Robert Kennedy In Aurora, Oregon Twice?

On By Roy WidingIn Aurora Oregon, Aurora Oregon History, Oregon HistoryLeave a comment

In 1968, Robert F. Kennedy was campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination in Oregon.

Yet here’s the mystery: Records suggest he likely passed through Aurora, Oregon, not once, but twice— and in back to back, consecutive months. First in April, by motorcade. Then in May, by train.

Two trips. Two routes. But are there photographs placing him in Aurora? And how could a town sitting along two of our region’s major transportation corridors seemingly disappear from the story?

Let’s investigate.

Our first clue is an extraordinary document. It’s an FBI-released copy of Robert Kennedy’s campaign itinerary for April 18, 1968.

His schedule was packed.

At 12:30 p.m., he was due to leave Portland in a motorcade.

Then at 1:15, his destination was the Oregon City Shopping Center.

Though riding by car, at 2:00 Robert Kennedy was to arrive at the Canby train depot.

Next, at 2:45, he was scheduled at the Fairway Shopping Center in Woodburn.

And by 3:15, Salem.

Look at those times. Kennedy was moving fast, from one public appearance to the next.

Then check out the map.

Oregon City. Canby. Aurora. Woodburn. Salem.

Aurora sits directly between Canby and Woodburn, along the key Highway 99E corridor.

A contemporary newspaper account adds another clue: Kennedy drove south through Oregon City, Canby, Hubbard and Woodburn on his way to Salem.

Notice anything missing? Aurora.

But there’s an important distinction. Campaign itineraries record destinations, not every town a motorcade passes through. The schedule doesn’t establish the exact road taken. If the motorcade followed the established highway south from Canby, Aurora would have easily been along the way. In fact, it would have been considerably longer to take any other route. That’s a compelling geographical case. It’s not proof.

Then comes the second trip. Because exactly one month later, on May 18, 1968, Robert Kennedy returned to Oregon. This time, he wasn’t traveling by car. He boarded the Southern Pacific’s Beaver State Special, a campaign train carrying him south through the Willamette Valley.

The schedule identifies stops at Oregon City, Salem, Albany, Harrisburg, Junction City and Eugene. Once again, Aurora isn’t listed. But look at the railroad.

The Southern Pacific mainline ran straight through this part of the valley, connecting communities along the route between Oregon City and Salem. Aurora lay exactly on that corridor. If the Beaver State Special followed the established mainline between those stops, Kennedy may have passed through Aurora by train. A second trip. A different mode of transportation. So let’s put the clues together.

April 18: A motorcade with documented appearances in Canby and Woodburn.

May 18: A campaign train traveling between documented stops along a rail corridor that ran south from Canby through Aurora.

Two likely passages, through one small Oregon town. And yet, in the records we’ve examined, Aurora remains the missing link. So where are the photographs?

Here’s what we know: Robert F. Kennedy campaigned in Oregon in April and May 1968. His documented stops and the transportation corridors he took make passages through Aurora virtually a given. But what we don’t know is whether anyone captured either of those journeys on film.

So the next time you pass by Aurora, look around at those nearby railroad tracks and the corridor along highway 99E, both local modes of transportation for Robert F. Kennedy.

Because sometimes the most intriguing part of history isn’t always what the records tell us. Sometimes, it’s what they leave out.

Aurora, Oregon’s Mystery Mechanic

On By Roy WidingIn Aurora Oregon, Aurora Oregon History, Ming Kee, Oregon History

The building is easy to miss, but the man who once worked here wasn’t. Long before social media, people throughout Aurora, Oregon knew his name. Some remembered him as a gifted mechanic. Others remembered him as a ballplayer the Portland Beavers reportedly wanted. And a few remembered him as an inventor who solved problems Detroit was still working on. But who exactly was this mystery mechanic…and why does his name still echo through Aurora history?

