Uvalde, TX being encounter — April 20, 1897

An 1897 newspaper story attributed to Sheriff H. W. Baylor of Uvalde said that, around 10 p.m. on April 20, a bright light and voices drew him behind his house. There he supposedly found an airship and three ordinary human crewmen. One introduced himself as Wilson of Goshen, New York, and said he had previously lived in Fort Worth. The men reportedly obtained water from Baylor's hydrant before departing northward. The story included a reference to C. C. Akers, a former Zavala County sheriff then working at Eagle Pass. A subsequent newspaper item attributed to Akers confirmed knowing a man named Wilson. That statement concerned acquaintance with the name; it did not independently establish the airship visit. Later retellings vary over the original publication date and intended destination. A material contradiction appears in Jerome Clark's re-examination of the case in International UFO Reporter. He reproduces a denial attributed to Baylor, printed in May 1897, saying that the sheriff had never seen an airship and blaming the tale on a reporter. Clark consequently revised his earlier favorable assessment. The surviving press record supports treating Uvalde as a disputed newspaper story, with a contemporaneous denial, rather than a documented encounter with extraterrestrial occupants. The plate labels that status and depicts the purported crew as humans.