Encounter Atlas
On the evening of Sunday, August 21, 1955, Billy Ray Taylor, a visitor at the Sutton family farmhouse near the hamlet of Kelly, said he saw a bright object streak across the sky and come down beyond the trees while he was drawing water from the well. The household laughed it off. About an hour later the family dog started barking, and Taylor and Elmer "Lucky" Sutton said they saw a small glowing figure approaching the back door. They fired at it with a shotgun and a .22 rifle; the figure flipped over and ran into the dark.
According to the family, more of the creatures then appeared at windows, on the roof and in a tree, and the men kept shooting. They said the bullets seemed to have no effect and sounded as if they were hitting metal. When Taylor stepped outside, a clawed hand reportedly touched his hair from the roof overhang. After several hours of hiding inside, the group fled in their cars at about 11 p.m. to the Hopkinsville police station; one investigator measured a witness's pulse at 140 beats a minute. Matriarch Glennie Lankford later said she had seen one of the figures herself, shining like metal.
Police chief Russell Greenwell called for backup, and city police, Kentucky state troopers, Christian County deputies and military police from Fort Campbell went to the farm, along with a Kentucky New Era photographer. They found spent shell casings, a broken window and holes in the screens, but no tracks, blood or landing marks, and reported no sign that anyone had been drinking. After the officers left, the family said the creatures came back in the early hours of the morning. The next day the house was empty; neighbours said the family had packed up and left. Sightseers soon swarmed the farm, and the family began charging admission, which led critics to call them fortune seekers.
Explanations have ranged widely. Project Blue Book listed the case as a hoax without further comment, though it does not appear to have investigated beyond contacting Fort Campbell personnel. Researcher Isabel Davis, who investigated in 1956 and later co-wrote a long report with Ted Bloecher, found the hoax and hallucination theories unconvincing. Skeptic Joe Nickell argued that the family met aggressive great horned owls, which are about two feet tall, have yellow eyes and ear tufts, fly silently and defend their nests, and that Taylor's light was a meteor. Others have suggested excitement or drink played a part. None of these explanations has been confirmed.
The case gave popular culture the term "little green men", although the witnesses never said the beings were green; reporters added the colour later. It became known as the Hopkinsville Goblins case, inspired Steven Spielberg's unmade film Night Skies and loosely the 1986 film Critters, and is celebrated each year at Kelly's Little Green Men Days festival.