Ep 79: The Kelly–Hopkinsville Encounter Part 1
"I turned my head three different times because I thought maybe my eyes were fooling me. But every time I turned my head back, there he was."
– Glennie Lankford, Matriarch of the Sutton Farmhouse
Approximate location of the Sutton family farmhouse on Old Madisonville Road, in the unincorporated area of Kelly, about 8 miles north of Hopkinsville, KY
BACKGROUND:
The 1950s was awash with incredible UFO sightings and purported alien encounters, but the Kelly-Hopkinsville Incident remains a highlight for the field of Ufology. The report was significant not only because of the long duration of the event and a large number of witnesses but also because the frightening contact sparked a one-sided gun battle. On the evening of Sunday, August 21, 1955, one of the occupants of the Sutton farmhouse, in the unincorporated area of Kelly north of Hopkinsville, Kentucky, reported seeing a saucer-like craft land a short distance away in a gully to the rear of the property. Moments later, the two families staying there claimed that a number of "strange little men" approached the house and peered through the windows, and one even tugged the hair of Billy Ray Taylor, the man who had first seen the craft land. Understandably bewildered and fearing for their lives, Taylor, and another adult male, "Lucky" Sutton, fired round after round at the unwanted visitors from close range, all to little effect. After about four hours of this awkward alien interaction, the families saw their chance to escape and rushed to police headquarters to get help. The unusually large police response which resulted in a flurry of sensational news reports for years to come would cast this incident as one of the most bizarre and intriguing "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" ever to be included in UFO lore.
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Reference Links:
Kelly Hopkinsville Geographic Information Systems PDF Map 1 by ARC Member Cody Rice
Kelly Hopkinsville Geographic Information Systems PDF Map 2 by ARC Member Cody Rice
Kelly Hopkinsville Geographic Information Systems PDF Map 3 by ARC Member Cody Rice
Close Encounter at Kelly and Others of 1955 by Isabel Davis and Ted Bloecher (PDF)
Original report from the Kentucky New Era newspaper, Monday, August 22, 1955
Another UFO report from Garrard Co. Kentucky, October 9, 1955, from the Albuquerque Journal
Kelly Little Green Men Days Festival, August 18–21, 2017, Kelly-Hopkinsville, KY
NASA's event bulletin board about the 2017 Total Solar Eclipse
Where, when and how to see the Total Solar Eclipse on Space.com
Could Kelly's "Little Green Men" return with the coming Total Solar Eclipse?
The Kelly-Hopkinsville Incident article by Joe Nickell on the CSI website
Related Books:
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Credits:
Episode 79: The Kelly-Hopkinsville Incident, Part 1. Produced by Scott Philbrook & Forrest Burgess; Audio Editing by Sarah Vorhees; Ryan McCullough Sound Design; Research Assistance by Tess Pfeifle and the astonishing League of Astonishing Researchers, a.k.a. The Astonishing Research Corps, or "A.R.C." for short. Copyright 2017 Astonishing Legends Productions, LLC. All Rights Reserved.