K

elly–H
opkins
v ille
enc
o unter

The Kelly-Hopkinsville encounter, also known as the Kelly Green Men case, is an alleged close
encounter with supposed aliens and one of the most well-known and well-documented cases in the history
of UFO incidents, and a favorite for study in ufology. The incidents began on the evening of August 21,
1955 and continued through to the dawn of the next morning. The incident occurred mostly around a rural
farmhouse at the time belonging to the Sutton family, which was located near the small town of Kelly and
the small city of Hopkinsville, both in Christian County, Kentucky, United States. Witnesses include
policemen and state troopers, and the incidents were taken seriously enough as to be officially investigated
by the United States Air Force.

Overview

There were dozens of eyewitnesses to the incidents, which included two families present at the farmhouse
and others in the area, including policemen and a state trooper who saw strange phenomena such as
unexplained lights in the night sky and noises the same night. The seven people present in the farmhouse
would claim that they were terrorized by an unknown number of 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 talons. The creatures were either
silvery in color, or wearing something metallic. Their movements on occasion seemed to defy gravity with
them floating above the ground and appearing in high up places, and they "walked" with a swaying
motion as through wading through water. Although the creatures never entered the house, they would pop
up at windows and at the doorway, working up the children in the house to a hysterical frenzy. The
families fled the farmhouse in the middle of the night to the local police station and 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 corroborated remarkably under individual questioning,
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 noted locally to not be the types to make up a hoax, and this
would be seemingly backed up by the fact 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 "[t]his case is distinguished by its duration and also by the number of
witnesses involved."[1] Jerome Clark writes that "[i]nvestigations by police, Air Force officers from nearby

1
Fort Campbell, and civilian ufologists found no evidence of a hoax". Although they never formally
investigated the case, Blue Book confessed to being stumped. So was Isabel Davis, one of the most
hardheaded of UFO investigators.[2]

Incidents in detail

On the evening of August 21, 1955, members of the Taylor family from Philadelphia were visiting friends,
the Sutton family of Kentucky. The Sutton family home was a rural farmhouse located near the towns of
Kelly and Hopkinsville, in Christian County, Kentucky (the farmhouse still stands today although the
Sutton family moved soon after the incident). There were a total of seven people in the house that night,
including the children of the two families. The Suttons had no running water in the farmhouse, and due to
it being a warm evening Billy Ray Taylor, the patriarch of the Taylor family, went to an outside water
pump for a drink. It was about 7.00 p.m. Taylor said he observed strange lights in the sky to the west,
which he believed to be an unusual craft. He excitedly told 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".[1]

At about 8.00 p.m., the families began hearing strange and unexplained noises outside. The Sutton family
dog which was on guard 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. Jerome Clark describes
the creature as:

a luminous, three-and-a-half-foot-tall being with an oversized head, big, floppy, pointed ears,
glowing eyes, and hands with talons at their ends. The figure, either made of or simply dressed in
silvery metal, had its hands raised.[2]

Disquieted by the creature's bizarre appearance, the pair were further unnerved when it began rushing
towards the house holding its hands up in the air, which the men took as threatening behavior. When the
creature approached to within about 20 feet, the two men became scared of a home invasion and began
shooting at it, one using a shotgun, the other man using a .22 rifle. There was a noise "sounding like
bullets being rattled about in a metal drum", and the creature, they said, then flipped over and fled into the
darkness and shadows. Sure that they had wounded the creature, Lucky and Billy Ray went out to look for
it. Hendry writes that as the men were stepping from the porch, "a taloned hand reached down from above
and began grasping at their hair."[1] They again shot at the creature—it was perched on an awning over the
porch—and it was knocked from the roof. Again they heard the rattling noise, although the creature was
apparently unharmed.

Lucky and Billy Ray 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 Billy Ray shot at it, breaking the window, whereupon it too flipped over and fled. For the next
few hours, the witnesses would assert that the creatures repeatedly approached the home, either popping
up 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 that there were; at least two, as two were seen at

2
once, but there may have been as many as 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. Clark writes that "[i]f the creatures were in a tree or
on the roof when hit [by gunfire], they would float, not fall, to the ground."[2]

There might have been partial corroboration of the Taylor-Sutton tale: at about 11 p.m., a state highway
trooper near Kelly independently reported some unusual "meteor-like objects" flying overhead, "with a
sound like artillery fire coming directly from them."[2]

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. [1]
Between appearances from the creatures, the family tried to temper the children's growing hysteria. At
about 11.00 p.m., the Taylor-Sutton crew 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 to have been frightened by something "beyond reason, not ordinary." He also opined "[t]hese
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 Taylor-Suttons back to the farmhouse, and several entered it to
assess the damage. According to Daniels et al., "[t]he official response was prompt and thorough."[3] In
1998, Karal Ayn Barnett wrote, "By all accounts, the witnesses were deemed sane, not under the influence
[of drugs or alcohol], and in such a state of terror, no one involved doubted that they had seen something
beyond far their ken."[4] Police and photographers who visited the home saw many bullet holes and spent
shells, and further discovered what Clark describes as "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."[2] Though the investigation was inconclusive, Daniels et al. writes, "Investigators did
conclude, however, that these people were sincere and sane and that they had no interest in exploiting the
case for publicity. The patch sample, although photographed, was never collected and had mysteriously
disappeared by the noon the next day. "[3]

Police left at about 2:15 a.m., 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 a.m. on August 22. // Illustration by Gary F. Hodson:

3
Another artist impression containing a rendition of the craft that was observed prior to the gun battle.
However, this was only seen flashing across the sky and was initially thought to be a meteor.

