--- description: Is it possible that a cigar-shaped spaceship descended over the tiny town of Aurora, Texas (pop. 237), and crashed into Judge J.S. Proctor's windmill? And that a tiny spaceman was buried in the... title: Americana: Close Encounters of a Kind image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [U.S.](/section/us/) # Americana: Close Encounters of a Kind by [TIME](/author/time/) Mar 12, 1979 5:00 AM CUT by [TIME](/author/time/) Mar 12, 1979 5:00 AM CUT Is it possible that a cigar-shaped spaceship descended over the tiny town of Aurora, Texas (pop. 237), and crashed into Judge J.S. Proctor’s windmill? And that a tiny spaceman was buried in the Aurora cemetery? That was the tale sent to newspapers in nearby Dallas and Fort Worth one April day in 1897 by a local correspondent named S.E. Hayden. It was generally ridiculed at the time, and most citizens of Aurora still scoff. “Hayden wrote it as a joke and to bring interest to Aurora,” says Etta Pegues, 86\. “The railroad bypassed us, and the town was dying.” But UFO stories, told and retold, sometimes acquire a life of their own. Over the years some of the faithful have been trekking to Aurora to search for the small spaceman’s grave. “Sometimes they take souvenirs, and a couple of years back somebody stole the spaceman’s tombstone,” says H.R. Idell, the town marshal, referring to a big rock with a mysterious-looking crack in it. “But mostly folks just poke around in the ruins.” Mrs. Pegues is scornful. Says she: “People wish so hard the story was true they really start believing it. Why, the judge never even had a windmill.” Americana: Close Encounters of a Kind ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6881563/americana-close-encounters-of-a-kind/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6881563/americana-close-encounters-of-a-kind/"},"headline":"Americana: Close Encounters of a Kind","datePublished":"1979-03-12T05:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-21T22:26:47.091Z","description":"Is it possible that a cigar-shaped spaceship descended over the tiny town of Aurora, Texas (pop. 237), and crashed into Judge J.S. Proctor's windmill? And that a tiny spaceman was buried in the...","url":"https://time.com/archive/6881563/americana-close-encounters-of-a-kind/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME","url":"https://time.com/author/time/"}],"articleSection":"U.S.","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/us/","name":"U.S."}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/archive/6881563/americana-close-encounters-of-a-kind/","name":"Americana: Close Encounters of a Kind"}}]}] ```