Introduction:
The Kelly–Hopkinsville aliens encounter, also known as the
Hopkinsville Goblins Case, and to a lesser extent the Kelly Green Men Case, is
the name given to a series of alleged encounters with aliens beings. These were
reported in the fall of 1955, being one of the most famous and well publicized
which centered around a rural farmhouse at the time belonging to the Sutton
family. The house was located between the hamlet of Kelly and the small city of
Hopkinsville and both are in Christian County, Kentucky, in the United States.
It is from these main encounters that the entire case takes its name.
Members of two families at the farmhouse allege to have seen
unidentifiable creatures and other witnesses attest to having seen lights in
the sky and odd sounds.
The event is regarded as one of the most significant, well known
and well-documented cases in the history of UFO incidents and a favorite for
study in ufology, as many others, including local policemen and state troopers
got involved in the case. It was taken seriously enough as to be officially
investigated by the United States Air Force. The encounter has shaped much of
the narrative of the UFO tradition, including flashing lights appearing in
rural areas and sightings of so-called little green men.
It is also claimed that another encounter took place with the same
creatures in another part of the United States along the Ohio River a week
prior to the mentioned Kentucky incident, which also had numerous
witnesses.
Overview
of the Hopkinsville Case:
There were dozens of eyewitnesses to the incidents, which included
two families present at the farmhouse and other civilians in the area. Some of
whom had no connection to the families in that house and even one in another
state. Perhaps most significant, the witnesses also included several local
policemen and a state trooper who saw and heard strange phenomena such as
unexplained lights in the night sky and noises the same night.
The eleven people present in the farmhouse claimed that they were
terrorized by several unknown creatures, similar to gremlins, which have since
often been referred to as the "Hopkinsville Goblins" in popular
culture. The residents of the farmhouse described them as around three feet
tall, with upright pointed ears, thin limbs (their legs were said to be almost
in a state of atrophy), long arms and claw-like hands or talon. The creatures
were either silvery in color, or wearing something metallic. Their movements on
occasion seemed to defy gravity as they floated above the ground and appearing
in high up places and they "walked" with a swaying motion as though
wading through water.
Although the creatures never entered the house, they would pop up
at
windows and at the doorway, frightening the children in the house to a
hysterical frenzy. The families fled the farmhouse in the middle of the night and
hurried to the local police station where Sheriff Russell Greenwell noted they
were visibly shaken. The families returned to the farmhouse with Sheriff
Greenwell and twenty officers, yet the occurrences continued. Police saw
evidence of the struggle and damage to the house, as well as seeing strange
lights and hearing noises themselves. The witnesses additionally claimed to
have used firearms to shoot at the creatures, with little or no effect and the
house and surrounding grounds were extensively damaged during the incident.
Even years later the eyewitness stories still corroborate
considerably when being questioned in private, although speculation amongst the
eyewitnesses regarding the motivations of the creatures has ranged from field
study on their part, or that the creatures were acting out of mere curiosity or
even outright malevolence. The two families involved were known locally as
being the type of people that do not make up a hoax. The families obtained no
financial gain or significant fame from the incident and fled the area when the
incident became known locally and they gained an abundance of trespassers
wanting to see the site.
UFO researcher Allan Hendry wrote, "This case is
distinguished by its duration and also by the number of witnesses involved.
Jerome Clark writes that, "Investigations by police, Air Force officers
from nearby Fort Campbell and civilian ufologists found no evidence of a
hoax". Although Blue Book never formally investigated the case, they
listed it as a hoax.
Details of
the incident:
Location: Kelly-Hopkinsville,
Kentucky (USA):
On the evening of Sunday, August 21, 1955, Billy Ray Taylor of
Pennsylvania was visiting the Sutton family of Kentucky. The Sutton family home
was a rural farmhouse located near the towns of Kelly and Hopkinsville, in
Christian County, in the state of Kentucky (the farmhouse still stands today
although the Sutton family moved soon after the incident). There were a total
of eleven people in the house that night, including the children of the two
families.
The Sutton farmhouse had no running water, which caused Billy Ray
Taylor to go outside to the water pump for a drink at about 7:00 pm (19.00
hours). Taylor said he observed strange lights in the sky to the west, which he
believed to be an unusual craft. He described it as disc-shaped in appearance
and featured lights on its side that had "all of the colors of the
rainbow". He excitedly ran back to the house telling the others about his
"flying saucer" sighting, but no one believed him; instead thinking
that he had become overly excited after seeing a vivid "shooting
star".
