"Non Eva" Jim Whiteaker

Jim Whiteaker, Eureka Springs, AR
Non Eva, 2025
Gouache on Arches paper
14.5 x 27”

My submission to the exhibition titled "Our Common Ground" explores the profound and mysterious UFO incident that occurred in Fort Smith during the mid-1960s — a phenomenon that created an unexpected, shared reality among our community. I had two personal sightings during this three-day event. The first UFO was close enough that I could have hit it with a rock. I witnessed it alongside friends, their parents, and others who, like many people in town, were sitting in their yards listening to the radio reports and looking up at the sky.

These sightings, along with the live radio reports that were broadcast from near the airfield, created an experience that transcended the boundaries between believers and non-believers. What I've come to realize recently is how deeply these encounters seeped into my art and life—not just for me, but for many others who witnessed them. Though my painting does not show people in Fort Smith watching for UFOs, the influence of my sightings is clearly seen in the imagery of my work. In "NON EVA" the extraordinary presence of the UFO hovering above the landscape captures the very essence of what I/we experienced that summer.

The experience was transformative for me and, I suspect, for many others who witnessed these phenomena. It created a shared moment of wonder, uncertainty, and contemplation that has continued to influence our perspectives and, just perhaps, artistic expressions decades later. In this way the UFO incident became not just an isolated event but a touchstone in our community's collective memory — a common ground where the extraordinary touched the ordinary, and where the boundaries between the known and unknown may have briefly dissolved.