The Kelly-Hopkinsville Encounter

On the night of August 21, 1955, eleven people in a small Kentucky farmhouse were terrorized for hours by small, glowing creatures that seemed impervious to shotgun blasts. The beings climbed the walls, peered through windows, and returned again and again despite the family’s desperate gunfire. The Kelly-Hopkinsville “goblin” encounter remains one of the most dramatic and well-documented close encounter cases in UFO history.

The Setting

The Sutton Farm

The location:

• A rural farmhouse near Kelly, Kentucky
• Seven miles north of Hopkinsville
• Owned by the Sutton family
• No electricity or telephone
• Isolated from neighbors

The Witnesses

Present that night:

• Elmer “Lucky” Sutton (family patriarch)
• His wife Vera
• Their son and daughter-in-law
• Glennie Lankford (Vera’s mother)
• Billy Ray Taylor and his wife June
• Several children
• 11 people total

The Beginning

7:00 PM

Billy Ray Taylor:

• Went outside to draw water from the well
• Saw a bright object streak across the sky
• It landed in a gully behind the house
• He ran inside to tell the others
• They didn’t believe him

8:00 PM

The dog began barking:

• Frantically, at something outside
• Then it hid under the house
• And wouldn’t come out
• The men went to investigate

The First Creature

The Sighting

Lucky Sutton and Billy Ray Taylor:

• Saw a small figure approaching
• It was about three feet tall
• Glowing with a silvery light
• With large eyes and pointed ears
• Arms raised over its head

The Description

The creature had:

• Silvery, metallic-looking skin
• Large, round eyes (some say glowing)
• Bat-like ears
• Long arms with claw-like hands
• Short legs
• A strange, bobbing walk

The Shot

The men:

• Grabbed a 12-gauge shotgun and a .22 rifle
• Shot the creature at close range
• It flipped backward
• Then scurried away into the darkness
• Apparently unharmed

The Siege

The Attack

For the next three to four hours:

• More creatures appeared
• They climbed on the roof
• They peered through windows
• They grabbed at witnesses through doors
• The family fired again and again

The Creatures’ Behavior

The beings:

• Seemed curious rather than aggressive
• Always approached with arms raised
• Floated or glided rather than walking normally
• Were not harmed by gunfire (bullets made a sound like hitting metal)
• Always returned after being shot

Inside the House

The terrified family:

• Women and children huddled inside
• Men took positions at windows
• They saw creatures looking in
• Heard them on the roof
• Fought panic as the hours passed

Specific Incidents

The Rooftop Creature

• Billy Ray stepped onto the porch
• A claw reached down and grabbed his hair
• From a creature on the roof
• He was pulled back inside
• Lucky shot the creature off the roof

The Tree

• A creature was spotted in a tree
• Lucky shot it
• It floated down like a leaf
• And ran away

The Window

• A face appeared at a window
• Large eyes stared in
• The women screamed
• The men shot through the screen
• The creature fell away

The Escape

11:00 PM

Finally:

• The creatures seemed to withdraw
• The family piled into two cars
• They drove to the Hopkinsville police station
• In complete terror

At the Police Station

They arrived:

• Visibly shaken
• Their story seemed insane
• But their terror was genuine
• Police took them seriously

The Investigation

Police Response

Officers:

• Drove to the farm immediately
• Chief Russell Greenwell led the investigation
• State police were called
• Military personnel arrived

The Scene

At the farm:

• No creatures were found
• But evidence of gunfire was everywhere
• Holes in screens and walls
• Shell casings scattered
• Signs of genuine panic

The Witnesses

Police noted:

• The family was genuinely terrified
• They were sober
• Their story was consistent
• They had no reason to fabricate

Return of the Creatures

After police left:

• The family returned home
• Around 2:30 AM, the creatures came back
• More sightings occurred
• The family spent the rest of the night awake
• By dawn, the creatures were gone for good

Aftermath

Media Frenzy

The next day:

• News spread rapidly
• Reporters descended on the farm
• The family was overwhelmed
• The story went national

The Suttons’ Reaction

The family:

• Did not seek publicity
• Did not charge for interviews
• Eventually stopped talking to press
• Just wanted to be left alone
• Never profited from the story

Lasting Impact

The encounter:

• Made national headlines
• Influenced UFO research
• Inspired pop culture (possibly the Grey alien image)
• Remains debated

The Creatures

Physical Description (Consolidated)

Witnesses described:

• Height: 3-4 feet
• Silver or metallic appearance (self-luminous)
• Large, round heads
• Huge, yellow or glowing eyes
• Large, pointed ears
• Long arms reaching almost to the ground
• Claw-like hands with talons
• Thin bodies
• Short legs
• Ability to float or glide

Movement

The beings:

• Didn’t walk normally
• Floated when knocked down
• Climbed with unusual agility
• Moved with a “bobbing” motion
• Seemed unaffected by gravity

Behavior

They:

• Approached with arms raised
• Seemed curious
• Never directly attacked
• Returned repeatedly after being shot
• Showed no fear of humans

Explanations

Great Horned Owls

The Theory

• Large owls can seem humanoid
• Glowing eyes reflect light
• They can appear silver in moonlight
• Startled observers exaggerated

Problems

• Owls are harmed by shotguns
• They don’t climb walls
• The witnesses were rural people familiar with owls
• Multiple witnesses over hours

Monkeys

The Theory

• Escaped monkeys from a circus
• Spray-painted silver
• Their movements misinterpreted

Problems

• No circus was in the area
• No missing monkey reports
• Monkeys die when shot
• The description doesn’t match

Hoax

The Theory

• The family made it up
• For attention or profit
• The whole thing was fabricated

Problems

• They never profited
• They avoided publicity
• Police found them genuinely terrified
• They maintained the story for life

Genuine Unknown

The Theory

• Something truly unknown appeared
• Possibly extraterrestrial
• The witnesses saw exactly what they reported
• It remains unexplained

Legacy

Cultural Impact

The Kelly-Hopkinsville case:

• Influenced the “Grey alien” imagery
• Inspired films and stories
• Became a classic UFO case
• Put the area on the paranormal map

The Festival

Today:

• Kelly, Kentucky hosts an annual festival
• “Little Green Men Days”
• Celebrating (and commercializing) the event
• The story is part of local identity

Analysis

What We Know

• Eleven people experienced something that night
• They fired many rounds at something
• They were terrified enough to flee to police
• They never changed their story
• They never profited

What We Don’t Know

• What the creatures actually were
• Where they came from
• Why they appeared
• Where they went
• Whether they’ll return

The Question

A family in rural Kentucky spent hours fighting for their lives.

Small, silver creatures surrounded their home. They climbed the walls. They looked through windows. They grabbed at the family members.

The men shot them again and again. The bullets hit something - they heard the sound - but the creatures weren’t harmed.

After midnight, the family fled in terror. Police found evidence of a firefight, but no bodies, no blood, no creatures.

And then the creatures came back.

What were they? Aliens? Unknown animals? Figments of mass imagination?

Eleven people saw them. Rural, practical people with no reason to lie. They spent their lives insisting it was true.

Something descended on that Kentucky farmhouse in August 1955.

Something that could take a shotgun blast and float away.

Something with glowing eyes and silver skin.

Something that, after all these years, remains unexplained.

The Kelly-Hopkinsville Encounter. One of the most dramatic UFO cases ever recorded.

And the Sutton family never stopped believing what they saw.

Because how do you forget something like that?

How do you forget the night the goblins came?