The skies above Arkansas were a buzz with excitement and wonder. Rumors of a strange airship began to spread like wildfire. Children playing outside in Texarkana’s warm early spring evening were the first to spot it. A huge ball of fire traveling with fearful velocity. They quickly alerted their father, J.F. Floyd, who could barely describe the strange sight.

A few days later, Iron Mountain Railroad conductor Captain Jim Hooton reported to the Arkansas Gazette that he had come across the airship in the woods near Homan, in Miller County. As he approached, the pilot and his crew came out of the ship. Hooton couldn’t believe his eyes as the pilot confirmed that this was indeed the ship that had been seen across the country. With a blast off into the sky, the airship vanished, leaving Hooton with enough details to make a sketch for the newspaper.

The sightings continued, and on May 7, 1897, near Hot Springs, Deputy Sheriff McLemore and Constable Sumpter were out trying to serve a court subpoena when they saw the airship approach and descend to the ground. They saw the pilot, a tall man with a long black beard, filling the airship with water from a nearby stream. The pilot even invited them to come aboard and take a ride, but they declined. To prove their story’s authenticity, the lawmen swore out legal affidavits, telling the tale to anyone who would listen.

Rumors of the airship’s presence continued to spread throughout Arkansas, with sightings in Malvern and throughout Hot Spring County. The Malvern Times Journal even printed a tongue-in-cheek affidavit signed by bar-goers who swore they had seen the airship as they exited the White Elephant Saloon. Their sight was dazzled by the brilliance and splendor of a beautiful ship flying in midair, its majestic wings fanning the air so violently that the breeze blew fiercely through their whiskers and cooled their excited brows.

What was the airship’s origin? Who was the pilot with the long black beard? And where did it go when it blasted off into the sky? The mystery of the Arkansas airship continues to baffle and fascinate to this day.