At about 8:00 pm (20.00 hours), the two families began hearing
strange and unexplained noises outside. The Sutton family dog, which was in the
yard outside, began barking loudly and then hid under the house, where it
remained until the next day. Going outside a few minutes later with their guns,
Billy Ray Taylor and Elmer "Lucky" Sutton then asserted that they saw
a strange creature emerge from the nearby trees.
When the creature approached to within about 20 feet (6 meters),
the
two men began shooting at it, one using a shotgun, the other man using a
.22 caliber rifle. There was a noise "sounding like bullets being rattled
about in a metal drum". The creature, they said, then flipped over and
fled into the darkness and shadows. Being sure that they had wounded the
creature, Lucky and Solomon went out to look for it. As the men were stepping
from the porch, a huge claw-like hand grabbed Taylor’s hair from above. They
looked up and realized that one of the creatures was perched on top of the
awning. Again, they shot the creature, heard the rattling noise and was knocked
from the roof, although it was apparently unharmed.
Lucky and Solomon returned to the house in a disturbed state.
Within
minutes, Lucky's brother, J. C. Sutton, said that he saw the same
creature (or at least a similar creature) peer into a window in the home. J. C.
and Solomon shot at it, breaking the window, whereupon it too flipped over and
fled. The creatures could be heard loudly scurrying about on the roof and
scratching as though trying to break through. For the next few hours, the
witnesses asserted that the creatures repeatedly approached the home, popping
up either at the doorway or at windows in an almost playful manner, only to be
shot at each time they did.
The witnesses were unsure as to how many of the creatures there
although in their first story they claimed that there were twelve to
fifteen. At one point the witnesses shot one of the beings nearly point
blank and again would insist that the sound resembled bullets striking a metal
bucket. The floating creatures' legs seemed to be atrophied and nearly useless
and they appeared to propel themselves with a curious hip-swaying motion,
steering with their arms. It is also claimed that when the creatures were hit
by gunfire in a tree or on the roof of the house, they floated. They did not
fall to the ground.were; except for one sighting of two at the same time, all other sightings were
of only one,
Involvement
of authorities in Kentucky:
At about 11 p.m. (23.00 hours), a state highway trooper near Kelly
independently reported that he had seen some unusual "meteor-like
objects" flying overhead, "with a sound like artillery fire coming
directly from them."
Hendry writes that Sutton family matriarch "Mrs. Lankford...
counseled an end to the hostilities," noting that the creatures had never
seemed to try harming anyone nor had they actually entered the house. Between
appearances from the creatures, the family tried to temper the children's
growing hysteria. At about 11:00 pm (23.00 hours), the Taylor and Sutton families
decided to flee the farmhouse in their automobiles and after about 30 minutes,
they arrived at the Hopkinsville police station. Police Chief, Russell
Greenwell, judged the witnesses as being frightened by something "beyond
reason, not ordinary." He also opined, "These were not the sort of
people who normally ran to the police... something frightened them, something
beyond their comprehension." A police officer with medical training
determined that Billy Ray's pulse rate was more than twice normal.
Twenty police officers accompanied the Suttons back to the farmhouse and several entered it to assess the damage. The official response
was prompt, thorough and according to the police, the witnesses were deemed
sane, not under the influence of drugs or alcohol. They were in a state of
terror and no one involved doubted that they had seen something far beyond
their reasoning.
Police interviewed neighboring farmhouses, whose residents were
also distressed and reported to the police strange lights, strange sounds and
of hearing the gun battle at the Sutton farmstead. Police and photographers who
visited the home saw many bullet holes, hundreds of spent shells and an odd
luminous patch along a fence where one of the beings had been shot. In the
woods beyond was a green light whose source could not be determined. Though the
investigation was inconclusive, investigators did conclude, however, that these
people were sincere, sane and that they had no interest in exploiting the case
for publicity. The luminous patch on the fence, although photographed, was
never collected and had mysteriously disappeared by noon the next day.
Police left at about 2:15 am (02.00 hours), and not long
afterward,
the witnesses claimed that the creatures returned. Billy Ray fired
at them once more, ruining yet another window. The last of the creatures was
allegedly sighted just before dawn, at about 4:45 am (04.45 hours) on August
22, never to be seen again.
Publicity:
The Hopkinsville Goblins Case garnered massive publicity within
hours of its alleged occurrence. The August 22, 1955 the newspapers
"Kentucky New Era" claimed that "12 to 15 little men" had
been seen. But none of the witnesses ever claimed this, rather that the
observers had no idea how many of the creatures there were. They could only be
certain that there were at least two because they saw that amount at the same
time.