The case earned publicity within hours of its alleged occurrence. The August 22, 1955 Kentucky New Era
claimed that "12 to 15 little men" had been seen.[4] Clark writes that none of the witnesses ever claimed
this, rather that "[t]he 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 number at the same time."[2]

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. Their descriptions were generally consistent, though the female witnesses
insisted that the creatures had a somewhat huskier build than the male witnesses remembered, and Billy
Ray Taylor was alone in insisting that the beings had antennae.[4] Hendry describes Ledwith's efforts as
"fortunate … because the publicity soon grew so obnoxious to that Sutton family that they later simply
avoided telling the story and refused to cooperate [with UFO investigators, excepting] Isabel Davis."[1]

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
sight-seers that the family was attempting to make money from the event, and increased the public view
that the event was a hoax. Finally, the Suttons refused all visitors and refused to discuss the event further
with anyone. To date, family members who survived the event rarely talk to reporters or researchers, and
by given accounts have stuck to their version of the event. As late as 2002, Lucky Sutton's daughter,
Geraldine Hawkins, believed her father's account, stating,

4
 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."[5]

The United States Air Force took the allegations seriously and officers from nearby Fort Campbell
inspected the case, but could find no rational explanation and to this day is still labelled an open case. The
official UFO investigation office, Project Blue Book, never officially investigated the case, although a file
has been kept on it and is labelled "unexplained"[4] Prominent Ufologist Allen Hynek had interviews with
two persons with direct knowledge of the event a year after the event took place.

Artist's rendition of the alleged invaders

In addition to Ledwith's sketches, Pfc. Gary F. Hodson of the 101st Airborne Division stationed at nearby
Fort Campbell sketched the creatures based on eyewitness descriptions. The "men" were described as
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 to a remarkable degree as to
the appearance of the creatures.

It is also worth noting that the descriptions of these creatures (which by no means fit the common
impressions of extraterrestrials) closely fit the accounts of 15 children and 3 school staff in Dyfed, West
Wales later in 1977, who observed small 'silvery men with spiked ears' and helmets working around a
UFO.[6]

Possible non-alien explanations

• A family prank. Only members of the two families -not any policeman or member of the military
personnel- ever alleged to have seen the creatures. All other people were only witnesses to lights in
the sky and sounds.
• 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.[4] Isabel Davis, for one, rejected this
explanation as not only entirely speculative, but absurd: "[m]onkeys 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."[2]
• An explanation for the case has been proposed recently by Renaud Leclet, a French Ufologist. It
could be a misidentification of a pair of Great horned owls, which are nocturnal, fly silently, have
yellow eyes, and aggressively defend their nests. Leclet argues that this explanation fits well with
the details of the case, including the appearance and behaviour of the "humanoids". The metallic
sound of the striking bullets can be explained by the fact that some bullets hit some metallic
objects of the farm, such as the fence.[7] This misidentified bird hypothesis was echoed by Joe
Nickell in a Skeptical Inquirer article.[8]

5
 *****

THE KELLY-KOPKINSVILLE CASE, 1955:

"The first is a very strange thing that happened on August 21st, last year, near Hopkinsville,
Kentucky. It made headlines in the newspapers out there, and for once it was carried by the
press wires - I suppose just because they thought it was ridiculous. You may remember reading
the wire story about "little green men" - actually they weren't green, some rewrite man put
that in because he thought they ought to be green."

Frank Edwards, in a lecture organized on April 28, 1956, by the Civilian Saucer Intelligence of
New York, at the Pythian Temple, 135 West 70th St, New York City.

This is the information and documentation I have collected about a farm family who believed they were
attacked by alien beings during the whole night of August 21-22, 1955.

THE CASE:

These events occurred on the night of August 21 to 22, 1955, near the little town of Kelly, located near the
small city of Hopkinsville, in the rural area of Christian County, in southwestern Kentucky, USA.

"Lucky" Sutton, as he was known to friends and neighbors, was the "patriarch" of this bluegrass clan.
Visiting Lucky and his family, was a man from Pennsylvania named Billy Ray Taylor. Billy left the Sutton
house to go for some water from the family well, there was no inside plumbing at the Sutton farm house.
At the well, he saw an shining object land in a small gully about a quarter of a mile away. Running back to
the house, he excitedly reported his sighting to the eleven people in the house. Billy was laughed at, as no
one believed his tale and no one left the house to check.

After a short period of time, the family dog began to bark loudly outside. As customary in this rural area,
Lucky and Billy quickly went outside to find the reason of the dog's concern. The dog actually hid under
the house and was not seen anymore that evening. At a short distance from the front door, both men were
stopped dead in their tracks by the sight of a glowing hovering light, which came towards them and
allowed them to see that it was in fact a 3 and a half feet tall creature, advancing towards them with hands
up, as if to surrender. The bizarre creature would be described as having "two large eyes with a yellow
glow, more on the sides than in the human face, a long thin mouth, large bat-like ears, thin short legs, and
unusually long arms with large hands ending in claws."

Bud Ledwidth of Radio WHOP has the artistic capabilities to execute these drawings according to witness
investigation the next day after the event's night:

6
Description by a woman. Description by Billy Ray Taylor. Description by another of the men.
You will find more illustrations here.

As tradition imposes, they grabbed their guns and shot first, all questions postponed, at the moment that
the creature was no farther than 20 feet to them. Billy Ray fired a shot with his .22, and Lucky unloaded
with his shotgun. Both men later admitted that there was no way they missed the creature at close range,
but the little being just did a back flip, stood up again, and fled into the woods.

No sooner had the two men reentered the house before the creature, or another like it, appeared at a
window. They took a shot at him, leaving a blast hole through the screen. They ran back outside to see if
the creature was dead, but found no trace of it. Standing at the front of the house, the men were terrified
by a clawed hand reaching down from the roof in an attempt to touch them. Again, they shot, but the being
simply floated to the ground, and scurried into the cover of the woods. The two men sought the protection
of the house again, only to find themselves under siege from these little men. For a time, the entities
seemed to tease the family, appearing from one window to another. Taking pot shots through the windows
and walls, their weapons seemed totally ineffective against the creatures.

Many times, the creatures would again approach the house, their hands raised above their head as in some
kind of friendly gesture. The two men would fire at them, the bullet did metallic clanging noise when it hit
the creature, which would flip over, or float in the air, or escape on all fours towards the weeds, only to
come back again minutes later. The Suttons estimated that they might have been as many as 10 to 15 such
creatures harassing them, although they never attempted to penetrate the house.

