In 1955, five adults and seven children in rural Kentucky came to the Hopkinsville police station claiming that tiny aliens from a spaceship had attacked their farm and that they had taken possession of it. resisted with guns “nearly 4 hours”. The incident immediately shocked American public opinion.

According to Completely-Kentucky, 2 of the 5 adults who claimed to have encountered aliens were Elmer “Lucky” Sutton and his close friend Billy Ray Taylor.

The two men said they shot at short, silver, glowing creatures that kept appearing in their doorways or peering into their windows. According to witnesses, these creatures were only about 1 meter tall.

Fearing continued gunfire between locals and unidentified creatures, four city police officers, five state troopers, three sheriff’s deputies and four military police from Fort Campbell nearby drove to the Sutton homestead located near the towns of Kelly and Hopkinsville in Christian County, Kentucky.

The team’s investigation turned up nothing but evidence of the previous shooting including bullet holes in the windows and doors of Sutton’s home.

Previously, on the evening of August 21, 1955, the extended family of Elmer “Lucky” Sutton and Billy Ray Taylor held a party at the Sutton family farm.

According to witnesses, everything was normal until Mr. Taylor went to the well to get drinking water. When he returned to his seat, Taylor told everyone that he had seen streaks of light in the sky and invited everyone to go there and see.

The group of 5 adults and 7 children later confirmed that they had seen creatures about 1 meter tall with glowing bodies, heads larger than humans, soft and pointed ears, bright eyes and hands. has sharp claws. Witnesses said that the strange creatures’ skin was silver or maybe they were wearing such colored clothes.

Portrait of an “alien” as described by witnesses.

Strange creatures came out of the forest, showing signs of surrender, but the Suttons were so scared that they risked their lives to destroy them.

They used rifles to shoot, but the bullets could not kill the group of strange creatures, possibly because of the silver armor they wore. After that, the group of strange creatures escaped and hid into the darkness.

The next day, neighbors told two police officers that the Sutton and Taylor families had “packed their things and left” after claiming “the group of strange creatures had returned to the farm around 3:30 a.m.”.

Are aliens “watching chickens turn into nations”?

Local and national newspapers at that time quickly widely reported on the strange incident that occurred on the farm near the towns of Kelly and Hopkinsville. The American press called this case the Hopkinsville goblin case, the Kelly – Hopkinsville encounter or the Kelly little green men case.

However, there are also people who think that the extended family of Sutton and Taylor were too drunk to realize, so they “watched chickens turn into hoes”. It’s possible that the supposed aliens they saw were just great horned owls.

The aliens described by witnesses may just be great horned owls.

Psychologists Rodney Schmaltz and Scott Lilienfeld also suggested that what witnesses saw were in fact large adult great horned owls, not aliens.

“It is plausible if not accurate to say that the “aliens” are in fact great horned owls. There is some evidence that the witnesses were too drunk,” Mr. Schmaltz commented.

Joe Nickell, a member of the Inquiry Committee, also expressed suspicion that witnesses may have mistakenly identified an “eagle owl” or an adult, nocturnal, silent-flying, yellow-eyed horned owl. and are very aggressive in protecting their nest as “aliens”.

Also according to Mr. Nickell, “the bright streak of light in the sky then disappeared behind a row of trees near the house” that witness Billy Ray Taylor described and said the UFO could be just a shooting star.

Writer Brian Dunning also said that “there are simply too many similarities between the strange creatures reported by witnesses and the large, aggressive horned owls in the area”.