Since the beginning of the 1990s, hardly anything has been known about this plane. The SR-91 Aurora has long been an interesting mystery to both enthusiastic aeronauts and conspiracy theorists. According to legend, the SR-91 Aurora was being developed in the 1980s as a replacement for the SR-71 Blackbird, capable of reaching speeds of more than Mach 5 and of climbing to altitudes of 90,000 feet.
Even though it is a legendary one, less tangible evidence of the existence of such a creature is there; more or less, it is based on unconfirmed witnessing and unexplained phenomena, such as “sky quakes” over Los Angeles in the early 1990s.
The first time the public heard of “Aurora” was in a “black program” budget request in 1985, which sparked rumors about the SR-91 Aurora being an aircraft designed for hypersonic reconnaissance missions, capable of setting records.
Former Skunk Works Director Ben Rich said in his memoir that finally put these rumors to rest, as he described “Aurora” simply as the codename for the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber program.
But yes, the U.S. Air Force would have been looking for a replacement for the SR-71 Blackbird, which was very expensive to maintain, costing the associated annual operating costs from $200 million to $300 million in the 1980s.
The Aurora would have been an ultra-secretive project if it ever existed, but satellite and drone technologies were good enough eventually to make this kind of plane redundant.
The most authentic proof that has been received regarding Aurora was a 2006 report by the British Ministry of Defence stating that the U.S. Air Force is planning a Mach 4-6 supersonic vehicle. But to date, none has been finally proven to be true.
The mystery has been fueled by eyewitness accounts. In 1989, engineer Chris Gibson described seeing a triangular-shaped aircraft over the North Sea, which he suggested might be a new type of reconnaissance plane.
This could just as easily have been the B-2 or even an F-117 Nighthawk, both of which were operational at the time.
Another phenomenon reportedly attributed to the Aurora has been the so-called “sky quakes” over Los Angeles in the early 1990s. The loud booms have been explained to be caused by a hypersonic aircraft flying out of Groom Lake, Nevada, also known as Area 51. Or so it has been speculated.
Aviation writer Bill Sweetman spent years tracing the manifest existence of Aurora, sifting through military budgets and tracking untraceable dollars and code names. He points to a $9-billion “black hole” in the Air Force operations budget that he believes could be funding a project like Aurora. Yet even Sweetman admits the evidence is circumstantial.
More Fueling the Legend
Recent reports from Jane’s Defense Weekly in the 1990s have also fueled this legend. They indicated that in California, seismologists had recorded tremors consistent with a high-speed aircraft. More directly tied to the Aurora are sightings of unusual aircraft accompanied by F-117 Nighthawks and “doughnuts on a rope,” that is, unusual contrails.
Another dimension to the Aurora myth was the SR-75 Penetrator, which has been said to be an airbreathing, hypersonic aircraft capable of carrying and deploying a small vehicle known as the SR-74 SCRAMP or XR-7 ThunderDart. It has even been said this vehicle could reach speeds of Mach 23. There is no concrete evidence for these aircraft.
But as of now, no concrete evidence exists; the SR-91 Aurora remains a captivating story of discovery, about mankind’s ever-growing interest in the unknown and high-tech. The story lives on through inconclusive and only suggestive proof, which fuels an indefatigable imagination regarding the possibilities of far-advanced aerospace technology.