After three hours of fear turning into sheer panic, with three children crying or shrieking, the Sutton
family decided to make a break from the house, and get help at the Police station at Hopkinsville. The
farm was located nearer to Kelly, but the nearest police were in Hopkinsville. Family members took two
vehicles to the Police Station in Hopkinsville, and reported their strange tale to Sheriff Russell Greenwell.
Finally persuading the policemen that they were not joking, the policemen agreed to visit the Sutton
house. Arriving at the farm, police found no trace of the creatures, but did find numerous bullet and rifle
holes in the windows and walls. Greenwell was in charge of the twenty plus officers at the scene, and
reported that the Suttons seemed sober, and were genuinely frightened by something. After a canvas of the

7
neighborhood, reports were entered of the "hearing of shots being fired," and the observation of "lights in
the sky."

Exhausting all efforts to find a rational explanation to the strange story, and finding no clear evidence of
any alien visitors, the police left the Suttons farm at about 2:15 am. 90 minutes later, the creatures made
their return. They began again peeking in the windows, seemingly out of curiosity. More gunfire took
place, but again without effect. Several more hours of antics followed, finally stopping some 90 minutes
before daybreak.

TIMELINE:

Time, place: Events: Brief comment:

about 07:00pm, Billy Ray Taylor comes running back from He later said to the officers that he heard
August 21, 1955, the well behind the farmhouse and tells his no explosion, only a quiet hissing sound.
the Suttins farm. friend Elmer "Lucky" Sutton that he has
seen a flying saucer. He tells the saucer
was bright, with "an exhaust containing all
the colors of a rainbow", and has flown
over the farm, continued over the fileds,
hovered, and was lost from sight when it
descended in a gully.
Not long after, at The story is heard by Glennie Lankford,
the Suttons farm. O.P Barker, Lucky Sutton, Vera Sutton,
John Charley Sutton, Allen Sutton, three
Suttons children. No one believes Billy
Ray's story and no one cares to go check in
the gully.
After the story has The farms dog starts to bark, so Taylor and
been told. Lucky Sutton go outside. The dog hides
under the house and does not show up
anymore that night.
Outside the farm, Taylor and Lucky Sutton see a strange
minutes later. glow hovering out in the fields. The glow
approaches, and they see "a small man"
inside, about 3.5 feet. The "small man" has
a large round head with two large eyes
glowing with a yellow fire, long thin arms
that reach nearly down to his feet. The
hands are very large and shaped rather like
a bird's talon than human hands.

The creature continues to move towards

the house, so Talor and Lucky retreat in in
the house, grab a rifle and a shotgun, wait,
and both of them shoot at the creature
when it arrives within twenty feet of the
back door. The creature flips back, stands

8
 up again and flees in the night.
Few minutes later, After watching the darkness for a few
Sutton farm, living minutes, Taylor and Lucky close the door
room. and join the rest of the family gathered in
the living room. A similar or the same
creature appears at one of the windows, the
men shoot at it, the creature flips back and
disappears. The men decide to go out
check if they injured the being.
Sutton farm, the Taylor Sutton gets under the porch under a
porch. small overhang. A clawlike handreaches
down from the overhang and touches his
hair. Alene Sutton grabs taylor back in the
house, while Lucky advances and fires at a
creature now on the roof, knocking it away.
Someone among then shouts "there's one
up in the tree!" Both men shoot at it, the
creature looses grip, but floats in the air
instead of falling to the ground. Under
more shots, the creature retreats into the
weeds.
Simultaneously, Lucky turns round and sees another
Sutton Farm. creature, maybe the one that was on the
roof, at the corner of the hous, he fires at
the creature, and when the bullet hits, he
hears a metallic clang. The creaure flips
over, scrambles to his feet and fleds rapidly
in the darkness.
Sutton farm, some The family realizes that they could not stop
time later. the creatures even with caliber 22 bullets,
that the creatures seem to prefer shade than
light. One of the beings appears again on
the roof, they shoot at it, and the being
floats away in mid-air to a fence 40 feet
away instead of falling from the roof.
Some of the elderly in the house are
unconvinced and accuse the younger ones
of some kind of praks. Taylor suggest that
Glennie Lankford, 50, gets to the windows
and wait.
Sutton farm, A being approches the front of the house.
inside, 20 minutes Lankford's description: "it looked like a 5
later. gallon gasoline can with a head on it, on
top of two thin, spindly legs. It shimmered
as if made of bright metal." Lankford
shrieks at the sight, Taylor shoots at it
through the screen door.
Sutton farm. The harrassments continues. The Sutton

9
 shoot at the creatures, but they continue to
appear at the windows, on the roof, around
the house. Fear and panic starts to gain the
whole family.
Sutton farm, Three hours after the first creature
around 11:00pm. appeared, the family decides to escape and
abandon the house. They run to the cars, on
children screeming has to be carried. The
family drives to the Hopkinsville police
station.
Hopkinsville police Police officers and their chief testified that
station, after the Suttons were genuinely scared. The
11:00pm. police and some of the Sutton men drive
back to the farm, joined later by state
police, a deputy sheriff, called for
reinforcement.
Road from One state tropper driving to join the police,
Hopkinsville to a few miles from Hopkinsville, said he saw
Kelly. something like several meteor flashes over
his car, movin with "artillery sounds", and
looking up he could see two of them
travelling on a slightly descending arc
towards the Sutton farm.
Sutton farm. Numerous cars are now at the Sutton farm Lankford, a very religious person, later
yard, with lights turned on. The police explained she does not allow alcohol in
Chief checks if anyone had been drinking, the house.
and finds no such indication. The police
notes that bullets have been shot around,
the hard soil does not show any footprints,
and there is no alien around.
Near the Sutton A strange luminous stain in the grass at a There is no indication that a soil sample
farm. place where a creature fell is found by the has been collected.
Chief of police. The trace is luminous only
from one angle.
02:15, Sutton farm. All police personal, and a member of the "The Kentucky New Era" publishes a
press, Joe Dorris of the "Kentucky New frontpage article the very next day.
Era", leave the house, as no convincing
evidence of alien invasion has been found.
03:30, Sutton farm. The lights of the house are now down.
Glennie Lankford sees one of the creatures
looking in through the window, Lucky id
forbidden to shoot at it: Lankford points
out to him that the creatures have done no
harm. Lucky ignores and shoots, with no
effect: the creatures bounce back, run
away, and come again. They do so until 90
minutes before sunrise, when they are last
seen.

