The Kelly-Hopkinsville Encounter: Siege by Goblins

On the night of August 21, 1955, a large family gathered at a farmhouse near Kelly, Kentucky, found themselves under attack by creatures they could not explain. Small, silver-skinned beings with enormous glowing eyes emerged from the darkness and surrounded the house, seemingly impervious to gunfire. For hours, the terrified family fought back against the invaders until they finally fled to the Hopkinsville police station. What they reported launched one of the most bizarre and thoroughly investigated UFO cases of the era.

The Sutton Farm

The events occurred at a small farmhouse owned by the Sutton family, located between the hamlet of Kelly and the town of Hopkinsville in Christian County, Kentucky. The house had no telephone and no indoor plumbing, a modest dwelling in rural America where unusual events were not expected and certainly not welcomed.

On the evening of August 21, the household included several adults and children from the extended Sutton and Taylor families. Elmer Sutton, his wife, his mother Glennie Lankford, and various other family members and friends were present, along with Billy Ray Taylor and his wife June, who were visiting from Pennsylvania.

It was Billy Ray Taylor who first saw something unusual. Around 7:00 PM, he went outside to draw water from the well and observed a bright object streak across the sky and apparently land in a gully about a quarter mile from the house. Excited, he rushed inside to tell the others what he had seen.

The family did not take Billy Ray seriously. Shooting stars and other aerial phenomena were common enough, and no one felt inclined to go tromping through the dark to investigate. The incident was quickly forgotten as the evening continued.

The First Creature

About an hour later, the family dog began barking frantically outside. Billy Ray Taylor and Elmer Sutton went to the back door to investigate and saw something approaching through the fields. At first, they thought it might be a person, but as it drew closer, they realized it was nothing human.

The creature was approximately three and a half feet tall, with an oversized head that seemed almost perfectly round. Its eyes were enormous and glowing, described as emitting their own light rather than reflecting external sources. The body was thin, with long arms ending in hands with talon-like claws. The skin appeared metallic or silver in color, and the creature seemed to glow slightly.

The being approached the house with a strange, swaying walk. When it reached a distance of about twenty feet, Elmer Sutton raised his shotgun and fired. Billy Ray Taylor fired his .22 rifle as well. Both men later stated that they hit the creature, but instead of falling, it simply flipped backward and scurried away into the darkness.

Minutes later, the creatures returned, this time in greater numbers.

The Siege

For the next several hours, the Sutton farmhouse was under what can only be described as a siege. The creatures appeared at windows, climbed onto the roof, and seemed to surround the house. The family could hear them moving and see their glowing eyes peering through the glass.

Every time someone stepped outside or a creature appeared in a window, the men fired their weapons. According to later accounts, they hit the beings multiple times, and each time the impact produced a sound like metal being struck, but the creatures showed no signs of injury. When hit, they would fall or tumble but quickly recover and move away, only to return minutes later from another direction.

At one point, Billy Ray Taylor stepped onto the porch and was grabbed from above by a clawed hand that had reached down from the roof. Elmer Sutton pulled him back inside and fired at the creature on the roof, which then floated down to the ground rather than falling, as if gravity affected it differently.

The family counted multiple creatures, though estimates of the exact number varied. They appeared identical in description, suggesting either a uniform species or perhaps the same few individuals returning repeatedly. The beings never attempted to force entry into the house or to actually harm the occupants, but their constant presence and apparent invulnerability to gunfire created an atmosphere of pure terror.

Around 11:00 PM, after approximately three hours of this ordeal, the family decided to flee. They piled into two vehicles and drove at high speed to the Hopkinsville police station.

The Police Response

The family burst into the police station in a state of obvious panic. Police Chief Russell Greenwell later described them as genuinely terrified, not the behavior of people attempting a hoax. The adults were pale and shaking, and some were crying. Whatever they had experienced, their fear was real.

Chief Greenwell assembled a substantial response team, including state police and military personnel from nearby Fort Campbell. The convoy drove out to the Sutton farm and conducted a thorough search of the property and surrounding area.

The investigators found ample evidence that a great deal of shooting had occurred. Bullet holes riddled the exterior of the house, and spent shell casings littered the ground. The damage was consistent with the family’s account of firing repeatedly at multiple targets from various positions.

What the investigators did not find was any trace of the creatures themselves. No bodies, no blood, no footprints, and no physical evidence that anything unusual had been at the farm. The area where Billy Ray Taylor reported seeing the object land was examined but revealed nothing remarkable.

