Homan entity encounter — April 20, 1897

Captain James, or Jim, Hooton was described in contemporary reporting as an Iron Mountain Railroad conductor, not the commander of a spacecraft. During a hunting excursion near Homan, Arkansas, in April 1897, he said he heard a mechanical sound resembling a locomotive air pump. Following it into a clearing, he reportedly found an elaborate airship and a medium-sized man wearing dark glasses. The published account describes a pointed, divided central body, three large wheels on each side, movable upper planes and rear rudders. Two or three additional men appeared. Hooton asked about the much-discussed airship, and the crew reportedly explained its operation in terms of compressed air and lifting planes. After someone called that it was ready, the men returned aboard; air spurted onto the wheels, the planes changed position and the machine rose away. The Atlas catalogue assigns April 20 at 6 p.m.; later source histories cite differing Arkansas Gazette publication dates. The Arkansas State Archives preserves the episode within the wider 1896–1897 newspaper airship wave and its mixture of technological speculation and tall tales. No demonstrated machine, photograph or extraterrestrial crew follows from the story. The illustration therefore depicts human inventors and a reported Victorian mechanism, not modern aliens, with the calendar day left open.