10
Sutton farm, 22 Police and private investigators arrive and Air Force denies that any military
August, early conduct interviews, look for evidence and investigators has been here, later, Blue
morning. find none. The "Kentucky New Era" Book files show that at least a Major
newspaper carried the story of the events. John E. Albert had a look around and
wrote down some witness statesments,
as he was in the area.
Sutton farm, days Private investigators, ufologists, and The interviews tapes were all erased and
following 22 possibly one Blue Book investigator - reused within the following year.
August. unofficially - conduct interviews, look for
evidence and find none.

People invade the Sutton Farm. Hot dog

stands, souvenir shops, soda stands appear.
The Sutton's newly erected "no
trespassing" signs are ignored, and the
family asks for police help to stop the
invasion.

Radio reporters taped interviews and

broadcasted then on WHOP.
Later days. As the police is unable to protect the
Suttons from human invasion, the family
decides that 1 dollar has to be paid to enter
the property,a nd 10 dollars to take pictures
of the house. The police, the press, and the
public immediately concludes that the
whole affair is a hoax to make money.
1 years later. J. Allen Hynek seems to have taken the
story seriously as he discussed the case
with two of the principal investigators of
the story: Bud Lethwith, an engineer at a
radio station in Hopkinsville and a personal
acquaintance of Hynek's, and Isabel Davis,
an investigator from New York City.
2 years later, Project Blue Book starts to show interest in Still today, nobody knows which
August 1957. the case when they learn that a magazine magazine planned an article, or if the
intends to publish an article about it. article has been published or not.
Wallace W. Elwood writes a letter pointing
out the "lack of confirming, factual data"
and explains that the incident has not been
officially reported to USAF. Blue Book
records gather several documents and press
articles.
September 27, Major John E. Albert sends his report on Neither Glennie Lankford nor any
1957. the case to ATIC. He does not suggest the member of the family were a religious
event was hoaxed, and say that "the" alien meeting that evening. The Sutton had no
was a "monkey painted with silver", that radio at all. Radios mentionned the case
may have "escaped from a circus" that after the Sutton family reported it, not

11
 "Mrs Lankford, in a state of frenzy because before. A monkey would not have
she was at a religious meeting that resisted gunshot, flown in the air, the
evening" confused with some "alien", monky does not fit the description of the
because she "heard an article on the radio." beings body.
1978. Isabel Davis and Ted Bloecher publish Available at the Center for UFO Studies.
their co-authored pioneering book on
humanoid UFO entities, Close Encounter
at Kelly and Others of 1955 based largely
on her field investigation and direct
witness interviewing in the Kelly,
Kentucky, case.

SHORT DISCUSSION:

Naturally, initial public opinion was that the whole story was a hoax. If this was the case, several questions
must be answered. Why would the Sutton family make up such an incredible claim? They made no money
from the story, and did not seek any publicity, on the contrary. Why would they shoot holes in the walls of
their home, causing a financial drain on the family to repair the damages? When, days later they attempted
to protect themselves against human invaders walking in number across their fields, police was helpless.
They thought of asking one dollar by visitor, to get some money to repair all the damages, but almost no
trespasser paid. Of course, as soon as they tried to raise money, the press labeled them hoaxers and closed
the case.

Including Billy Ray and Lucky, seven adults were witnesses to these events. All of them, when questioned
separately, gave the same story. Also sketches were made of the beings, and they essentially depicted the
creatures in a like manner. A year after the events, the case was thoroughly investigated by Isabel Davis,
an investigator from New York City, who related that the stories had not changed. As the years rolled by,
the accounts of the Sutton family stood firm. No evidence of a hoax has ever been brought forward. The
case was also looked into by Bud Ledwith, who was an engineer at a Hopkinsville radio station. Noted
investigator, Dr. J. Allen Hynek, also accepted the accounts of the Suttons. Hynek discussed the details of
the case with Davis and Ledwith. Although the Kelly-Hopkinsville case is an extremely unusual one, it is
considered today to be authentic by many UFO investigators. Indeed, there would not be one single reason
to reject it, if it weren't for its fantastic implications.

FOLLOW UP:

According to a text from the Kentucky archives of the Mutual UFO Network, another interesting event
took place in Knoxville, Kentucky, on August 22 1955, with description similar to the Kelly-Hopkinsville
event, unfortunately I have not yet found the time to search for information on this other event.

STATEMENTS AND QUOTES FROM INVESTIGATORS:

12
Kevin D. Randle:

Kevin D. Randle, ufologist, USAF retired, radio interview quote:

"What specific example of an entity case would you cite as fairly credible and why?"

"Well, naturally, I would elect the Roswell case, but the aspect of it from the military end. Edwin Easley,
Patrick Saunders, et. al. because of their credibility. If we go beyond that I kind of like the Kelly-
Hopkinsville report from 1955, but only because of the number of witnesses and the physical evidence
involved. That is, the number of holes that Kelly (sic) and friends shot in the house in their attempt to
repel the alien creatures. The Air Force excuse that they didn't investigate the case, though Air Force
officers did go to interview the witnesses is fairly weak. It is an interesting case."

Dr. Gregory L. Little:

In UFO Abductions Through The Ages, by Dr. Gregory L. Little, 1994:

"As my eyes fell on the demon drawings in Plancy's Dictionaire infernal (1863), I was struck by their
similarity to the famous 1955 Kelly-Hopkinsville UFO case. Imagine the demons as gray in color, and
they would also fit the description of the ubiquitous grays in recent abductions."