Aurora, Oregon’s Mysterious Monument

On By Roy WidingIn Aurora Colony, Aurora Oregon, Oregon HistoryLeave a comment

Near downtown Aurora, Oregon, sits a small eight-sided building that most visitors walk right past. Children pass it on school field trips. Tourists photograph it without a second thought. Yet this modest structure may be the last surviving piece of one of the most famous landmarks in Oregon history. And after more than a century, nobody can say for certain why it was built. was it a chicken coop? A smokehouse? A band hall? Or something else entirely? As this compelling video explains, the deeper you dig into Aurora’s Octagon Building, the stranger the mystery becomes.

Aurora, Oregon UFO: The Evidence

On By Roy WidingIn Aurora Oregon, 97002, Aurora Oregon Airport, Aurora Oregon Airport Control Tower, Aurora Oregon UFOLeave a comment

Skeptics love to brush UFO encounters off as Starlink satellites or space junk. But those explanations fall apart under basic physics. That’s because Starlink satellites travel in predictable orbital paths across the sky at a constant speed. They also don’t trip collision alerts. But the UFO that veteran Oregon LifeFlight helicopter pilot Joe Buley observed was performing rapid maneuvers and making sharp turns with a corkscrew pattern.

Plus, Starlink satellites orbit hundreds of miles above the earth. They don’t trigger proximity warnings for helicopters flying a mile or two up. So it’s no surprise that when ‘experts’ are trotted out, dismissing what professional pilots see with their own eyes, their explanations often don’t hold up and should be scrutinized.

Interestingly, at least one of the more vocal voices dismissing UFO events that night over Oregon skies in December, 2024 had direct ties both to NASA and the U.S. military. When experts with institutional loyalties rush to normalize an unexplainable event, it raises an obvious question: Are they voicing what they purport to be factual, or covering up classified operations? One key to remember is that covert operators not only will deny what’s clearly seen. They also tend to try to discredit those who do, even when those observing it have more than 6,000 flight hours, like LifeFlight’s Joe Buley. View the entire episode using the above Youtube video link.

Aurora, Oregon UFO: The Discovery

On By Roy WidingIn UFO, Aurora Oregon, Aurora Oregon Airport, Aurora Oregon Airport Control Tower, Aurora Oregon Airport Tower, Oregon HistoryLeave a comment

Departing Aurora, Oregon’s Aurora State Airport one cold December in 2024, Life Flight pilot Joe Buley guided his helicopter south through a soon darkening Willamette Valley.

Passing Salem, city lights faded behind Buley and his two medic crew members as the outline of Oregon’s coast range emerged ahead. At about 8:40 PM, the pilot observed a strange, reddish light in the distance, between Eugene and the coast. Within minutes, an ordinary medical transport flight transformed into one of the most discussed aviation mysteries in Oregon history.

Aurora, Oregon’s Mystery Grave

On By Roy WidingIn 97002, Aurora Colony, Aurora Oregon, Aurora Oregon History, Champoeg, Oregon HistoryLeave a comment

Aurora, Oregon’s Mystery Grave

History is hiding beneath your feet on the outskirts of Aurora, near the former town of Champoeg.With trails, fields and the Willamette River connecting them, it’s helpful to understand their unique and also shared backgrounds, going way back.

Champoeg was located on Aurora’s doorstep and considered a lifeline, connecting Aurora colonists to the outside world, with both postal service and river commerce. Land claims stretched between the two settlements, plus Aurora’s early mills served the surrounding countryside, so the communities shared a tightly connected frontier economy. Aurora survived and Champoeg essentially vanished, yet the two towns weren’t simply neighbors…they were interdependent.

But there’s a mystery around these parts that few have ever heard. Deep inside these woods is a clue. That’s because there’s a grave here, with very little explanation. Most people would ask “Who was this person and why is this headstone located here, in the middle of a forest with its own trail?”A little digging reveals both the story of a young woman living nearby and one of the strangest archaeological searches in Oregon history.