Etna Pegue
Etna Pegue was a long-time resident of Aurora, Texas, who in a 1980 interview with Time Magazine — at age 86 — stated that the famous Aurora Texas UFO Crash story of April 1897 had been deliberately fabricated. Her account is the most direct primary source claim that the incident was a hoax, and it remains significant in the historical debate over the case's authenticity.
| Role | Aurora, Texas resident and witness |
|---|
Claim
Pegue told Time Magazine that the story was invented to draw public attention and media coverage to Aurora, a small Texas town that had been bypassed by a planned railroad route and was economically declining. She claimed the crash narrative was concocted to revive the town's profile.
Her account directly contradicts the eyewitness testimonies gathered by MUFON's 1973 investigation led by Bill Case, which identified multiple residents whose family members reported visiting the crash site or seeing the alleged airship. The physical anomalies found at the Aurora Cemetery burial site — including anomalous metal detector readings and a grave marker with a possible flying saucer carving that subsequently disappeared — are also difficult to reconcile with a purely invented story.