Kelly–Hopkinsville encounter
alleged close encounter with extraterrestrial beings in Kentucky in 1955
The Kelly–Hopkinsville encounter (also known as the Hopkinsville Goblins Case or Kelly Green Men Case) is a claimed close encounter with extraterrestrial beings that occurred near the communities of Kelly and Hopkinsville in Christian County, Kentucky, United States during the night and early morning of August 21–22, 1955. Ufologists regard it as one of the most significant and well-documented cases in the history of UFO incidents, while skeptics maintain there was no actual physical evidence that the encounter ever took place and the reports were due to "the effects of excitement" and misidentification of natural phenomena such as meteors and owls. The alleged encounter was officially classified as a hoax in the Project Blue Book files by the United States Air Force.
Psychologists have used the alleged incident as an academic example of pseudoscience to help students distinguish truth from fiction.
Claims
On the evening of August 21, 1955, five adults and seven children arrived at the Hopkinsville police station claiming that small alien creatures from a spaceship had been attacking their farmhouse and that they had been holding them off with gunfire "for nearly four hours". Two of the adults, Elmer Sutton and Billy Ray Taylor, claimed they had been shooting at a few short, dark figures who repeatedly popped up at the doorway or peered into windows. The Kentucky New Era, the first paper to report the incident, increased the number of creatures to "12 to 15," and this continues to be the number most often reported.
Concerned about a possible gun battle between local citizens, four city police officers, five state troopers, three deputy sheriffs, and four military police officers from the nearby United States Army Fort Campbell drove to the Sutton farmhouse located near the town of Kelly in Christian County. Their search yielded no evidence apart from broken windows and holes in screens, possibly the result of gunfire.
Residents of the farmhouse included Glennie Lankford; her minor children, Lonnie, Charlton, and Mary; two grown sons from a previous marriage, Elmer "Lucky" Sutton and John Charley "J.C." Sutton; Lucky and J.C.'s respective wives, Vera and Alene; Alene's brother, O. P. Baker; Billy Ray Taylor; and Billy Ray's wife, June.
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