Solving the mystery of America's "Aurora" spy plane

I agree with the conclusion. A 'fleet' of hypersonic aircraft? Nah. But a single vehicle for research and development? Sure. Maybe even a few different, single airframes over the years, being lumped together simply because we don't know enough about them. Honestly, I'd be surprised if there has not been at least one hypersonic R&D plane flying around.

This is exactly what I’ve been thinking. I think it’s totally plausible there was a hypersonic plane that was purely a technology demonstrator that flew in the late 80’s through the early 90’s, only one of which was made, and it was scrapped due to the lack of need and/or the technology not being mature enough to make mass production possible. One problem with a hypersonic plane is the heat buildup would be immense, which would likely require a massive amount of maintenance and may even limit it to a short service life. If this was the case, they almost certainly just buried it in the desert.

In 1976 Lockheeds Kelly Johnson was asked what his next project was. He declared that mach 6 was in the planning. If we take 1976 as a theoretical starting point Aurora must have flown by 1985 at the latest. There have been several sightings of these planes. In 1990 the Blackbird was withdrawn. The USAF has never withdrawn a plane without having something to replace it.

From my understanding most programs in general are concept testing platforms: they aren't meant to be the end product but merely to test an aspect of an end product.

The fast thing that I saw had the same silhouette as the fuzzy black triangle at 15:10 on the right. That's about all I saw, is the silhouette. It was at night, and very clear out, so the silhouette was easy to spot against the clear summer sky. The stars were very bright back then. Its silhouette was much darker black than the sky. I suppose I might be wondering what it was for the rest of my life. The weird part is that it made no sound that I could hear, and it was moving fast enough, that it should have either been loud, or very, very big, and very high. At least it's an interesting memory, but maybe just has to be a mystery too.

I’m reminded of the Stealth Blackhawk’s that never existed on anyones radar, yet were operational aircraft just waiting for a purpose. I also suspect we need high speed aircraft to research hypersonic technology. The Sr-71 and it’s piggy back drones were a perfect test bed for such technology demonstrations, it is hard to believe we would abandon such a testing setup without a suitable replacement.

There was images from a weather satellite that captured contrails leaving Area 51 and going out over the Atlantic, Middle East and toward China. The vehicle was estimated to be travelling in the area of ~ 8000 mph. This was reported on by Nick Cook, he was an investigator/journalist for Janes defence weekly. The retirement of the SR-71 left a gap that needed to be filled (and no satellites could not bridge that gap completely) it makes perfect sense that the us would have been developing a successor to the sr-71.

Awesome explanation. Truly well thought out and considered. One thing that DOES confirm the previous presence of a demonstrator is a thought by someone who does 3d printing. A person who develops planes has said something along the lines of "3d printing is allowing us to achieve what couldn't be done before to make hypersonic possible". The person talking about this said the following thought: If they didn't know what the difference was, why would they say this? A very intriguing idea, indeed.

You've done lots of research, nice piece. The fly in the ointment for all this is that we have no visibility into the Black Budget....estimated somewhere north or $50B. The three stream adaptable engine effort has nothing to do with Mach 5. The AETP introduces a third stream of air in fighter class turbo fans to increase efficiency and power. The big reason for AETP is the tyranny of distance in the Pacific. BTW, the F-35 would melt at Mach 5.

I worked as an electronic engineer for weapons development and I think your videos are great. Keep up the good work.

Excellent video. It avoids the usual clickbait nonsense you find in over 90% of videos of "Aurora" and such here on YT. Just trying to think logical and get to the facts is very refreshing, well done!

Real or not we tricked the Chinese into believing that the plane is real and was used while filming Top Gun 2 and that makes me happy

You never cease to produce amazing videos in so little time, it amazes me.

Another program my biological father worked worked on while at Edwards Air Force Base and Groom Lake (Area 51). Including other programs you showed such as the F-117 program, the B-2 program, Tacit Blue program, and YF-118 Bird of Prey program.

Great series sir. Your conclusions Are logical and well thought through. Having worked in defence for BAE Systems in Australia, I think you are 100% correct.

Aurora was actually multiple top secret government projects being thought of as far as the mid sixties, which included hypersonic, stealth and a nuclear power spacecraft. The name started with the spacecraft itself. The nuclear spacecraft was kill off by a treaty. Other top secret programs under the Aurora project continue on.

I'm sure nobody will believe me, but my grandfather retired as a relatively senior engineer (he was the Cheyenne Program Manager before its cancellation), and he had (that we got) a "Yearbook in Flight-type picture book from 1979ish. It had a picture of an Aurora (just an isosceles triangle, longer than it was wide), with the classic knots-on-a-rope exhaust. Sadly my folks sold the book (without knowing what was in it) in a garage sale with the rest of their excess furniture when they retired.

I do recall a lecture I saw on YouTube years ago. The retired aerospace engineer said we have obtained speeds that are classified but much higher than most people think possible. Something along those lines.

This was a fun and interesting 2 episode series. Thanks for the coverage.

Alex, thanks for getting this out quickly.