"There are many in the UFO field (as well as various religious leaders) who believe that the creatures
associated with UFOs are demons. The similarity of some demons to the grays of UFO reports are
probably no coincidence."

Martin S. Kottmeyer:

Excerpts from "Pencil-Neck Aliens" by Martin S. Kottmeyer:

"Aliens with long, thin necks are currently "in." Reports and drawings of these pencil-neck Greys seem to
be everywhere. They've turned up on T-shirts, made for TV films - Intruders (1992) - and in dozens of
magazines and books. The proliferation of this trait among contemporary aliens may be a telling indication
that our taste in aliens is as subject to fadism as our taste in clothing styles.

One has to grant that pencil necks have more aesthetic logic than biologic sense. The slenderness of these
necks undeniably lend elegance to present-day aliens and enhance their overall anorexic appearance.
Propping oversized craniums on top of such skinny supports however raises concerns this species is
whiplash bait. What business have such aliens in vehicles which legend has it have a benchant for bone-
bending right angle turns and ultra-air-brake stops?

The pencil-neck is a strikingly recent innovation. Early studies of ufonauts Coral and Jim Lorenzens's
Flying Saucer Occupants (1967), Charles Bowen's The Humanoids (1969), and James McCampbell's
Ufology (1973) - say nothing about aliens with long thin necks. They certainly weren't common. I'm

13
doubtful there was a single unambiguous instance of a pencil-neck alien prior to the Eighties. I've
rummaged through the drawings of all the major cases - the Flatwoods monster, Kelly-Hopkinsville,
Barny and Betty Hill, Herb Schirmer, Pascagoula, Charles Moody, Travis Walton - and they are nowhere
to be seen. (...) They seem to arrive en masse in 1987 with no less than five drawings of pencil- necks in
Budd Hopkins' Intruders and the very prominent example staring out from the cover the Whitley Strieber's
Communion. These works were popular and influential to the degree that it is now part of the stereotype
of the Grey as noted by David Jacobs in his abductee study, Secret Life."

The article below is an anonymous document, found on the world wide web in 2001.

There seems to be a minor discrepancy with all other account that states the saucer was seen around
07:00PM not 08:30PM.

THE KELLY-HOPKINSVILLE INCIDENT - AN HISTORIC REVIEW:

October 1996

One of my first excursions into the underbellly of American UFO cover-ups occurred back in August of
1955. On a routine trip from New Orleans to Washington, I was re-directed to Kelly, Kentucky to look into
reports of an alien encounter with a rural family. My directives came within 15 minutes of the family's
first contact with local police, leading me to believe there was already some sort of established protocol
between local and federal authorities in the case of a UFO encounter. Why I was chosen to interview the
family still puzzles me to this day. Proximity? A test? Regardless of reasoning, the experience was a
sobering one. After landing at nearby Fort Campbell, I was given the uniform of a military policeman and
driven to the scene of the alien contact.

We arrived at the farm at about the same time as the local police. Piecing together the interviews of the
rather unsophisticated occupants of the house, we came up with the following official report:

"At approximately 8:30 pm, Billy Ray Taylor reported seeing an object hovering in the sky. After telling
the rest of his family, they all agreed it was a joke. One hour later, a family dog began barking violently.
The family, somewhat on guard after the "joke," saw a "glowing creature" approach the house. The
creature's description fits s.g.d. Billy Ray and housemate "Lucky" Sutton fired upon the creature with a .
22 rifle and a 20 gauge shotgun, knocking it over, but not harming it.

For the next 6 hours 3 different creatures were sighted and shot at. At one point, one creature
grabbed Billy Ray's hair with `a claw'. Neither the family nor the creatures seemed to be hurt.

On site inspection reveals no physical evidence, save spent rounds found on the floor of the farm
house. Local officer Richard Digby reported residual glow on flattened grass area, but no one else
reported visual confirmation.

No evidence of intoxication. Witnesses deemed credible. Consider as possible sighting."

14
With that I was driven back to the base and flown ahead to New Orleans. I did not hear anything about the
incident for a few weeks.

The papers reported a different story. They characterized Billy Ray Taylor as an abusive alcoholic with
mental problems who was quite drunk during the entire ordeal. At the time of my interview with him, he
seemed a bit spooked, but definitely sane and sober. The papers reported contradictions in the stories of
the family members (in reality, there were none), painting the picture that the family was simply humoring
a delusional Billy Ray Taylor out of fear.

On vacation a few months later, I drove back out to the farm house, partly out of curiosity, partly because I
felt guilt for being part of this family's nightmare. Billy Ray refused to talk to me. It seems his reputation
in the town had been ruined, going from a well respected Baptist to a shunned alcoholic. He was held up
as an example of what happens to people who tell the truth. After talking to other family members, I was
hesitantly told that the aliens came back that same night, almost seeming to taunt the family before
leaving. The family was confused as to why it was being torn apart by the same people it went to for help.
I never spoke to or heard from them again.

I think about this now as I pass though Kentucky on my way back out. I never saw the official report from
that night again. It doesn't exist. 41 years have passed, the document can no longer be classified, and so it
is dust. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Fair is foul, and foul is fair in America. Just don't get in the way.

(sgd: This was not my line. I didn't find out until 3 years later that s.g.d stands for "Standard Grey
Description". The fact that an acronym already existed suggests that this was not the first alien sighting.)

(sober: In fact, careful note was made of the fact that there was no liquor to be found in the entire house!)

THE KELLY-HOPKINSVILLE INCIDENT - AN HISTORIC REVIEW:

by Karal Ayn Barnett ©1998

Summers in southwestern Kentucky can often try a human's soul. The heat, the humidity, the insects - all
worldly experiences that residents must endure throughout the muggy dog days of August. But what
happened to the Sutton family and their friend Billy Ray Taylor in the summer of 1955, the Sutton's and
Taylor's worldview changed suddenly and forever when a craft full of bizarre-looking aliens plunged into
their reality.

