Kelly-Hopkinsville encounter - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Kelly–Hopkinsville encounter, also known as the Hopkinsville Goblins Case, and to a lesser extent the Kelly Green Men Case, is the name given to a series of presumably connected incidents of alleged close encounter

Close encounter

In ufology, a close encounter is an event in which a person witnesses an unidentified flying object. This terminology and the system of classification behind it was started by astronomer and UFO researcher J. Allen Hynek, and was first suggested in his 1972 book The UFO Experience: A Scientific...

s with supposed extraterrestrial beings. The incidents occurred in the fall of 1955, the most famous and well-publicized of which centered around a rural farmhouse

Farmhouse

Farmhouse is a general term for the main house of a farm. It is a type of building or house which serves a residential purpose in a rural or agricultural setting. Most often, the surrounding environment will be a farm. Many farm houses are shaped like a T...

at the time belonging to the Sutton family, which was located between the hamlet of Kelly and the small city of Hopkinsville

Hopkinsville, Kentucky

Hopkinsville is a city in Christian County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 31,577 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Christian County.- History :...

, both in Christian County

Christian County, Kentucky

Christian County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kentucky. It was formed in 1797. As of 2000, its population was 72,265. Its county seat is Hopkinsville, Kentucky...

, Kentucky

Kentucky

The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...

, United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. It is from these main incidents that the entire case takes its name.

Witnesses included not just the two families present at the farmhouse but also numerous other civilians, although only members of the two families -not any policeman or member of the military personnel- ever alleged to have actually seen the creatures themselves. All other people were only witnesses to lights in the sky and sounds.

However the events at Hopkinsville in Kentucky, 1955, are regarded as one of the most significant, well-known and well-documented cases in the history of UFO incidents, and a favorite for study in ufology

Ufology

Ufology is a neologism coined to describe the collective efforts of those who study reports and associated evidence of unidentified flying objects . UFOs have been subject to various investigations over the years by governments, independent groups, and scientists...

, as witnesses there included local policemen and state troopers, and were taken seriously enough as to be officially investigated by the United States Air Force

United States Air Force

The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...

. The encounter has shaped much of the narrative of the UFO tradition, including flashing lights appearing in rural areas and sightings of so-called little green men

Little green men

Little green men is the stereotypical portrayal of extraterrestrials as little humanoid-like creatures with green skin and sometimes with antennae on their heads. The term is also sometimes used to describe gremlins, mythical creatures known for causing problems in airplanes and mechanical devices...

.

There was also another encounter with allegedly the same creatures in another part of the United States along the Ohio River

Ohio River

The Ohio River is the largest tributary, by volume, of the Mississippi River. At the confluence, the Ohio is even bigger than the Mississippi and, thus, is hydrologically the main stream of the whole river system, including the Allegheny River further upstream...

a week prior to the incidents in Kentucky, which itself had numerous witnesses. An incident in the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

occurred some two decades later also with allegedly the same creatures, amongst other alleged sightings of the creatures elsewhere.

Overview of the Hopkinsville Case

There were dozens of eyewitnesses to the incidents, which included two families present at the farmhouse and others in the area, other civilians some of whom had no connection to the families at the farmhouse and even one in another state. Perhaps most significantly the witnesses also included several local 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 gremlin

Gremlin

A gremlin is an imaginary creature commonly depicted as mischievous and mechanically oriented, with a specific interest in aircraft. Gremlins' mischievous natures are similar to those of English folkloric imps, while their inclination to damage or dismantle machinery is more...

s, which have since often been referred to as the "Hopkinsville Goblins" in popular culture

Popular culture

Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...

. 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

Atrophy

Atrophy is the partial or complete wasting away of a part of the body. Causes of atrophy include mutations , poor nourishment, poor circulation, loss of hormonal support, loss of nerve supply to the target organ, disuse or lack of exercise or disease intrinsic to the tissue itself...

), long arms and claw

Claw

A claw is a curved, pointed appendage, found at the end of a toe or finger in most mammals, birds, and some reptiles. However, the word "claw" is also often used in reference to an invertebrate. Somewhat similar fine hooked structures are found in arthropods such as beetles and spiders, at the end...

-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 though 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

Sheriff

A sheriff is in principle a legal official with responsibility for a county. In practice, the specific combination of legal, political, and ceremonial duties of a sheriff varies greatly from country to country....

