http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly-Hopkinsville_encounter
http://www.10mfh.com/random-news/kelly%E2%80%93hopkinsville-encounter/
By
G.D. Strauff –
January 27, 2010
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, occurring 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.
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.” Jerome Clark writes that “[i]nvestigations by police, Air Force officers from nearby 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.
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”.
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[or just shiny], 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 and began shooting at it, one using a shotgun, the other man using a .22 gun. 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.”
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 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.”
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.”
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 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.” 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.” 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.” 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.
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. 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. 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) 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,
“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 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” Prominent Ufologist Allen Hynek had interviews with two persons with direct knowledge of the event a year after the event took place.
Topographical Google Map: there is a very large drainage area showing a typical dendritic erosion pattern just off the property visable on the terain map:
Kelly Kentucky
[Go to map at link, click on "Sattelite" and then "Terrain" should be your last option in the dialogue box that will show]
And this is Christian County, where Hopkinsville is the county seat
Some investigators such as Joe Nickell say that the witnesses were seeing nothing more exotic than a pair of nesting great horned owls that had taken up residence in their attic. The great round eyes and large ears are cited as evidence for this identification. Against this we have the statements that the creatures could travel on two legs or four, having a monkeylike body build and limb proportions, and a monkeylike gait when traveling on all fours, and had obvious large claws on the hands but not so obviously on their feet (one gains the impression the feet were never observed very clearly). Furthermore I would emphasize that the owl's head is not very distinct from its body and does not present the appearance of being outsized (whereas a large mane or ruff around the face of the Freshwater Monkey certainly would) and (most tellingly from my point of view) the owl is most obviously marked in bands of lighter and darker colour and certainly neither one uniform overall colour nor yet anything which might be interpreted as "Silvery"
Furthermore, the colour being distinctively shiny at night ("You could even say it glows")as well as the general description is a very good match for the traditional description given for the Pukwudgies.
There are some very peculiar details, some of which are easily dealt with. The owl theorists say that the shots that were fired had probably tended to go wild and hit metallic objects, such as could be parts of the house. That I think is faior enough. There is also the fact that one person was shooting a shotgun while the other one was shooting a .22. This is a very small calibur and it can be demonstrated that in some cases, the small-caliber was being directed at the creatures but not doing any visable damage. when one creature was shot at through the window at very close range, we know it was the.22 that had opened fire first because investigators found the hole. The bullet could have had much of its damage potential wasted in going through the window and thus did not hurt the creature much upon arriving at its destination. The creatures odd "Floating" behaviour could be explained by their JUMPING ability, which seems to have beem well-developed. It sould also be noted that there are several points of resemblance between these creatures and some of the Ohio "Frogmen" cases, including the part about raising the arms above the head. The feet are also solid and flipperlike and when the creatures are walking, they do so with a "Wading" effect, suggesting an amphibious adaptation.
A recent case in Kentucky once again reported a monkeylike creature which seemed to glow at night, but in this case a car's headlights were turned on it. It was estimated to be seven feet tall and to move off at fifty miles per hour- both reasons to suspect the witness misjudged the range in the very brief encounter and hence he thought the creature was both larger and faster than it actually was. If the numbers are halved, it was 3 1/2 feet tall and moving off at over 20 mph-that would all be much more believable and much more consistent with other reports (I had also heard an alternative version which did estimate the speed as more likely 25 mph, on a message board in one of the chatrooms) This happened at the end of last year:
http://www.bigfootlunchclub.com/2011/12/kentucky-bigfoot-sighting-reported-on.html
Friday, December 30, 2011
Kentucky Bigfoot Sighting Reported on MUFON
Posted by Guy Edwards
Case Number: 34374
Log Number:
US-12292011-0010
Submitted Date: 2011-12-29 16:51 GMT
Event Date:
2011-12-28 18:15 GMT
City: Burlington
Region:
Kentucky
Country: US
Longitude: -84.7241133
Latitude:
39.02756
Shape: Other
Duration: 00:00:02
Distance: 100 feet or
less
I was driving down a residential street in the dark when
suddenly, my headlights landed on a ~7 ft. tall man like creature. It almost
looked like a very tall standing monkey, but it also resembled a man. It looked
as if it had fur all over it's body that was a medium red color. What really
looked odd to me was that it seemed to have a translucent aura around it. I had
to focus very hard to see these details because it seemed like the creature was
moving at a pace of nearly 50 mph. I was afraid, of course, but I didn't feel as
if it were here to harm me or anyone else. It seemed scared more than anything
else. I feel it was trying to hide or find a way home because it was running
right toward a large wooded area. I lost sight of the object within 2-4 seconds
of first seeing it because it was moving so fast. - MUFON CMS
In this case, the Monkeylike creature has several features that are strikingly like the Kelly-Hopkinsville entities: the head is large and the large ears at the sides are pointed-but not nearly so exaggerated! and the long arms, hands, and claws are very similar. The eyes are relatively huge and pointed out to the sides, but interestingly enough there is no eyeglow unless the witness simply failed to mention the fact. It is also possible the head was turned at the wrong angle and the eyeglow was not noticed.