This alien encounter is not an atypical story in Ufology, yet it is unique. According to reports, Billy Ray
Taylor ventured out that fateful evening for a drink of water from the well. Before he reached his
destination, some kind of alien craft flew over his head and into the ditch a few hundred yards away.
Taylor raced back into the house, where 11 members of the Sutton family resided, to tell what he saw. The
Suttons didn't believe Taylor was serious until their dog, equally terrorized, darted beneath the house. The

15
elder Sutton grabbed his shogun and with Taylor, went to search the property. What they saw that night
was the stuff of nightmares.

Horrified, Taylor and Sutton observed a glowing, bizarre-looking alien about 40 inches tall, with a round,
oversized head, large luminous yellow eyes, and arms that dragged the ground. Its hands ended in long
talons. During the ensuring hours of terror, lasting until dawn, the Suttons and Taylor observed at least two
more of these creatures. They watched in horror as the aliens seemed to float in an apparent force field.
Even when Sutton fired shotgun shells into the creatures, they merely somersaulted and then loped away.
Temporarily.

Seemingly unaffected by the weapons, the aliens returned, crawling over the farmhouse and peering into
the windows, further terrorizing the children and adults within. Finally, the witnesses all escaped into their
car and drove from the tiny community of Kelly to the somewhat larger town of Hopkinsville, about 15
minutes away. There, the witnesses told their nightmarish tale to the authorities.

According to reports, local and state law enforcement were immediately on the scene. Sheriff Russell
Greenwell and State Trooper Ferguson were among those investigating the scene - and the people who
told such a tale. By all accounts, the witnesses were deemed sane, not under the influence, and in such a
state of terror, no one involved doubted that they had seen something beyond far their ken. The military
from nearby Fort Campbell was later called in to take over the investigation.

It still remains a mystery what the Suttons and Billy Ray Taylor saw that night, and the case represents one
of the first examples of a Close Encounter of the Third Kind, to use Hynek's term.

Was it science fiction? Undetected drug-induced delirium? Lunacy? Alcoholism? Brain-disordered

hallucination? No. I don't think so. And I am very confident of that opinion because I grew up in
southwestern Kentucky, in Hopkinsville to be exact. My family moved into the area about a year after the
Kelly event.

Based on my experience of the region, I would testify to the fact that no one in that area would consider
making up anything remotely like what the Suttons and Taylor said they saw. The residents of
southwestern Kentucky are people who even now are largely religious, and (I mean on disparagement)
conformists. To make up a story like this, one would run the risk of being branded as insane or a
congenital liar with a pox on their family to boot. The ridicule, the contempt, the ostracism, the media
circus - no one wold risk it. It just wouldn't happen. Unless it really happened.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but small town Southerners are cloistered away, and in a sense, protected
from other cultures, not just alien ones. Southerners don't venture far from their homes, usually, and the
constant interaction among the townsfolk tends to reinforce certain ideas. One idea that is profoundly
reinforced is that there are no such things as aliens, and anyone who says that they are either bedeviled,
bewitched or terminally bewildered. We need not wonder why the Suttons and Billy Ray Taylor moved
from the area soon after the incident.

16
Something incredibly "alien" surely took place that night. It may have indeed involved beings from
another world or even another dimension. We don't know. Unfortunately, the only evidence reported was
some kind of glowing circle on the ground where Taylor saw the craft land. Since Fort Campbell
eventually became involved in the event, it's reasonable to allow that the incident could have been a secret
military experiment using holograms and other 'supernatural' effects. However, I don't give much credence
to this idea because, according to Sutton's statement, his shotgun shells did knock the creatures off their
feet. A holographic image would not be so affected.

There was one consideration though. The local authorities who first investigated the scene reported a
strange electromagnetic charge to the area; a physical, "eerie" feeling that would indicate some change in
the normal atmosphere.

I don't know exactly what the Suttons and Taylor saw that hot August night in 1955, but I do know that the
creatures that they described were not a part of the world that we know. The bizarre-looking creatures
were definitely alien to our understanding, if not alien to our planet.

There have been rumors and theories about dimensional shifts both manmade and natural. Some have
suggested that the creatures entered our realm through a dimensional window. We just don't know. What I
do know, however, is that the Suttons and Taylor saw something that changed them forever. Perhaps we
will one day understand what that was.

Karal Ayn Barnett

The article underneath has been published in the daily newspaper Kentucky New Era, Hopkinsville,
Kentucky USA, on December 30, 2002.

Kelly Green Men

Children of witness to alleged alien invasion defend father's 1955 claim

Geraldine Hawkins (left) and Elmer Sutton Jr. relax at Hawkins' Princeton home Friday morning.
They are the children of Elmer "Lucky" Sutton, who reported seeing space creatures in Kelly on
Aug. 21, 1955. At left, this drawing depicts the alleged sighting.

NEW ERA / MICHELE CARLTON

Geraldine Hawkins was only 7 or 8 years old the first time she heard the story of the Kelly Green Men.
Although her father, Elmer "Lucky" Sutton, said he was one of the people who witnessed the alien
invasion on Aug. 21, 1955, he didn't talk about it to Hawkins until the late 1960s when two writers
contacted him for an interview.

17
"This was the first I'd ever heard of it," Hawkins said about the Kelly incident during an interview at her
home in Princeton on Friday. "I remember it was a man and woman that came to the house. I had never
heard anything about it. I remember sitting in the floor with my legs crossed listening to this story. It
terrified me."

The sighting occurred at Kelly, a small town on U.S. 41 about eight miles north of Hopkinsville. "Lucky"
Sutton, who was living in a small farmhouse on the Old Madisonville Road at Kelly, and several family
members said a spaceship landed near the house that evening. It was carrying about a dozen little space
creatures, they said.

"Lucky" Sutton and other family members said they had a gun battle with the creatures that lasted for
hours.

Most of the Sutton family members who said they fought the aliens off with shotguns are deceased.
However, Hawkins and her younger brother, Elmer Sutton Jr., of Trigg County, said their father shared his
Kelly experience with them. Hawkins, 41, and Sutton, 35, are the children of "Lucky" Sutton and Glorine
Powell, of Trigg County. Their father died on Dec. 5, 1995.

