Kelly / Hopkinsville (Kentucky) 'Goblins' Incident (1955)

[Comfortably Numb]

Unless, of course, you attach any credit to the sentence from the Evansville Press Aug 22nd article, "she said she saw a figure like that of a little old man or monkey walking around her house".

If we do - and I simply don't know if we can - then there is certainly a conceivable connection.

There are often references to a heron looking like an 'old man'.

"She said she saw a figure like a little old man or monkey walking around her house".

The article adds, "She said he was about two and a half or three feet tall".

This is one of several online photographs, all entitled, "Old Man Heron"...

 

[Comfortably Numb]

The real issue isn't whether the visitors could "float" - it's whether the visitors ever "walked."

One mainstay of the story's enduring appeal as an unsolved mystery, was how the creatures were first observed floating towards the farmhouse.

As recently mentioned, I was going to take a look back at the earliest evidence to see if there was an obvious genesis - where did that come from.

The first reference I can find is:

Saucerian Review
January 1956

"It was in this hallway that one of the men, about 7 p.m., saw the beginning of the outre adventure that would travel on news wires across the country.

The man was standing at the end of the hallway, looking out the back screen door. Suddenly there was a hissing sound and he saw a brilliant light. Some bright object seemed to have landed in a field about a city block in distance away from the house.

Puzzled, he called to the others. When they came to look they saw three or four little men coming towards the house!

But they were not ordinary men, they could soon discern.

According to some of the witnesses, they were not walking but "seemed to float" toward them".

Surprisingly, I can't identify any such claim in the earliest newspaper reports, from either the 22nd or 23rd of August. The tale is how our creatures 'approached' the farmhouse.

Still looking into this...

 

[EnolaGaia]

The first reference I can find is:
Saucerian Review
January 1956

Surprisingly, I can't identify any such claim in the earliest newspaper reports, from either the 22nd or 23rd of August. The tale is how our creatures 'approached' the farmhouse.
Still looking into this...

Recall that the Saucerian articles was Sanders' work, and Sanders seems to have spoken only with the law enforcement folks (especially - perhaps solely - Chief Greenwell).

 

[Comfortably Numb]

Once again, herons sleep at night...

Although seemingly not a well known fact, it looks like this isn't an obstacle - although all still a theoretical exercise on my part!

If herons are candidates, it would almost certainly be the more common and indigenous, Great Blue Heron:

"Great blue herons are able to hunt day and night, thanks to their excellent vision. It’s sometimes said that they need bright moonlight for nocturnal hunting, but the high density of rod type receptors in their eyes give them excellent night vision. They can and do hunt successfully on moonless nights".

https://winterberrywildlife.ouroneacrefarm.com/2016/09/29/great-blue-heron-hunting/

 

[EnolaGaia]

One of the problems in studying the Kelly / Hopkinsville incident is simply visualizing the scene. In the Loren Gross CUFOS Supplemental Notes compendium:
http://www.cufos.org/UFO_History_Gross/1955_07_09-15th_HistorySN.pdf
... there are a couple of hideously fuzzy photocopied photos from the New York Sunday News of 12 March 1967. These photos were published with an article about the incident, and they show (former?) police chief Greenwell at the farmhouse. One of these photos is the only pic I've found that illustrates the rear of the house and the back yard.
Below is a cropped copy of this back yard image, annotated to indicate the locations of the kitchen window, the kitchen door, and a bit of the back door at the end of the hallway / dogwalk. It's a poor image, but it's all we have ...

View attachment 45209​

Another point that's been bugging me involving this 1966 (published in 1967) photo ...

Chief Greenwell is pointing up at a tree in the back yard. Is he possibly pointing to the tree in which the residents told him a visitor was perched? If so - something's wrong with his memory or the documented story.

The visitor-in-the-tree event happened after the Taylor-head-grab event, and this latter head-grab event was consistently reported as happening at the front door. The only mention of a visitor perched in a tree involved one of the trees in the front yard, not the back yard.

Why, then, is Chief Greenwell posing for an illustration of the incident's scene and pointing up into a tree in the back yard?

Maybe his memory was muddled 11 years later. If, on the other hand, the tree perching occurred in the back yard that would completely overturn some aspects of the storyline - e.g., having all interactions with the visitors occur in the back yard and the side of the house with the living room window.

 

[Nosmo King]

@EnolaGaia, @Comfortably Numb
I still have an issue with the heron theory, being that most, if not all wildlife would not hang around whilst firearms are being discharged.

 

[Comfortably Numb]

l find it extremely unlikely that birds would hang around the area with all of the human activity going on, much less return to the house after the repeated gunfire.

Precisely my point!

This is why I am questioning if our enigmatic beings actually ever did.

For sure, the evidence indicates so, however, it needs to be confirmed as reliable evidence and that's the elemental dilemma. We have so little actual witness testimony from the Sutton brothers and Taylor and how trustworthy are the newspaper reports, etc.

There is, nonetheless, a scenario where we might have herons which were perceived to have returned - there's only one or two instances - and simply a confusion.

One thing I thought would probably be anomalous with heron behaviour, is that we have two reports of one creature standing on a fence and another on a barrel.

So, just had a quick check there to reinforce my own doubts and...