Also on the Bigfoot Lunch Club site and pertaining to recent Kentucky mystery primates is a discussion on a recording of some mysterious creature's whoops and screeches. But almost more arresting than that is the outline of a Kentucky "Frogfoot" print with all the toes present. ot an exact reproduction of whatever the original must've been-but I am looking into the matter. This came up just as I was about to post this blog report and I had not expected to find such a thing.
I did happen to have an informant who went down to the Sutton farmhouse about five years ago to look the place over. He said the place was way back in the boondocks and the witnesses really were "A Bunch of Hicks" to use his exact words. He did not think they were sophisticated enough to have
invented such a story at the time. He did give me some interesting other details such as concerning the water drainage of the area. I also found out that the creatures were not so invulnerable as stated-most of the time they were only struck by the small-caliber fire while the shotgun shots tended to go wild (these things were actually to be expected) Also it seems the explanation of the UFO as a meteor in the sky seems to be a sound one, and there was no good connection of the creatures to any genuine UFO reports. It does seem that the creatures also left patces of algae or bacterial slime on places they had rubbed up against, and it is possible that they were actually covered in bioluminescent organic detritus, like foxfire. And actually the creatures appeared to be naked and basically of an animal nature (although it seems they were acting "Playfully" by some accounts) and so it seems to me that it is entirely possible that the Suttons had run afoul of a family group of the Freshwater Monkeys (
Hydromacaca), perhaps flooded out of one home base and headed overland to a better habitat. It should be noted that the illustrations that show any nose at all specify that the creature is a Cattarhine, Old World Monkey because of the pinched-looking nose and the nostrils lying close together.
A
miniature Monster-model "Frogman" creature probably actually representing the Freshwater Monkey category and as a variation on the New England Pukwudgies. (Dover Demon is probably geographically in the same part of the country) The creature is actually similar to the Kelly-Hopkinsville creatures in several respects, including the "Walleyed" effect of its goggling eyes. This also has the pinched-together nostrils of a Cattarhine, although that might not be so obvious: and it still has some wet straggly locks from its "Mane" showing around its face. The answer seems to be that such creatures present a very different appearance whether their hair is wet and clinging to the skin or dry and "Fluffed-Out" and the top of the head might well even actuially have a sagittal crest in the males (But look like a "Depression" in the forehead from the way the hair grows) At least one "Lake Monster-Frogman" has been regularly reported in the New England area also. In the Sutton Family report, one individual reported "Antennae", which were probably locks such as this
In the Kelly-Hopkinsville report, the "Silvery" appearance is more likely due to reflected moonlight than the actual colour of the creatures: what people are describing is actually the colour of the moon as reflected off of shiny body hair, whight, in all probability.
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| Amphibious FW Monkey-Composite Reconstruction |
A modified version of a "Frogman" from a UFO Aliens site (Loveland Frog Category),
adding the hair showing about half-dry instead of completely slicked-down. The hair pattern is derived from information on Japanese Kappas and it seems slicked-down in the Kelly-Hopkinsville case. "Slicked Down" does not only mean still wet because it seems these creatures also acquire a coating of green algae or duckweed, wet mud or swamp bottom ooze, which continues to present the "Slicked-Down" effect for a long time out of water. The ears show when the mane or ruff of hair around the head is or otherwise not dried-out and fluffy. nd depictions can also show the large ears. This would be a typical creature at the common size, 3-4 feet tall and about the size of the Kelly-Hopkinsville entities, in which case the footprint would be about the size of an average human footprint, 9 or 10 inches long.
The body hair is generally short and close overall but when the longer hair is half-dried it can look "Spiky"
The legs look a good deal shorter when the foot is flat on the ground
Mexican "Dwendis" compared to Kelly-Hopkinsville Goblins from a Spanish-Language site. "Dwendi" is also a composite category used to name more than one thing, but if the range of FW monkeys slops over into parts of Mexico, I would not be too surprised.
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| Kittelsen_TheWaterSprite_Scandinavia |
British-version Water-Brownie/Bogie
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