Editing Aurora (aircraft) (section)

===British sighting claims===
In late August 1989, while working as an engineer on the [[Jackup rig|jack-up barge]] ''GSF Galveston Key'' in the [[North Sea]], Chris Gibson saw an unfamiliar [[isosceles triangle]]-shaped delta aircraft, apparently refueling from a [[Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker]] and accompanied by a pair of [[General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark|F-111]] fighter-bombers. Gibson watched the aircraft for several minutes, until they went out of sight. He subsequently drew a sketch of the formation.
[[File:Aurora spyplane 3-view.jpg|thumb|upright=1.14|Artist's rendering of the Aurora from various angles]]
When the sighting was made public in 1992, the British [[Secretary of State for Defence|Defence Secretary]] [[Tom King, Baron King of Bridgwater|Tom King]] was told, "There is no knowledge in the MoD of a 'black' programme of this nature, although it would not surprise the relevant desk officers in the Air Staff and Defence Intelligence Staff if it did exist."<ref>Randerson, James. [https://www.theguardian.com/science/2006/jun/24/freedomofinformation.usnews "Is it a bird? Is it a spaceship? No, it's a secret US spy plane."] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161202012444/https://www.theguardian.com/science/2006/jun/24/freedomofinformation.usnews |date=2 December 2016 }} ''The Guardian,'' 24 June 2006. Retrieved: 17 October 2010.</ref>

Group Captain Tom Eeles, RAF, writes of a mystery aircraft flying over his house, near to the Mildenhall USAF base in Suffolk, at about 2:00{{nbsp}}am on a Sunday morning in the autumn of 1993. He had been awoken by "a very strange-sounding aircraft passing overhead; the engine noise was a pulsing sound quite unlike anything I'd heard before." He saw lights disappearing towards Mildenhall. Enquiries were made of a senior RAF officer at Mildenhall the following morning, at which point he was told firmly "to stop making inquiries at once". Group Captain Eeles attributes this sighting to a new stealth aircraft called Aurora. A few weeks earlier, there had been "an unexplained incident at Boscombe Down apparently involving an emergency landing by an unknown US aircraft, after which it was covered in tarpaulins and removed with great secrecy by an American C5 transport aircraft."<ref>''A Passion for Flying: 50 Years in the Cockpit'', by Group Captain Tom Eeles</ref>

A crash at [[MoD Boscombe Down|RAF Boscombe Down]] in [[Wiltshire]] on 26 September 1994 appeared closely linked to "black" missions, according to a report in ''[[AirForces Monthly]]''. Further investigation was hampered by USAF aircraft flooding into the base. [[Special Air Service]] personnel arrived in plainclothes in an [[Agusta 109]]. The crash site was protected from view by fire engines and [[tarpaulin]]s and the base was closed to all flights soon afterwards.<ref name="ind19970314">{{Cite news |last=Bellamy |first=Christopher |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/secret-us-spyplane-crash-may-be-kept-under-wraps-1272714.html |title=Secret US spyplane crash may be kept under wraps |date=1997-03-14 |work=The Independent |access-date=2020-03-09 |last2=Walker |first2=Timothy |language=en |archive-date=8 November 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201108003158/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/secret-us-spyplane-crash-may-be-kept-under-wraps-1272714.html |url-status=live }}</ref> More recent analysis, however, indicates that the Boscombe Down crash was a towed missile decoy.<ref>[http://www.dreamlandresort.com/black_projects/boscombe.htm "RAF Boscombe Down's Black Day."] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101122094155/http://dreamlandresort.com/black_projects/boscombe.htm |date=22 November 2010 }} ''dreamlandresort.com.'' Retrieved: 22 January 2011.</ref>

An unsubstantiated claim on the Horsted Keynes Village Web Site purports to show photos of the trail left after an unusual sonic boom was heard over the village in July 2002. In 2005 the information was used in a BBC report about the Aurora project.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.horstedkeynes.com/aurora.html|title=Spy Plane Over Horsted Keynes|work=horstedkeynes.com|access-date=1 February 2017|archive-date=10 April 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170410030606/http://www.horstedkeynes.com/aurora.html|url-status=live}}</ref>