For decades, aviation enthusiasts and conspiracy theorists alike have whispered about Aurora, a top-secret American aircraft said to have reached speeds beyond Mach 6. Officially, no such project has ever existed. Unofficially, the evidence paints a far more intriguing picture.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, mysterious “donuts-on-a-rope” contrails and thunder-like sonic booms were repeatedly reported over California and the North Sea. Around the same time, the U.S. Air Force began retiring the legendary SR-71 Blackbird, yet continued to allocate funds under cryptic label “Aurora”. Coincidence, or a clever cover-up?
Aurora legend started in 1985 when the LA Times discovered that the term “Aurora” had been included in the US Budget as a request of $2.3 billion for “black aircraft production”. The US indeed looked for a replacement for the aging Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird, but there were no official projects on this matter. Some people from the US Air Force and RAF claim to have seen some mysterious aircraft near some US aerodromes, but those were as well dismissed by the USAF. During the early 2000s multiple interviews and articles with supposition surfaced referring to budget wholes and sighting claims on one side and officials who denied that such a programme was developed.
Some engineers claim that Aurora was powered by a pulsed detonation or combined-cycle engine, designed to bridge the gap between conventional jet propulsion and orbit-capable flight. Others argue it was never more than a placeholder’s name for classified research programs.
To this day, no photographs or confirmed sightings exist. Still, with the recent unveiling of the SR-72 concept and new hypersonic test vehicles, the line between conspiracy and reality grows thinner each year.
In 2017, Aviation week reported that Rob Weiss, the General Manager of the Skunk Works, provided some confirmation of a research project and stated that hypersonic flight technology was now mature, and efforts were underway to fly an aircraft with it
But maybe it is still a sensitive subject due to the development of hypersonic missiles and perhaps Aurora was never cancelled… perhaps it simply evolved, silently shaping the next generation of aerospace technology.