Dallas Morning News
19 April, 1897

A Windmill Demolishes It.

Aurora, Wise Co., Tex., April 17 – (To the News) –About 6 o'clock this morning the early risers of Aurora were astonished at the sudden appearance of the airship which has been sailing throughout the country.

It was travelling due north, and much nearer the earth than ever before. Evidently some of the machinery was out of order, for it was making a speed of only ten or twelve miles per hour and gradually settling toward the earth. It sailed directly over the public square, and when it reached the north part of town collided with the tower of Judge Proctor's windmill and went to pieces with a terrific explosion, scattering debris over several acres of ground, wrecking the windmill and water tank and destroying the judge's flower garden.

The pilot of the ship is supposed to have been the only one aboard, and while his remains are badly disfigured, enough of the original has been picked up to show that he was not an inhabitant of this world.

T.J. Weems, the United States signal service officer at this place and an authority on astronomy, gives it as his opinion that he was a native from the planet of Mars.

Papers found on his person – evidently the records of his travels – are written in some unknown hieroglyphics, and cannot be deciphered.

The ship was too badly wrecked to form conclusions as to its construction or motive power. It was built of an unknown metal, resembling somewhat a mixture of aluminium and silver, and it must have weighed about several tons.

The town is full of people to-day who are viewing the wreck and gathering specimens of strange metal from the debris. The pilot's funeral will take place at noon to-morrow.

S.E. HAYDON.