"He talked to me about it because I was one of the last ones to leave home," the younger Sutton said. "I
prodded him about it a lot. A lot of times he wouldn't talk about it. If I'd catch him in the right mood, he'd
sit down and talk for hours about it. When he did, I'd listen. To be honest with you, he knew some day he'd
die. I guess he wanted one of us to know the truth."

According to the family, a visitor to the Sutton house, Billy Ray Taylor of Pennsylvania, had been in the
back yard getting water from the well. He noticed a light streak across the sky and descend into the trees
along a ravine about a quarter of a mile away.

A while later, "Lucky" Sutton‘s mother, Glennie Lankford, saw a creature with long arms and talon-like
hands raised in the air approaching the back of the house.

"(Dad) said they appeared to have a human shape, but with some modifications that made them different,"
Sutton said. "He called them little green men. He called them green, but said they actually weren't green.
He said they were silver, but they had a greenish silver glow to them. He said they were about 3-foot tall --
about the size of a 5–year–old. Their arms were double the length of humans' and had pointed ears. He
said the eyes were in the same place as humans, but were more of an almond shape. The eyes had a
luminous glow. He said they really didn't walk, just skimmed on top of ground, but moved their legs."

"Lucky" Sutton and Taylor each armed themselves and fired several shots at the aliens, they later reported
to police. The siege continued through the night, they said. None of the bullets seemed to affect the
creatures.

"He told me he didn't know what in the world they had in mind, but he wasn't going to stand around to
find out," Sutton said.

18
"He's just one of the kind of guys to see something like that and naturally think ‘they're going to do
something. I've got to protect my family.' I guess that's what he done. He beared arms and started laying
into them. I'd have done the same thing. I'd have been aiming right between the eyes," he said.

"If they had've hurt one they could have retaliated," Hawkins said.

"What else was he supposed to do? Go up and shake one of their hands," Sutton said.

The Suttons, Taylor, Lankford and a few children in the house that night said they piled into two cars and
headed for the police station in Hopkinsville. City, county and state police, along with military personnel
from then–Camp Campbell flocked to the Kelly homestead and stayed until about 2 a.m. They searched
the house, the yard, surrounding fields and a wooded area, but reportedly found nothing.

The family claimed the creatures returned again about 3 a.m. and stayed until morning.

In the past 47 years, numerous media reports have circulated worldwide speculating about what happened
in the community of Kelly.

Most recently, the local legend has attracted the attention of an independent production company in
Glendale, Calif. A film crew from Barcon Productions came to Hopkinsville over the weekend to research
the Kelly incident. Barcon has been filming eyewitness accounts for a film entitled "Monsters of the UFO"
to be released next summer.

Contrary to some media reports, Hawkins insists that her father and other family members were not
drinking on that night, nor did they fabricate the story. Although investigators at the scene failed to find
the spot where the spaceship landed, she said her parents took her to the spot about 20 years later.

"The following weekend after those two (writers) had been there to talk to him, they took us out there to
where it happened. I remember a big, round burned out place back there in the field. It was still there,"
Hawkins said.

Hawkins and Sutton said many of the reports referred to the Suttons as "a low-status group of people" and
used their father and Taylor's employment with a carnival to discredit the family's story.

"They sensationalized the story because (Billy Ray and my father) worked at the carnival. That they were
able to create this fiasco," Hawkins said. "He wouldn't have done that anyway. He wasn't that type of
person. You could look at him and tell that something happened to them that night. They couldn't have
made up something like that. They were just country folks. They wouldn't have thought to think up
something like that so elaborate. They wouldn't have run to town terrified in the middle of the night."

Despite any speculations from outside sources, the siblings believe what their father told them about the
Kelly incident.

"I could always tell when my dad was pulling my leg or not. He wasn't pulling a fast one," Sutton said.

19
"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," he said.

Hawkins and Sutton agree that people should have more of an open mind to the unexplained phenomena.

"I think God didn't mean for us to understand everything. He doesn't want us to know everything,"
Hawkins said. "Man might want to know everything. I think there's some things out there that He doesn't
want us to figure out and know what they are."

"We're here. We're breathing and living. Why can't there be something else out there," Sutton said,
pointing to the sky.

"Back then I think it was harder," Hawkins added. "Now, in this day and age, people are more apt to
believe stuff like that. A lot of people don't believe in this stuff. I do. I always have. I believe in ghosts,
angels, UFOs. You name it, I believe it."

Hawkins and Sutton said they admired their father's work ethic and his strength in dealing with the media
circus that followed his family's close encounter at Kelly.

"To me, in my mind, he was a hard–working kind of a man trying to raise a family who saw something out
of the ordinary -- something people wouldn't believe," Sutton said. "He told the story and people called
him a liar. I believe that was the hardest thing for him to swallow -- for people to call him a dog-faced liar
and not believe it."

"I just want people to realize that they weren't crazy," Hawkins added. "They weren't just seeing things
that night. Something really happened to that family."

Michele Carlton can be reached by telephone at 887-3235 or by e-mail at

mcarlton@kentuckynewera.com.

20
 The Hopkinsville Goblins
"Go charge my goblins that they grind their joints with dry convulsions, shorten up their sinews
with aged cramps, and more pinch-spotted make them than pard or cat o' mountain."
~ The Tempest, Act IV Scene 1

One of the reasons that I write this column every week is to repent for a misspent youth. As a child, I read
every book on the paranormal that my local library had at least twice. When I became of driving age, I
raided the local mall’s bookstores for hard to find books on UFOs and ‘Cryptozoology.’ When I got my
first computer capable of reaching the internet, I submerged myself in stories of the otherworldly. This
was, mind you, when AOL cost $9.95 an hour and phreaking was only slightly out of fashion. So I like to
relate to others all the fascinating stories I read about, though with a disclaimer that I never got as a child.
Filtered through the colander of common sense and reason, so to speak. Therefore, it is my great pleasure
to write to you about the story of the Hopkinsville Goblins.

