a reason the topic currently resides in Theoretical, Fake and Generic Projects. Currently, the balance of opinion is that Aurora doesn't and didn't ever exist.
3) If you believe you have something new to contribute, please do so - but come armed with credible sources.
 
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quellish said:
I probably made a mistake when composing the email 30 years ago and meant Thursday in item 2, not Sunday.
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Oh, right then, mystery solved :)

Well, that particular skunk works mailing message is from 1997 and you mentioned back then that the skyquakes returned again, is it the referrence to the 'loud aircraft' tested there at Groom in the 96-99 that you mentioned about and referred to in some other thread or subject, or are both cases or stories unconnected to eachother?

I hope you get the point, sorry If I wasn't enough clear in above question.
 
SpeedFanatic said:
Oh, right then, mystery solved :)

Well, that particular skunk works mailing message is from 1997 and you mentioned back then that the skyquakes returned again, is it the referrence to the 'loud aircraft' tested there at Groom in the 96-99 that you mentioned about and referred to in some other thread or subject, or are both cases or stories unconnected to eachother?
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The sky quakes and booms had returned (or never stopped) in Southern California.
There is no way to connect those sky quakes / booms to Groom Lake. There is no data connecting the two.

For the sky quakes in the early 1990s one analysis of the seismic data pointed to a flight path to Groom Lake / Southern NV, a later analysis came to different conclusions.
 
quellish said:
The sky quakes and booms had returned (or never stopped) in Southern California.
There is no way to connect those sky quakes / booms to Groom Lake. There is no data connecting the two.

For the sky quakes in the early 1990s one analysis of the seismic data pointed to a flight path to Groom Lake / Southern NV, a later analysis came to different conclusions.
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Probably there was more than one landing site for whatever it was. Initial operations might had place at Groom whilst another ones were shift to different areas.

That's interesting, I always tied the quakes with the loud aircraft being tested at Groom in the 96-99 timeframe that you referred to. What was special about that thing? Just a unique engine note to a kind? Never ever seen you describing it in any form anywhere and just wonder what the reports said.
 
Havent seen too much talk of the "2-stage" Aurora. I know most people believe in the singular Aurora, but what about the 2-stage version of it which was also rumoured at the same time?
Brilliant-Buzzard.jpg
 
Before I get bullied off this site, I should clarify I am not saying the SR-75 Penetrator and its buddy are real.
 
C. Spyro said:
The elevators are very well hidden platforms that are the entire runways(sometimes they can split up piece by piece in formation of elevators next to each other). They're invisible to the naked eye, further showing that the elevators work only at night where the base is conducting secret ops.
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Just no,
There are no such elevators or underground "hangars". You can't hide excavations of that size. The equipment would be visible from distance and there would large spoil tips of excavated dirt.
 
The two stage system is what was covered by Quellish in his BlackDown issues from the 90's. Always good read with decent content.

Some of the reports are quite interesting, especially the one from Patrick AFB. Seems most of the pages from the past are no longer active but there are still BalckDown pages available using Wayback Machine. I recommend
 
C. Spyro said:
I looked at the Area 51 building map from Dreamland Resort. They're water tanks for the south ramp area. Mostly cryogenic and/or methane.
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No. This is what cryogenic tanks look like. They are either spheres or cylinders with hemispheric ends. There is also a large amount of piping, heat exchangers and pumps associated with them. In addition, there are flare stacks for the flammable commodities. Water tanks do not work for cryogens. Nor can you hide them in water tanks, the insulated pipelines, which have to be above ground for maintenance, would be visible leading from them.
 

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SpeedFanatic said:
Probably there was more than one landing site for whatever it was. Initial operations might had place at Groom whilst another ones were shift to different areas.
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There are no other 'secret" bases or landing sites.
 

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