Everyone knows the standard alien description "little green men." But do you know where the description comes from? There was an alien encounter in the small town of Hopkinsville, Kentucky in August 1955. When the witnesses came to the police station, the women and children were in hysterics, and one man had a measured pulse of 140 beats per minute. Something truly terrified them.
What makes this encounter so different?
There are several extremely notable things about these events:
Number of witnesses
Most alien encounters only happen to a few people at a time. This encounter was experienced by 11 people: eight adults and three children.
Length of the encounter
The Suttons were terrorized for several hours by these aliens.
Distance at which the encounter happened
The aliens were, at times, only several feet away from the Suttons.
The Witnesses
The Suttons lived on a tiny farm near Kelly, Kentucky — a three-room house with unpainted walls and no running water, radio, telephone, TV, or even books. Glennie Lankford was the 50 year old widow and matriarch; one of her brother-in-laws, her two older sons, their wives, and Glennie's three younger kids (ages 12, 10, and 7) all lived in the house together.
Also on the farm at the time were family friends, Billy Ray Taylor and his young wife. They were visiting one of Glennie's older sons, Lucky, as Billy Ray had worked with him in a traveling circus.
Timeline
7:00 pm
Billy Ray went to the well to draw some water, and saw a huge silvery object, “real bright, with an exhaust all the colors of the rainbow.” It came silently toward the house, passed over it and stopped in the air. It then dropped straight to the ground.
He ran back into the house to tell everyone what he had seen. No one took him seriously, and they all had a laugh at his expense.
8:00 pm
The Sutton's dog was barking constantly, so both Lucky and Billy Ray went to the back door to investigate. They saw a strange glow, and within it was a small figure that looked somewhat like a three-foot-tall human.
Billy Ray and Lucky describe it as having an “oversized head…almost perfectly round, [its] arms extended almost to the ground, [its] hands had talons…and [its oversized] eyes glowed with a yellowish light.” They said the body shone in the light, as if it was made of "silver metal."
In a panic, the two men ran back to the house, and grabbed a 20-gauge shotgun and a .22 rifle. When they looked back at the "little man" and began to fire at him, his hands were raised as if he was being held at gunpoint. Lucky and Billy Ray said the creature "did a flip," stood upright and ran away into the darkness. The bullets didn't seem to affect the little man at all.
Both men returned to the house to stand guard.
A little while after, an identical figure appeared in a side window of the house. Billy Ray and Lucky shot at it through the window screen. Still immune to their bullets, the figure did the same flip as earlier and disappeared.
Glennie went out into the hallway and crouched next to Billy Ray. She saw one approaching the back door. She said, "it looked like a five-gallon gasoline can with a head on top and small legs. It was a shimmering bright metal like on my refrigerator."
Then, the situation escalated.
Billy Ray stepped outside under the small roof overhang. The people watching behind him saw a claw-like hand reach down and touch his hair.
Everyone screamed, and someone pulled him back while Lucky shot at the overhang. Another similar creature appeared in a nearby tree, and he shot at that one too. It floated to the ground and ran off into the woods.
~8:30 to 11:00 pm
Everyone moved further inside, and spent the next several hours listening to the creatures outside — mostly the occasional scratch on the roof.
11:00 pm
They all ran for their cars, and drove at top speed to the police station. When they arrived, the local police called for backup.
Local police, state police, and military police all met at the Sutton farm. A photographer from the Kentucky New Era was also present.
Investigators found shell casings from the bullets fired by Lucky and Billy Ray, but that was the only evidence. No one was under the influence of alcohol, because Glennie had a strict rule that liquor was not allowed in the farmhouse.
2:30 am - Sunrise
After all the police left, the creatures returned sometime around 2:30 am and stayed until daybreak.
Glennie reported seeing one glowing continuously outside her bedroom window, with a claw-like hand on the screen.
The Aftermath
Radio stations and newspapers all over the country, including The New York Times, reported the incident over the following days. Hundreds of curious readers traveled to the farm.
"No Trespassing" signs proved fruitless at deterring them, so the Suttons tried to charge admission. 50 cents to enter the grounds, $1 for information, and $10 for taking pictures.
The day after the encounter, Bud Ledwith, a local radio station employee, interviewed the adults and created drawings based on their descriptions. He was impressed with the consistency and specificity of their descriptions.
Gallery of Drawings Made by Bud Ledwith
Click to expand the pictures below. All pictures are from the J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies.