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

Hoax

A hoax is a deliberately fabricated falsehood made to masquerade as truth. It is distinguishable from errors in observation or judgment, or rumors, urban legends, pseudosciences or April Fools' Day events that are passed along in good faith by believers or as jokes.-Definition:The British...

, 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

Allan Hendry

Allan Hendry is an American astronomer and ufologist. UFO historian Jerome Clark calls him "one of the most skilled investigators in the history of UFO research." He was the main investigator for the Center for UFO Studies in the 1970s....

wrote "[t]his case is distinguished by its duration and also by the number of witnesses involved." Jerome Clark

Jerome Clark

Jerome Clark is an American researcher and writer, specializing in unidentified flying objects and other anomalous phenomena; he is also a songwriter of some note....

writes that "[i]nvestigations by police, Air Force

United States Air Force

officers from nearby Fort Campbell

Fort Campbell

Fort Campbell is a United States Army installation located astraddle the Kentucky-Tennessee border between Hopkinsville, Kentucky, and Clarksville, Tennessee...

, and civilian ufologists found no evidence of a hoax". Although they never formally investigated the case, Blue Book

Project Blue Book

Project Blue Book was one of a series of systematic studies of unidentified flying objects conducted by the United States Air Force. Started in 1952, it was the second revival of such a study...

confessed to being stumped. So was Isabel Davis, one of the most hardheaded of UFO investigators.

Indiana

A week before the more famous incidents at the farmhouse in Kentucky, there was a prior encounter with what would later be described as the "Hopkinsville Goblins", although this prior incident occurred in another state. At twilight on August 14, 1955, a group of friends went swimming in the Ohio River

Ohio River

near Evansville

Evansville, Indiana

Evansville is the third-largest city in the U.S. state of Indiana and the largest city in Southern Indiana. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 117,429. It is the county seat of Vanderburgh County and the regional hub for both Southwestern Indiana and the...

, Indiana

Indiana

Indiana is a US state, admitted to the United States as the 19th on December 11, 1816. It is located in the Midwestern United States and Great Lakes Region. With 6,483,802 residents, the state is ranked 15th in population and 16th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38th in land area and is...

, where "shiny objects" had recently been seen in the sky in the remote Dogtown area where the party had gone for their swimming trip. Whilst swimming, Mrs. Darwin Johnson, 35, was assaulted by "furry clawed hands on the end of very strong, very thin, very long, discoloured arms" which grabbed Mrs. Johnson, causing deep cuts, and she was pulled under the water twice.
Other members of the swimming outing rescued her and the unearthly hands disappeared, although they had been seen by the entire party, who also saw strange objects in the sky as they fled the scene. It was reported to the local press at the time. A week later, upon looking at a sketch by Press artist Larry Hill of the creatures reported at Hopkinsville in Kentucky, a still distraught Mrs. Johnson commented "That's the little devil that had a hold of me." The witnesses, all of whom were local to the area, were at a loss to explain what had happened and claimed they would never go near the area again. Whilst Mrs. Johnson's encounter was treated more or less seriously, this incident caused a rash of "flying saucer

Flying saucer

A flying saucer is a type of unidentified flying object sometimes believed to be of alien origin with a disc or saucer-shaped body, usually described as silver or metallic, occasionally reported as covered with running lights or surrounded with a glowing light, hovering or moving rapidly either...

" interest in Indiana, along with numerous sightings which were not taken as seriously. A large number of these were taken to be copycats, especially after the Hopkinsville incidents which had in the previous few days been widely publicized nationwide in the press. One such example was a report on August 26 by a group of teenagers who claimed to have seen ten glowing "little green men" cavorting the night before on the Lincoln Avenue High School athletic field of Evansville, whose description matched that of the "Hopkinsville Goblins".

Kentucky

On the evening of August 21, 1955, Billy Ray Taylor of Pennsylvania was visiting the Sutton family of Kentucky

Kentucky

. The Sutton family home was a rural farmhouse

Farmhouse

located near the towns of Kelly and Hopkinsville

Hopkinsville, Kentucky

Hopkinsville is a city in Christian County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 31,577 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Christian County.- History :...

, in Christian County

Christian County, Kentucky

Christian County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kentucky. It was formed in 1797. As of 2000, its population was 72,265. Its county seat is Hopkinsville, Kentucky...

