The Hopkinsville Goblins are alleged extraterrestrials sighted during the Kelly-Hopkinsville Encounter, sometimes referred to as the Kelly Green Men Case. The sightings occurred in the fall of 1955, centered largely around the rural small town of Hopkinsville in western Kentucky. The most widely reported incident occurred at a farmhouse just out of town on the evening of August 21 and involved a number of witnesses who reported seeing flashing lights, hearing strange noises, and even being attacked by extraterrestrial creatures.
That August evening, the farmhouse’s renter, Mrs. Glennie Lankford, had her three grown sons and their families over for dinner, as well as property owner Lucky Sutton and Pennsylvanian family friend Billy Ray Taylor. Near dusk, one of the men went to the well for water but returned in a panic to report seeing a flying saucer land behind some trees. Soon after, the family began seeing lights and hearing strange noises, and the first of the creatures made an appearance. According to the Lankfords and their guests, three-foot-tall creatures with pointy ears, elongated limbs, and claw-like talons attacked the farmhouse for the next four hours. These creatures banged on doors and looked in windows, terrorizing the residents. Several witnesses reported that the gray, metallic-looking creatures floated above the ground, or flew between a nearby tree and the farmhouse rooftop. While the children hid under beds, the adults attempted to scare off the creatures with firearms, although even after being shot, the creatures reanimated and continued the assault. The group estimated that about a dozen creatures were involved in the assault, but they reported that they only saw two at a time.
When the humans had run out of ammunition, they subsequently regrouped and fled to a local police station. They reported the incident to the local sheriff, who quickly organized a force consisting of local and state law enforcement, as well as four U.S. Army military police from nearby Fort Campbell. This contingent returned with the family to the farmhouse early that morning. Accounts of this visit vary widely, with some reports citing that members of this detachment reported hearing strange noises and seeing lights in the sky. Some maintain that shots were fired by a few of the police officers, although no one reported seeing the creatures. The farmhouse and surrounding grounds were apparently noticeably damaged by the creatures’ attacks, although much of this damage may have been due to the amount of ammunition expended by the residents. Another report cited that part of a fence in the area glowed in the dark. (Bioluminescent fungus was known to be common in the area.)
Accounts differ on what happened to the Lankford family, but all versions agree that they moved away from the farmhouse soon thereafter. One account has them fleeing early the next morning after a return visit by the creatures, although the more consistent story has them moving away a short time later, after the notoriety of this case made their farm a site of visitation for UFO enthusiasts. The family did not make any attempt at financial gain from these tourists, which gives credibility to their report. The fact that others in and around the towns of Hopkinsville and Kelly also reported seeing lights in the sky has lent further credence to the report.
Not everyone has found the evidence to be convincing, however. Project Blue Book (a sustained study of UFO reports conducted by the United States Air Force throughout the 1950s and 1960s) classifies the incident as a hoax but offers no commentary as to why that conclusion was reached. Dr. J. Allen Hynek, a leading figure in UFO study, later denoted the Kelly-Hopkinsville case as “preposterous and offensive to common sense” (Rutkowski 2010, 111). In preparation for their 2005 annual Little Green Men Festival, Hopkinsville commissioned a study to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the event. Joe Nickell, a paranormal investigative specialist representing the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, was hired by the town’s Chamber of Commerce to give the keynote address at the festival. Leading up to the talk, he reviewed all accounts of the event and reinterviewed all of the surviving eyewitnesses.
Nickell noticed that over time the story evolved, particularly in the descriptions of the lights in the sky and their linkage to the assault on the farmhouse. Reports of a shooting star or a fireball later morphed into claims that Billy Ray Taylor had seen a UFO land. Lending credence to the fact that the lights in the sky were due to natural causes were accounts from observers at Fort Campbell who reported a meteor shower that same evening. And finally, Nickell discovered in the official police reports of the incident that only a single bullet hole was discovered in one of the windowpanes, and that only one of the nearby neighbors had reported hearing a total of four gunshots. The reports of massive damage had appeared later, along with the other embellishments. Independently, UFO skeptic Brian Dunning discovered that the Air Force never investigated the matter in the immediate aftermath, as had often been claimed, but only in the preparation of Project Blue Book. It is public record that military police from Fort Campbell were part of the team that drove out to the farmhouse early that next morning, but no Air Force investigators are documented as being involved in the days following the event.
In his report, Nickell concluded that the sightings had most likely involved a pair of great horned owls, and the lights in the sky were from a completely unrelated meteor shower. He reasoned the owls could have been responsible for the strange noises, and that the coloration, actions, and even pointy ears observed by the farmhouse group were also matches. The fact that the creatures described were reported as being 50 percent taller than these birds could have been attributed to anxiety-induced exaggeration, and the description of the limbs may have become exaggerated over time. Whether owls or actual extraterrestrials, the Hopkinsville Goblins represented an important moment during the UFO craze that manifested itself in the decades following World War II.
Andrew Howe
See also Alien Abduction Stories and UFOs; Area 51; Cash-Landrum UFO Encounter; Roswell (New Mexico) UFO Landings
Further Reading
Hendry, Allan, and Ronald Story, eds. 1980. The Encyclopedia of UFOs. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
“The Kelly-Hopkinsville Encounter.” UFO Casebook website. http://www.ufocasebook.com/Kelly-Hopkinsville.html. Accessed September 7, 2015.
Rutkowski, Chris A. 2010. The Big Book of UFOs. Toronto: Dundurn Press.
Schneidman, Sarah, and Pat Daniels, eds. 1987. Mysteries of the Unknown: The UFO Phenomenon. New York: Time Life Books.