He had attended exercises and lectures with Chris, so knew the story well.Īs for is speed height etc, the observation was of a triangular craft being refueled by a tanker. I found out about him and the story in the early 2000s from a project manager I was working with who was also a Territorial Army artillery Colonel. I found out about him and the story, in the early 2000s while working with a project manager who was also a colonel in the UKs Territorial Army and had spent time in operations with ChrisĮveryone mentions Chris Gibson the oil engineer, very few make the link that he was also the UK’s top air observer at the time.īio from his publisher Pen and Sword books Chris and his wife, Kirsten, live in the North East of England.” On the standing down of the ROC in 1991, Chris began researching historical aviation and has written several books on unbuilt projects, particularly guided weapons, transports and airborne early warning. In 1978, his interest in aircraft took Chris into the Royal Observer Corps where he represented his group, area and country in aircraft recognition competitions between 19. Chris has worked in the oil exploration industry since 1985 and his work has taken him all over the world, with the added bonus of the occasional glimpse of unusual aircraft. “Educated at Auchinleck Academy in Ayrshire, Chris Gibson read Geology and Mineralogy at University of Aberdeen, graduating with Honours in 1984. The most “well-known instance” that could suggest the aircraft is real was the sighting of a triangular aircraft over the North Sea in August 1989 by oil-exploration engineer Chris Gibson, but this could be a case of trying to suggest that what was sighted was a hypothetical plane rather than an existing aircraft such as a B-2 Spirit – which certainly has a triangular shape and did in fact have its first flight earlier that year.Ĭhris Gibson the oil engineer… Except that was just his day job at the time, most people don’t comment it don’t realise that he was also the UK’s top aircraft observerįrom his publisher Pen and Sword books bio (sorry this field wouldn’t let me post the actual website link but it is Google able) There is almost no evidence to suggest it had.Īccording to there have been a couple of unverified sightings of what may or may not have been an SR-91.
The most lingering question is whether the military actually produced even a prototype of the SR-91 Aurora. There has been much speculation in the nearly 15 years since that this may have been another reference to the SR-91 Aurora, and while it seems plausible this is the same program for a reconnaissance aircraft from 21 years prior, there is simply too little information to know for certain. Air Force priority plans to produce a supersonic vehicle that could reach speeds of Mach 4 to 6. More recently in May 2006, a British Ministry of Defence report referred to the U.S. Even the name “Aurora” was only disclosed when censors failed to catch a reference to it a 1985 budget request that also discussed the state of the SR-71 and U-2 programs. Technically known as a Special Access Program (SAP) – a “black program” that isn’t generally for public knowledge – little has been released about the SR-91. The goal of the project was to develop a replacement for the aging and expensive to maintain a fleet of SR-71 Blackbirds, which cost around $200 – $300 million a year to operate. While there have been reported sightings of the prototypes, the SR-91 Aurora, if it even existed, likely never made it much best the concept stage. Is the SR-91 Aurora a real thing? Or is this just an internet myth? In the 1980s an idea was conceived by military planners to develop a hypersonic spy plane that could reach Mach 5+, making it truly the fastest manned aircraft ever to fly.
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