, Kentucky

Kentucky

(the farmhouse still stands today although the Sutton family moved soon after the incident). There were a total of eleven 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 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. The craft was disc-shaped in appearance, and featured lights on its side that had "all of the colors of the rainbow". He ran back to the house excitedly telling the others about his "flying saucer

Flying saucer

" sighting, but no one believed him; instead thinking that he had become overly excited after seeing a vivid "shooting star

Shooting Star

Shooting star is a common name for the visible path of a meteoroid as it enters the atmosphere to become a meteor.Shooting star may also refer to:* Shooting Star Children's Hospice, a UK children's charity* The Shooting Star, a 1942 Tintin adventure...

".

At about 8.00 p.m., the families began hearing strange and unexplained noises outside. The Sutton family dog which was in the yard 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.

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

Home invasion

Home invasion is the act of illegally burgling or entering a private and occupied dwelling for the purpose of committing a crime Home invasion is the act of illegally burgling or entering a private and occupied dwelling for the purpose of committing a crime Home invasion is the act of illegally...

and began shooting at it, one using a shotgun

Shotgun

A shotgun is a firearm that is usually designed to be fired from the shoulder, which uses the energy of a fixed shell to fire a number of small spherical pellets called shot, or a solid projectile called a slug...

, the other man using a .22 rifle

Rifle

A rifle is a firearm designed to be fired from the shoulder, with a barrel that has a helical groove or pattern of grooves cut into the barrel walls. The raised areas of the rifling are called "lands," which make contact with the projectile , imparting spin around an axis corresponding to the...

. 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 Solomon 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." 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.

In a later televised interview, one of the grown up children would claim that, as well as "floating" above the ground instead of walking, the creatures "stuck to the side of the house in the way a spider could".

Lucky and Solomon 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 Solomon shot at it, breaking the window, whereupon it too flipped over and fled. The creatures could be heard loudly scurrying about on the roof, and scratching as though trying to break through. 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 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."

Not all of the eleven actually claimed to have seen the creatures; June Taylor was too frightened to look, and Lonnie Lankford, and his brother and sister were hiding out of fear during the encounter. However this still left seven witnesses to the creatures in the farmhouse, and all present in the house had seen strange lights or heard the strange noises the creatures made.

Involvement of authorities in Kentucky

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

METEOR

METEOR is a metric for the evaluation of machine translation output. The metric is based on the harmonic mean of unigram precision and recall, with recall weighted higher than precision...

-like objects" flying overhead, "with a sound like artillery fire

Artillery

Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...

coming directly from them."

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. 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

Pulse

In medicine, one's pulse represents the tactile arterial palpation of the heartbeat by trained fingertips. The pulse may be palpated in any place that allows an artery to be compressed against a bone, such as at the neck , at the wrist , behind the knee , on the inside of the elbow , and near the...

rate was more than twice normal.

Twenty police officers accompanied the 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."
In 1998, Karal Ayn Barnett wrote, "By all accounts, the witnesses were deemed sane, not under the influence [of drugs

DRUGS

Destroy Rebuild Until God Shows are an American post-hardcore band formed in 2010. They released their debut self-titled album on February 22, 2011.- Formation :...

or alcohol

Alcohol

In chemistry, an alcohol is an organic compound in which the hydroxy functional group is bound to a carbon atom. In particular, this carbon center should be saturated, having single bonds to three other atoms....

], and in such a state of terror, no one involved doubted that they had seen something beyond far their kin."

Police interviewed neighbouring farmhouses, whose residents were also distressed and reported to the police strange lights, strange sounds, and of hearing the gun battle at the Sutton farmstead. Police and photographers who visited the home saw many bullet holes and hundreds of 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." 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. "

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. They disappeared with the dawn.

Dyfed, Wales, United Kingdom

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

Dyfed

Dyfed is a preserved county of Wales. It was created on 1 April 1974 under the terms of the Local Government Act 1972, and covered approximately the same geographic extent as the ancient Principality of Deheubarth, although excluding the Gower Peninsula and the area west of the River Tawe...

, West

West Wales

West Wales is the western area of Wales.Some definitions of West Wales include only Pembrokeshire, Ceredigion and Carmarthenshire, an area which historically comprised the Welsh principality of Deheubarth., an area called "South West Wales" in the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics....

Wales

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

, United Kingdom

United Kingdom

, later in 1977, who claimed to have observed small 'silvery men with spiked ears' and helmets working around a UFO. Their descriptions drew strong comparisons with the "Hopkinsville Goblins" of Kentucky two decades earlier.

