No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own. – H.G. Wells, War of the Worlds
April, 17th, 1897, one year before HG Wells publishes War of the Worlds, a story of a “Martian” craft crashing in Aurora, Texas was published in the Dallas Morning News.
“A Windmill Demolishes It,” by S. E. Haydon, The Dallas Morning News, April 19, 1897, p. 5
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 around the country.
It was traveling due north and much nearer the earth than before. Evidently some of the machinery was out of order, for it was making a speed of only ten or twelve miles an 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 into 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 were badly disfigured, enough of the original has been picked up to show that he was not an inhabitant of this world.
Mr. T.J. Weems, the United States signal service officer at this place, and an authority on astronomy, gives it as his opinion that the pilot was a native of the planet Mars.
Papers found on his person – evidently the record of his travels – are written in some unknown hieroglyphics, and can not be deciphered.
This ship was too badly wrecked to form any conclusion as to its construction or motive power. It was built of an unknown metal, resembling somewhat a mixture of aluminum and silver, and it must have weighed 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
Another newspaper, The Fort Worth Register, reported that “The pilot, who was not an inhabitant of this world, was given proper Christian burial at the Aurora Cemetery.” The grave-site was described as having a marker that had “a strange design on it resembling a flying saucer with portholes.” It was said wreckage of the craft was “dumped into a nearby well located under the damaged windmill, while some ended up with the alien in the grave.”