Entry Category: Folklore and Folklife - Starting with U

Arkansas has had a number of sightings of unidentified flying objects (UFOs). Most sightings have been isolated events, but there have been a few events in Arkansas’s recorded history in which several people have reported seeing a UFO—most notably in 1896–97 and 1965. Some have argued that the “UFOs” in the late 1800s were in fact airships or balloons that inventors were experimenting with flying. Others maintain that the sightings were a hoax perpetrated by citizens or newspaper reporters. Throughout the fall and winter of 1896 and 1897, people across the country, beginning in California, reported seeing what they termed airships. By the spring, the phenomenon moved into Arkansas. According to newspaper reports, on April 20, 1897, Captain Jim Hooton, …