Legacy

The Hopkinsville Goblins Cse garnered massive publicity within hours of its alleged occurrence. The August 22, 1955 Kentucky New Era
Kentucky New Era
The Kentucky New Era is the major daily newspaper in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, in the United States.- History :The paper was founded in 1869 by John D. Morris and Asher Graham Caruth, as the Weekly Kentucky New Era....

claimed that "12 to 15 little men" had been seen. 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."

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

Antenna (biology)

Antennae in biology have historically been paired appendages used for sensing in arthropods. More recently, the term has also been applied to cilium structures present in most cell types of eukaryotes....

. 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."

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

Moonshine

Moonshine is an illegally produced distilled beverage...

) 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

Carnival

Carnaval is a festive season which occurs immediately before Lent; the main events are usually during February. Carnaval typically involves a public celebration or parade combining some elements of a circus, mask and public street party...

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 witnessed 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,

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."

The United States Air Force

United States Air Force

took the allegations seriously and officers from nearby Fort Campbell

Fort Campbell

Fort Campbell is a United States Army installation located astraddle the Kentucky-Tennessee border between Hopkinsville, Kentucky, and Clarksville, Tennessee...

inspected the case, but could find no normal explanation and to this day is still labelled an open case. The official UFO investigation office, Project Blue Book

Project Blue Book

Project Blue Book was one of a series of systematic studies of unidentified flying objects conducted by the United States Air Force. Started in 1952, it was the second revival of such a study...

, never officially investigated the case, although a file has been kept on it and is labelled "unexplained" Prominent Ufologist Allen Hynek had interviews with two persons with direct knowledge of the event a year after the event took place.

In addition to Ledwith's sketches, Pfc. Gary F. Hodson of the 101st Airborne Division

101st Airborne Division

The 101st Airborne Division—the "Screaming Eagles"—is a U.S. Army modular light infantry division trained for air assault operations. During World War II, it was renowned for its role in Operation Overlord, the D-Day landings on 6 June 1944, in Normandy, France, Operation Market Garden, the...

stationed at nearby Fort Campbell

Fort Campbell

Fort Campbell is a United States Army installation located astraddle the Kentucky-Tennessee border between Hopkinsville, Kentucky, and Clarksville, Tennessee...

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, and never changed their stories.

There have been numerous books, documentaries and debates regarding the incidents, enduring until the present day, although no firm conclusions have ever been established.

Possible non-extraterrestrial explanations

A family prank. Only members of the two families -not any policeman or member of the military personnel- ever alleged to have actually seen the creatures themselves. 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
Monkey
A monkey is a primate, either an Old World monkey or a New World monkey. There are about 260 known living species of monkey. Many are arboreal, although there are species that live primarily on the ground, such as baboons. Monkeys are generally considered to be intelligent. Unlike apes, monkeys...

painted with silver [that] escaped from a circus
Circus
A circus is commonly a travelling company of performers that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, unicyclists and other stunt-oriented artists...

," and that Mrs. Lankford's imagination had exaggerated the event. 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
Optical illusion
An optical illusion is characterized by visually perceived images that differ from objective reality. The information gathered by the eye is processed in the brain to give a perception that does not tally with a physical measurement of the stimulus source...

' can explain a mistake of this magnitude."
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 Owl
Great Horned Owl
The Great Horned Owl, , also known as the Tiger Owl, is a large owl native to the Americas. It is an adaptable bird with a vast range and is the most widely distributed true owl in the Americas.-Description:...

s, 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. This misidentified bird hypothesis was echoed by Joe Nickell
Joe Nickell
Joe Nickell is a prominent skeptical investigator of the paranormal. He also works as an historical document consultant and has helped expose such famous forgeries as the purported diary of Jack the Ripper. In 2002 he was one of a number of experts asked by scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr...

in a Skeptical Inquirer
Skeptical Inquirer
The Skeptical Inquirer is a bimonthly American magazine published by the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry with the subtitle: The magazine for science and reason....

article.

Trivia

The 2000 video game The Legend Of Zelda: Majora's Mask
The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask
is an action-adventure video game developed by Nintendo's Entertainment Analysis and Development division for the Nintendo 64. It was released in Japan on April 27, 2000, North America on October 26, 2000, and Europe on November 17, 2000. The game sold approximately 314,000 copies during its first...

has a side quest very much like the Kelly-Hopkinsville UFO sighting. In the side quest, Link must kill aliens that are abducting a local farm's cattle.

External links

Kelly-Hopkinsville Encounter - UFO Casebook website.
The Hopkinsville Goblins

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