Later, on August 22, Andrew "Bud" Ledwith of WHOP radio
interviewed the seven adult witnesses in two different groups. He judged their
tale of the events as consistent, especially in their descriptions of the
strange glowing beings. Ledwith had worked as a professional artist and
sketched the creatures based on the witnesses' descriptions. These were
generally consistent, though the female witnesses insisted that the creatures
had a somewhat huskier build than described by the male witnesses and Billy Ray
Taylor was alone in insisting that the beings had antennas. Hendry describes
Ledwith's efforts as "fortunate... because the publicity soon grew so
obnoxious to the Sutton family that they later simply avoided telling their
story and refused to cooperate with UFO investigators, with the exception of
Isabel Davis."
As reports reached the newspapers, public opinion tended to view
the story as a hoax and showed only brief interest in the event. Some residents
of the local community, including members of the police department, were
skeptical of the Sutton's story and believed that alcohol (possibly moonshine)
may have played a part in the incident, although to date no evidence has been
found to support this belief. The fact that some of the witnesses worked for a
carnival somehow contributed to the belief in a hoax.
The farm became a tourist attraction for a brief period, which
upset the Suttons who tried to keep people away. Eventually attempting to
charge people an entrance fee to discourage them. That only convinced the
sightseers that the family was attempting to make money from the event and
increased the public opinion that the event was a hoax. Finally, the Suttons
refused all visitors and refused to further discuss their experience with
anyone. To date, both family members who witnessed the event rarely talk to
reporters or researchers. However, if they relate what happened, they have
stubbornly stuck to their version of the event. As late as 2002, Lucky Sutton's
daughter, Geraldine Hawkins, believed her father's account, stating:
"It
was a serious thing to him. It happened to him. He said it happened to him. He
said it wasn't funny. It was an experience he said he would never forget. It
was fresh in his mind until the day he died. It was fresh in his mind like it
happened yesterday. He never cracked a smile when he told the story because it
happened to him and there wasn't nothing funny about it. He got pale and you
could see it in his eyes. He was scared to death."
Ufologist Allen Hynek had interviews with two persons with direct
knowledge of the event a year after the event took place.
In addition to Ledwith's sketches, US Army Pfc. Gary F. Hodson,
stationed at nearby Fort Campbell traveled to the Sutton farm with the help of
the Hopkinsville police and sketched the creatures based on eyewitness
descriptions. The "men" were described as being approximately 3 feet
tall and either being silver in color or wearing silver-colored clothing that
lit up or glowed when the invaders shouted to each other. All of the witnesses
agreed about the appearance of the creatures.
There have been numerous books, documentaries and debates
regarding the incidents although no firm conclusions have ever been
established.
So-called
"Possible explanation":
In 1957, U.S. Air Force Major John E. Albert concluded that the
Kelly-Hopkinsville case was the result of the witnesses seeing a "monkey
painted with silver that escaped from a circus", and that Mrs. Lankford's
imagination had exaggerated the event. The ufologist Isabel Davis, for one
rejected this explanation as not only entirely speculative, but also absurd.
She stated, "Monkeys are hairy creatures, monkeys have long tails, monkeys
are notorious chatterboxes and monkeys struck by bullets bleed and die... no
amount of 'optical illusion' can explain a mistake of this magnitude."
Conclusions:
In the beginning, most of the public believed the Suttons were
perpetuating a hoax. But, if this was the case, what would be their reason?
They made no money from the story, only accumulated debts by damaging their
house. Could they have caused all these damages and problems just to get their
names in the local newspapers? All of the witnesses of that strange event made
sketches of what the creatures looked like. The drawings were practically
identical. Almost a year later, the ufologist, Isabel Davis, investigated the
case. She believed that the Suttons were telling the truth.
The famed and late American UFO investigator, Dr. J. Allen Hynek,
also believed the story as related by both families. This case is still being
investigated today, and there have been many books and television specials made
relating to the events of that night in Kentucky.
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"Suddenly we saw four small beings, about a meter tall, exiting from the object. Sensing our presence, the four rushed on my friend, Jesus
Gomez, and together tried to force him inside the object. I had no other
recourse but to grab my shotgun, which was already unloaded, to rescue my friend.
I swung hard at them with the rifle butt, which felt as though I was striking a
rock or something very hard because the shotgun was completely demolished
without causing even a minor injury on the small being.
This case which occurred on December 9, 1954 (about 10 days after), is similar to another that
occurred in the same year, in the same country, with the same very strong hairy
aliens and similarly with two men who fought against the aliens who tried to
abduct them. As such, in November 29, 1954,
in Venezuela, a Cuban businessman named Gustavo Gonzalez and his Venezuelan
helper José Ponce bitterly defended themselves against some hairy aliens who
tried to force them into their spacecraft. You can read about this astonishing story
HERE.
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