The Strange Tale of Thaddeus Traveler: A Science Fiction Novel of Extraterrestrial Contact

By Shand Stringham

Some people mistakenly believe that the earliest reported UFO crash in the United States occurred at Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947. It did not. There are several other reported incidents about earlier UFO crashes in the literature. One of the earliest reported crashes occurred fully fifty years before Roswell in Aurora, Texas, in 1897.
This story was suggested by a news article that first appeared in the Dallas Morning News in 1897, which describes the crash of an unidentified aircraft into the windmill and water tower of Judge James Proctor, who lived with his wife just outside the little town of Aurora, Texas. The pilot of the aircraft perished in the crash but a close examination of his burnt and broken body revealed that he was not of this world. History records and the alien was buried in the Aurora City Cemetery. Although a modern search for his remains have never produced any results.
The novel also reveals the unreported story of the passenger on the aircraft who escaped detection and ultimately wended his way into the Aurora community

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Oct 14, 2021
• ISBN: 9781663229854

Shand Stringham

Shand Stringham served twenty-six years in the US Army and retired as a colonel. His final assignment on active duty was on the faculty of the US Army War College, where he taught national security and strategy. He lives with his family in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

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Copyright © 2021 Shand Stringham.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means,

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any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author

except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Certain characters in this work are historical figures, and certain events portrayed

did take place. However, this is a work of fiction. All of the other characters, names,

and events as well as all places, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel

are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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ISBN: 978-1-6632-2984-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6632-2986-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6632-2985-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021920178

iUniverse rev. date:  10/14/2021

CONTENTS

In Appreciation

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Epilogue

Author’s Notes

IN APPRECIATION

I had the assistance and technical support of several people in the preparation of this novel whom I want to acknowledge and thank, Karen Westergard Gill, Shellie Stringham Harris, Don and Nancy Schoeps, and Carson Briant Stringham. I am likewise grateful for the artistic contribution of Rebecca Wride Hartvigsen, who painted the watercolor of the Proctor farmstead for the front cover.

Finally, I express my continuing gratitude to my wife, Quin, who spent long hours discussing with me various ideas, concepts, and insights that emerged in my research and writing of the manuscript draft. Thank you for your loving support and understanding. As always, there is much of you that comes out in this novel.

Shand Stringham

Carlisle Pennsylvania

October 2021

PROLOGUE

My name is Judge James Spencer Proctor. I served in the Texas Circuit Court system for a little over twenty-five years back in the waning decades of the 1800s. In 1892, the Texas Legislature created three courts of appeals: the First Court of Civil Appeals in Galveston, the Second Court of Civil Appeals in Fort Worth, and the Third Court of Civil Appeals in Austin.

I was initially assigned to the Second Court of Civil Appeals in Fort Worth. I spent over two years there on the bench organizing and balancing caseloads in the new jurisdictions. But I was getting along in years and was desirous of retiring from the bench and settling down to work a farmstead in rural North Texas. We had been putting money aside for years for our retirement home, and we calculated that the time was right to make the move.

Sarah, my wife of 47 years, lobbied hard for me to quit the bench so that we could move away from the city and settle down in a rural setting to live out our days. She was a real trooper. Sarah was raised on a family farm just south of Stillwell, Oklahoma, and she had fond memories of those early years that she wanted to recapture before it was too late to make the transition. She knew full well that it was going to be challenging facing all the farm chores and domestic responsibilities she would need to be actively engaged in to keep the farm running smoothly.

Finally, toward the end of 1894, I officially resigned from the bench, and we purchased a tract of land just outside the rural hamlet of Aurora, Texas, a little over thirty miles north of Fort Worth. We hired an architect and construction company to build the house of our dreams, with all the necessary accouterments for a rural farmstead: windmill, water tower, well, outhouse and septic system, barn, stable, bunkhouse for the hired help, and other outbuildings. Construction work took a little over a year and a half. When it was completed, we migrated north from Fort Worth and settled in for the country life. At least, that was the plan. It didn’t turn out quite the way we had envisioned it.

I had kept a journal since my early days in law school, and as we came up on the end of the century, my journal was full of notes concerning a most peculiar happening here in Aurora. I wasn’t quite sure what to do with all the extraordinary information until it struck me that I could compile it as a brief historical short story or novel describing, as best as I remembered it, the details of what transpired here in 1897, then leave it to the reader to interpret the message.

What follows, then, is my labor of love, tackling the narrative of one of the most peculiar happenings that Aurora, Texas, ever experienced. Although I have changed the names of the story’s main participants, the narrative is as true and factual as I was able to represent it here in these few brief pages. I have not attempted to disguise my own identity by changing my name because it was revealed in print in the Dallas Morning News, on April 19, 1897, in an article submitted by S.E. Haydon, entitled A Windmill Demolishes It.

More to follow.

CHAPTER 1

Just after dawn the morning of Monday, April 17, 1897, an oblong-shaped aircraft flew over the western edge of Arkansas and Missouri and crashed near the hamlet of Aurora, Texas, just north of Fort Worth. As in many other rural farming communities in North Texas, the townspeople were just awakening to the day as the sun’s rays crept above the horizon from the east and the town’s roosters responded with a cacophony of crowing, each battling to be the loudest and most obnoxious. As the strange craft flew across the border into Texas, it circled to the west and approached Aurora from the south. Flying erratically over the center of town, it traced a haphazard wavy line in the sky, trailing a thick tail of dark smoke.

