Kelly–Hopkinsville encounter

Claims

In August 1955, a group of five adults and seven children showed up at the Hopkinsville police station late one evening. They said small alien beings from a spaceship had been attacking their farmhouse, and they had been firing at them for nearly four hours to keep them away. Two of the men, Elmer Sutton and Billy Ray Taylor, reported shooting at several short, dark figures that kept appearing at the door or looking in through windows. The Kentucky New Era, the first newspaper to cover the story, raised the count of creatures to between twelve and fifteen, and that figure is still commonly used today.

Worried that a gunfight might break out among locals, four city police officers, five state troopers, three deputy sheriffs, and four military police from nearby Fort Campbell went to the Sutton farmhouse near Kelly, Christian County. They found nothing except broken windows and holes in screens, which might have been caused by gunfire. Living in the house at the time were Glennie Lankford; her minor children; her grown sons Elmer "Lucky" Sutton and John Charley "J.C." Sutton; their wives, Vera and Alene; Alene's brother O. P. Baker; Billy Ray Taylor and his wife June.

The Taylors, Lucky, and Vera were reportedly carnival workers passing through. When officers returned the next day, the house was empty. Neighbors said the families had packed up and left after claiming the creatures came back around 3:30 in the morning.

Explanations

The Kelly–Hopkinsville encounter is sometimes used by psychologists Rodney Schmaltz and Scott Lilienfeld to teach critical thinking, labeling it a pseudoscientific extraordinary claim. While newspapers at the time stated officials agreed no alcohol was involved, Schmaltz and Lilienfeld propose intoxication could have influenced the sighting. Skeptic Joe Nickell suggests the family might have mistaken eagle owls or great horned owls for the creatures.

These owls are nocturnal, fly without sound, have yellow eyes, and defend their nests aggressively. Nickell also points out that meteor sightings happened around the same time, which could account for Billy Ray Taylor's report of a bright light crossing the sky and vanishing behind trees. Author Brian Dunning notes that great horned owls stand about two-thirds of a meter tall, matching the lower end of the reported creature height of roughly two feet. He finds many similarities between the family's descriptions and an aggressive pair of local great horned owls.

Ufologists

French ufologist Renaud Leclet argued that the best explanation is that the residents had simply seen great horned owls. Ufologist Jerome Clark writes that the supposed creatures floated through the trees and that the sound of bullets striking them resembled bullets striking a metal bucket. Clark describes an odd luminous patch along a fence where one of the beings had been shot, and, in the woods beyond, a green light whose source could not be determined; however, this description was consistent with foxfire, a bioluminescent fungus on decaying wood.

Clark also wrote that investigations by police, Air Force officers from nearby Fort Campbell, and civilian ufologists found no evidence of a hoax; however, Brian Dunning reported that he could find no corroborating evidence that Air Force investigators showed up the next day, and noted that the four military police who accompanied the police officers were from an Army base, not an Air Force base. Some ufologists compared the alleged creatures to gremlins, and they have since often been referred to as the Hopkinsville Goblins in popular culture.

Ufologist Allan Hendry wrote that this case is distinguished by its duration and by the number of witnesses involved. Project Blue Book listed the case as a hoax with no further comment.

In popular culture

The Kelly–Hopkinsville encounter inspired the unproduced Steven Spielberg horror film Night Skies in the late 1970s. The 1986 film Critters loosely drew from the event, as did the design of the Generation 3 Pokémon Sableye, which mirrors the Hopkinsville Goblins. In the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, the hobkins gremlin from Bestiary 5 is based on these creatures.

The Annoyance Theater in Chicago created the musical It Came From Kentucky around the event. A February 2020 episode of Project Blue Book also focused on it. The Kelly community holds the annual Little Green Men Days Festival to commemorate the event.

Did You Know?

• Early press articles did not refer to 'little green men'; the color was later added to some newspaper stories.
• Details such as 'large pointed ears, clawlike hands, eyes that glowed yellow and spindly legs' later appeared in various media.
• The family's claims received widespread coverage in local and national press.