The date: August 21, 1955. The place: a farmhouse near the town of Hopkinsville Kentucky, in Christian
County. The farmhouse was inhabited by a Mrs. Lenny Langford, her son Cecil “Lucky” Sutton, and his
family. They were sitting down to enjoy their evening meal along with some friends from Pennsylvania
when Lucky Sutton, like Jack and Jill before him, decided to go to the well to fetch a pail of water.

21
Unlike Jack and Jill, he watched as a metallic craft floated soundlessly overhead, fitting the most typical
of typical descriptions of a ‘flying saucer.’ (On the internet, it is claimed that he said it “shone with all the
colors of the rainbow,” but none of the early newspaper reports or books I’ve seen on the subject mention
that. It’s most likely a fabrication of the UFO community trying to spice up the encounter.)

Lucky Sutton, being apparently very hungry, returned inside and chose not to go investigate the object,
which landed in a field about a ‘city block’ away. Accounts are unclear: either a man was sent out to
investigate, whereupon he discovered the craft was being tended by 15-20 ‘Little Men’ or the Little Men
were spotted walking in a group towards the farmhouse.

The Little Men are the source of many sleepless nights in my youth: about 4 feet tall, huge heads without
necks, long arms with enormous hands that nearly drag on the ground, and huge elephant-like ears. Their
eyes were said to glow in the dark and be the size of grapefruits. In the early news reports they’re referred
to as Little Men, though after time they took on the name of Goblins. They wore shiny suits that were
described originally as “like metal plate” but over time became described as like NASA astronaut suits. I
should also mention that it is no longer vogue to call them the "Hopkinsville Goblins"; UFO enthusiasts
prefer the term "Hopkinsville Entity," to try and make it sound more mysterious than it actually is.

Apparently, the Suttons are a hardcore bunch, and after spotting the Little Men they went back to enjoying
their dinner, though they did bring their arsenal to the table: a shotgun for Lucky and a .22 caliber starter
pistol for his friend from Pennsylvania. They remained unconcerned until an enormous head peeked in the
window. Lucky fired on it, point-blank, with his shotgun, and the creature was blown back into the yard.
After a moment Lucky watched, stupefied, as the creature got up and scampered away on all fours like a
dog (or, more accurately, a mountain gorilla.)

One of the other men went outside onto the porch to investigate. Apparently, another Little Man had
climbed onto the roof; when the unfortunate fellow came to the edge of the porch the creature swung
down and grabbed at his hair with an oversized hand whose fingers ended in claws.

Harry Trumbore's sketch of the creature

The man managed to get himself free, and if he didn’t crap his pants he’s more stalwart than I. He
retreated indoors and the Suttons spent the next four hours shooting at the Little Men, who popped up now
and then to peek in the windows and seemed to amuse themselves a great deal by walking on the roof. At
about midnight, the family spotted their chance, piled into two cars, and drove to the police station.

22
Apparently the crime situation in Kentucky is well in hand: upon seeing how terrified the Suttons were, a
posse consisting of 4 city police, 2 state troopers, a deputy sheriff, and 4 soldiers went out to the farm.
They found nothing odd, and no sign of the Little Men. The only excitement came when a soldier stepped
on a cat’s tail, which let out a yowl that almost got it riddled with bullets. The police eventually left, and
the Little Men came back, vanishing just before dawn. Do you hear someone screaming in pure, undiluted
terror? If so, look around: it’s probably you.

This is the story that scared the ever-lovin’-hell out of me for years as a child. If you replace “went to
fetch water” with “got his dumb ass lost in a cornfield” it seems to be a lot like the movie Signs, which
had me on the edge of my seat until it committed the unforgivable sin of actually showing the monster I
was supposed to be scared of.

Anyway, put your mind to rest: something happened to the Suttons, but it wasn’t an alien invasion. Over
the course of the investigation, the posse found the Sutton’s neighbor, who reported hearing 4 gun shots
that he had thought were firecrackers. Sutton’s claim of expending almost a battalion’s worth of bullets
seems either exaggeration or pure fiction in the face of this. If a brutal all-out trench battle against aliens
was going on, the neighbors would have reported it, especially if it went on for 4 hours. This is rural
Kentucky, not modern West Philadelphia; hours of constant gunfire would have been considered a little
odd.

Add to this the fact that the investigators found a hole in the screen where the first shot was fired at a
Little Man and recall that shotguns don’t leave little holes. The screen, the windowframe, a portion of the
wall, and the Little Man’s head should have been lying in pieces in the yard, yet there was only a small
hole in the screen. Perhaps, in fact, the opening shot was fired from the .22 pistol. This makes the alien’s
invincibility substantially less impressive: a good flannel shirt is thick enough armor to stop a .22 caliber
bullet. The only thing one of those would stop is a rat.

This was 1955, before the invention of LSD (my personal favorite explanation for insane UFO claims),
but not before the invention of jerks. Were the Suttons the victims of an elaborate hoax? It seems that
every move made by the Little Men was calculated to scare the daylights out of them and nothing more. If
aliens were really coming to earth, I like to think of it like a scientist going into the congo to study
gorillas: we might capture and dissect a few, or sit there and watch, but I can’t see any scientist trying to
scare a gorilla for any reason.

Assuming that the sheriff reports are accurate, and that this whole thing isn’t a family-wide prank (not
something unheard of in the course of humankind) there’s still more evidence that it was a hoax than
anything else. The Little Men were reported to be able to float a few feet off the ground while remaining
still. Now, I’d wager the same laws of physics applies to me as do to inhabitants of a world around a
distant star, so neither of us can fly. But a little bit of string, a dummy, and some hatred can convince a
bunch of hillbillies that I could.

This story, over the years, has gained a lot of details. The modern UFO enthusiast claims that it happened
in a way at least partially at odds with the original newspaper and police reports, the story twisted and
exaggerated. They also claim that this is smoking-gun proof of alien involvement in human affairs. I’ve

23
tried to stick to the basic facts as they were quoted in the earliest available data, but I hope that it is as
clear to others as it is to me that this story is a wonderful thing with which to scare children, but more
likely than not the product of (one way or another) diseased minds.

24