Summary: Ben Rich, former head of Lockheed Martin’s Skunkworks, suggested in 1993 that advanced technologies for interstellar travel exist but are confined to secretive black projects. This claim aligns with other defense intellectuals like Nick Cook, who in 2002 wrote about the U.S. military's potential breakthroughs in anti-gravity propulsion. The SR-91 Aurora, an alleged successor to the SR-71 Blackbird, epitomizes these rumors.

-The Aurora, rumored to achieve Mach 5+ speeds, was rumored linked to mysterious "sky quakes" over Los Angeles in the 1990s, believed to be caused by pulse-detonation engines.

-Though unconfirmed, the existence of such advanced aircraft remains a topic of debate and speculation.

The SR-91 Aurora: Could it Be Real? 

“We already have the means to travel among the stars, but these technologies are locked up in black projects and it would take an Act of God to ever get them out to benefit humanity…Anything you can imagine, we already know how to do.” These were apocryphal words spoken by the legendary head of Lockheed Martin’s Skunkworks and the man considered to be the “father of stealth,” Ben Rich, in 1993 to an audience of his fellow UCLA alumni. 

Rich has multiple other apocryphal quotes attributed to him about the US having next-level propulsion technology and other capabilities that the public would likely be unable to differentiate between US military technology and what they would think was alien tech.

Exotic Technology at Our Fingertips 

Other prominent defense intellectuals have broken with the accepted wisdom over the decades since the end of the Cold War to make similar claims that Rich did. Former Jane’s Defense Weekly aerospace editor, Nick Cook, wrote a controversial book in 2002 about the US government’s quest for anti-gravity propulsion—and how the US military, through its closely guarded and highly compartmentalized “black budget” may have achieved such breakthroughs. 

There is an assortment of scientific papers that further lend credence to the idea that parts of the US military’s covert scientific R&D arm may at least be thinking about technologies that would defy our conventional understanding of physics. 

So, rumors about the SR-91 Aurora spy plane should not shock anyone who is only slightly familiar with the theories that I just wrote about. It, too, was reputed to be part of the black world that Ben Rich, Nick Cook, and so many other defense experts have spoken about over the decades. Any piece of equipment belonging to the black world of defense research and development has a profound level of confusion, misinformation, and mystique. 

The story of the mythical SR-91 Aurora Mach 5+ spy plane has its origins in the ending of the glorious SR-71 Blackbird spy plane program. With its retirement, the US military was poised to replace it with an even more advanced and radical platform. 

The SR-91 Aurora, Explained 

That’s a hard sell, considering that the SR-71 Blackbird broke multiple records during its service to the country. Shrouded in secrecy—and to this day unconfirmed—the alleged follow-on vehicle to the SR-71 was the SR-91 “Aurora.” 

The Aurora spy plane was believed to be a delta, or wedge-shaped craft. Much like the famous B-2 stealth bomber (which also came out of the black world). The Aurora was supposedly able to go Mach 5. In fact, the entire point of the purported SR-91 Aurora project was to create a spy plane that could go up to Mach 9! 

Then there’s the issue of “sky quakes” that erupted in the early 1990s over Los Angeles, Calif. Some had reported that the Aurora was powered by a theoretical pulse-detonation engine. Conspiracy theorists who spend more time looking at the sky than what’s in front of them believe that the strange horizontal plume contrails that were routinely seen in the skies over the United States from the 1990s until the early 2000s were the hallmarks of a pulse detonation engine—which could only mean that the Aurora was real and the US military was testing it. 

In fact, the sly quakes over LA are taken as proof-positive that not only was the Aurora being tested but that it was being operated from Groom Lake, Nev. (Area 51).

Was it Real? 

Debates about the existence of the SR-91 still rage today. There’s some disagreement as to whether the single sighting by a civilian on the ground of the supposed SR-91 Aurora was actually a mistaken case of the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber which, at that time, was still a highly classified program. 

Don’t be fooled, though. The US government has been experimenting with radical technologies in the desert since the late 1940s. Whether those technologies are scalable is another matter. But the fact remains that multiple different demonstrators have been built that truly test the limits of our understanding of flight and physics itself. 

If the reports of people like Nick Cook and Ben Rich are to be believed, then, the American people are clueless as to what the US military really has at its disposal. What’s more, it’s possible the supposed SR-91 wasn’t even the most advanced prototype in the arsenal.

About the Author 

Brandon J. Weichert, a National Interest national security analyst, is a former Congressional staffer and geopolitical analyst who is a contributor at The Washington Times, the Asia Times, and The-Pipeline. He is the author of Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower, Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life, and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy. His next book, A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine, is due October 22 from Encounter Books. Weichert can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.

All images are Creative Commons of SR-71.