According to earlier bystander accounts, before the crash, the aircraft was moving rapidly. But by the time it reached Aurora, it was moving quite slowly across the sky, inching along by comparison at only 10-15 miles per hour, and observers reported that it was steadily losing altitude. When the strange air machine passed over the town square and finally reached the far side of town, it hung low in the sky close to the ground. Barely missing the steeple on the community church, it collided with a substantial windmill on Judge James Spencer Proctor’s property. Upon impact, the aircraft exploded, scattering small pieces of metallic debris over several acres surrounding the judge’s windmill, water tank, and garden.

Several of the town’s early-morning risers rushed out into the street and ran the length of the town’s main road in the direction of the sound of the explosion, following the trail of smoke in the sky. By the time they reached the crash site, Judge Proctor was just emerging from his recently completed house. The judge was a big, burly man with silver gray hair. He was dressed in house slippers and a white bath robe, with a bath towel wrapped around his neck, and carrying his straight razor in his hand. There was a small angry red gash across his right cheek where he had cut himself when he was startled by the explosion outside his bathroom window. His face was still covered with shaving soap, and he was hastily using the towel to wipe the remainder of the soap and blood off his face.

The judge stood there motionless on the porch outside his front door staring through the hazy smoke that had settled over his property. As the smoke began to clear, he let loose a resounding string of epithets when he saw the damage to his windmill and water tower, both of which now lay in smoldering ruin.

The judge stepped gingerly down the steps to the stone path that led through his yard, carefully making his way around the sharp pieces of metal that littered the ground. He stopped every few steps to survey the damage to his property, shaking his head with each new discovery. At one point, he started hopping around on one foot attempting to dislodge a piece of a razor-sharp metal shard that had pierced through the thick leather sole of his slipper.

At the end of the walk leading out into the yard, he came upon his prized rooster lying dead in the tall grass next to the rose garden. The rooster’s head had been severed clean off by a piece of flying metal debris. It now lay a few feet away from its once proud body, covered in a bloody mass of feathers.

The judge stood there momentarily dumbfounded, frozen in place, turning his head from side to side, contemplating the disaster. He was astounded by the devastation to all the hard work he and his wife, Sarah, had put in on the place. He became momentarily engrossed in memories about all the time he and Sarah had worked together side-by-side to make it a livable farmstead. He was oblivious to all the locals who had shown up and were milling around the wreckage rubbernecking. He was startled back to reality by the jarring voice of one of the townspeople who was exploring the wreckage site on the far side of the garden.

Over here, Judge Proctor… Over here. I think I found what’s left of the pilot in the corn patch!

He recognized the voice of Bill Crockett, the owner of the Mercantile in town. There was a sense of urgency in Bill’s voice bordering on panic. Hurry, Judge! You’ve got to see this!

Avoiding the razor-sharp edges of the metallic debris, the judge hurriedly made his way to the corn patch, following the pathway through the charred, broken cornstalks to where he found Crockett hunched over the burnt, mangled remains of the figure of a man lying there twisted on the ground. The judge hastily inspected the body. He frowned, huge furrows appearing on his broad forehead. He realized immediately that this wasn’t precisely the body of a man. It was misshapen by human standards and the proportions seemed all wrong. The creature was only about four feet tall, its arms and legs were spindly, and its head was huge in relation to the rest of its body. He leaned over and pulled a folded sheet of heavy paper that was sticking half out from a pocket of the creature’s shiny metallic uniform blouse that had been shredded in the crash. The paper was partially burned, and the judge carefully secured it in the oversized pocket of his bathrobe to examine later.

Just then, Dr. Erickson, Aurora’s town physician, arrived on the scene, breathing heavily from the run from his home near the center of town. The doctor was getting along in years and running the few blocks from town to get there had taken a serious toll on his breathing. He made his way through the path in the corn patch and joined the judge by his side to examine the curious body.

As soon as he saw the charred remains, he reached into his black bag and donned a white surgical mask and a pair of heavy rubber examination gloves. He perfunctorily grasped the creature’s wrist to check for a pulse, and then placed a stethoscope on its chest searching for a heartbeat and some sign of life. Nothing. The creature appeared to have expired in the crash. The smell of the burned flesh was overpowering, and several of the townspeople who had followed the judge into the corn patch and were gathered in a tight circle around the body had to turn their heads to retch. After a cursory examination of the rest of the body, Dr. Erickson turned his head slightly and spoke over his shoulder, Judge Proctor, would you have a large piece of canvas that we could use to transport the body back to my office for a more thorough medical examination?

Sure thing, Doc, Proctor replied. Turning to his farm hand, David Connors, who had just arrived from the bunkhouse, he barked, David, please go and fetch a sheet of canvas covering the straw in the barn and bring it back here on the double.

Connors was a young man in his early twenties, shorter than the judge by half a head, but with broad shoulders and bulging biceps from working heavy labor on the Proctor’s spread and other farmsteads around Aurora. He hurried out of the corn patch with all the grace of a rodeo bull and made a beeline for the barn door to retrieve the canvas. When Connors returned with the canvas a few minutes later, the doctor spread it out flat on the ground next to the remains and carefully began to shift the body onto the flattened surface. It wasn’t an easy process. Some of the body parts came