After several hours, the police departed, having found nothing to support or definitively refute the family’s claims. The Suttons returned to their home, hoping the ordeal was over.

The Return

According to the family, the creatures returned after the police left. Around 2:30 AM, Glennie Lankford saw the glow of one of the beings through her bedroom window. The siege resumed, continuing until approximately 5:00 AM, when the creatures finally departed with the approaching dawn.

This second wave of activity was not investigated by police, who were not recalled to the scene. The family endured it alone, continuing to fire at the creatures whenever they appeared until sunrise finally brought relief.

By morning, the family was exhausted and traumatized. Their story, however, was just beginning to spread.

The Aftermath

News of the Kelly-Hopkinsville incident spread rapidly through local media and then to newspapers across the country. The story of a Kentucky family besieged by alien beings was irresistible to the press of the era, and reporters descended on the Sutton farm from across the region.

The publicity quickly became overwhelming for the family. Curious seekers, skeptics, and journalists invaded their property, trampling crops and creating chaos. The Suttons had no interest in fame and found the attention deeply unwelcome. They reportedly began charging admission to their property simply to manage the crowds and recoup some of their losses.

This commercial aspect has been used by skeptics to suggest the story was a hoax designed to generate income. However, witnesses noted that the family’s distress appeared genuine and that they seemed more interested in being left alone than in profiting from their experience.

Theories and Explanations

The Kelly-Hopkinsville encounter has generated numerous attempted explanations over the years.

The most common skeptical explanation is that the family encountered a group of Great Horned Owls. These large birds, when viewed in dim light, can appear quite alarming. Their large eyes reflect light, their wingspan creates an illusion of size, and their silent flight could explain the creatures’ apparent ability to appear and disappear. An owl swooping down could match the account of Billy Ray being grabbed from above.

Supporters of this theory note that the area was home to Great Horned Owls and that frightened, armed individuals could potentially mistake owls for something more unusual, particularly after Billy Ray’s earlier report of seeing a UFO had primed them to expect something extraordinary.

Skeptics of the owl theory note that the Suttons were rural people familiar with local wildlife. Elmer Sutton was an experienced hunter who would presumably know what an owl looked like. The physical description of the creatures, particularly the metallic skin, long arms, and humanoid form, does not match owls except in the most superficial ways.

Other explanations have included escaped circus monkeys, a prank by local teenagers, or mass hysteria triggered by Billy Ray’s UFO sighting. None of these theories fully accounts for all aspects of the case.

Believers in the extraterrestrial hypothesis consider Kelly-Hopkinsville one of the most credible close encounter cases on record. The number of witnesses, the duration of the event, the physical evidence of the gunfight, and the obvious terror of the family all support the authenticity of their experience, even if the nature of that experience remains unexplained.

Legacy

The Kelly-Hopkinsville encounter has become a classic of UFO literature, frequently cited as one of the most detailed and well-witnessed close encounter cases. The creatures described by the Suttons, often called “goblins” or “little green men” despite not being described as green, have influenced popular culture’s image of alien beings.

The Kentucky town of Kelly holds an annual festival celebrating the incident, embracing its place in UFO history. The case has been featured in numerous books, documentaries, and television programs examining UFO phenomena.

For researchers, Kelly-Hopkinsville represents both the promise and frustration of close encounter investigations. The case features multiple credible witnesses, immediate police involvement, and physical evidence of the claimed events. Yet no definitive proof of what the family encountered has ever been produced, and the truth remains a matter of interpretation.

Conclusion

On a summer night in 1955, eleven people in a rural Kentucky farmhouse experienced something that terrified them beyond measure. For hours, they fought against creatures that seemed immune to their weapons, beings that appeared from the darkness, peered through windows, and climbed across the roof. When dawn finally came and the siege ended, they were left with nothing but their testimony and the memory of glowing eyes in the night.

Were the Kelly-Hopkinsville creatures beings from another world, investigating or testing the humans they encountered? Were they misidentified owls, transformed by fear and darkness into something otherworldly? Or were they something else entirely, something that has no name in our understanding of the world?

The Sutton family went to their graves maintaining the truth of their account. They did not seek fame, did not enjoy the attention, and did not change their story over the decades that followed. Whatever they encountered that night, they believed it was real.

In the dark fields of Christian County, Kentucky, something happened that has never been fully explained. The creatures, whatever they were, departed with the dawn and never returned. But the questions they left behind remain, as persistent and elusive as the glowing eyes that once peered through farmhouse windows on a night that became legend.