 

[EnolaGaia]

@EnolaGaia, @Comfortably Numb
I still have an issue with the heron theory, being that most, if not all wildlife would not hang around whilst firearms are being discharged.

Yes, yes ... The same thing applies to circus monkeys and raccoons as well. For now we're simply trying to see if there's another possible animal that might explain the visitors' reported appearance and capabilities.

 

[EnolaGaia]

One mainstay of the story's enduring appeal as an unsolved mystery, was how the creatures were first observed floating towards the farmhouse. ...

The Madisonville Messenger article of 22 August is one of the very first news reports, and it came (at least partially) from a reporter who was on the scene during the night. According to this article the visitor(s) were seen as walking when they first approached the farmhouse.

Furthermore, they weren't described as "floating" when moving through the air:

They uttered not a sound, and when they jumped from the roof or from trees did not even make a sound when they hit the ground.

Madisonville Messenger, 22 August, p. 3.

 

[EnolaGaia]

The closest thing to "floating" mentioned in the Evansville Press article of 22 August is Alene Sutton's claim that a visitor "seemed to fly or jump right over the house, land in the back yard and then vanish."

In this same article Lucky is consistently quoted as saying the visitors ran when fired upon.

 

[EnolaGaia]

The Kentucky New Era news item of 22 August makes no mention of visitor locomotion or "floating" at all.

 

[EnolaGaia]

The earliest newspaper account that mentioned "floating" seems to have been the Clarksville Leaf-Chronicle item of 24 August. This is the article that is largely (if not wholly?) based on Hodson's visit to the farmhouse on the evening of the 22nd. It states:

... But when the witnesses came to describe the method of walking of the little men, their descriptions differed a great deal.

The men, said different witnesses, 1) floated above the ground; 2) skimmed above the ground; 3) walked on their long arms and legs like an animal; 4) couldn't see how they traveled from one place to another.

Clarksville Leaf-Chronicle, 24 August, p. 5

Because we don't know whether Sanders made it to Hopkinsville as early as the 24th I suppose this may well be the first mention of "floating." At this point it's mentioned solely as one of four different descriptions given by witnesses.

It's unclear from Ledwith's account whether Hodson ever interviewed anyone other than Taylor on the evening of the 22nd. There seems to be a good chance this bit about differing locomotion styles came from some other informant.

 

[Comfortably Numb]

I still have an issue with the heron theory, being that most, if not all wildlife would not hang around whilst firearms are being discharged.

Not having seen your post, 6 minutes later, I addressed this very point!

 

[Comfortably Numb]

Recall that the Saucerian articles was Sanders' work, and Sanders seems to have spoken only with the law enforcement folks (especially - perhaps solely - Chief Greenwell).

Indeed so; Sanders explaining that the witnesses had enigmatically 'disappeared'.

Amongst various scenarios for this, Sanders speculates one conceivable explanation being that, "The Air Force spirited them away to keep them from talking...".

Mind you, it was a January 1956 publication and a belief amongst readers of 'The Saucerian Review', et al, that there was a nefarious government cover-up about the reality of extraterrestrial visitations.

This, of course, was only short lived.

 

[Comfortably Numb]

The Madisonville Messenger article of 22 August is one of the very first news reports, and it came (at least partially) from a reporter who was on the scene...

Likewise, that's the only article I can find which refers to them "walking":

"About 35 or 40 minutes later, they noticed "two or three shiny little men," about three or four feet tall, walking toward the rear of the house. In a moment the little men were "all over the place," about 15 of them in the yard, on the roof and in the trees".

Given that it's also claiming, 'about 15 of them on the roof and in the trees" etc., fair to conclude it's simply an assumption from the story which the reporter has just heard about?

 

[EnolaGaia]

This, of course, was only short lived.

... As was the period of utility / credibility for Sanders' report.

 

[EnolaGaia]

Likewise, that's the only article I can find which refers to them "walking":

The Evansville Press article of 22 August cites Ms. Lankford as saying, " ... she saw a figure like that of a little or man or monkey walking around her house."

It also cites Lucky Sutton as saying visitors "ran" in two places.

 

[Comfortably Numb]

The Kentucky New Era news item of 22 August makes no mention of visitor locomotion or "floating" at all.

Good point and going back to our earliest evidence, this claim is one reason I wonder if there might have been less direct hits than there subsequently seemed to be:

'Madisonville Messenger'
23 August

"Cecil (Lucky) Sutton, 26 reported shooting two of the little men with a shotgun Sunday night, knocking the creatures down but apparently not hurting them".

Only two?

And thus the uncertainty, that I think we are doing quite well in trying to resolve.

Might not, but this is all at least hopefully identifying where the issues seem to exist!

 

[EnolaGaia]

Neither of the Kentucky New Era articles of 22 / 23 August make any specific allusion to walking or running.

 

[EnolaGaia]

The Madisonville Messenger article of 22 August (p. 1) describes the little men first sighted were "walking toward the rear of the house."

 

[BS3]

I can't imagine any of the reporters would have made a huge effort to establish consistent descriptions, chronology, etc. They would have been confronted with a confused situation (and witnesses) with no obvious precedent, so seem to have either filled in the logical blanks themselves or produced something with barely any coherent structure at all (the Evansville Press article). It might have turned out differently had the Suttons kept talking to people, but as we know this was not to be.

What we do have is a number of points appearing consistently, within the confusion, between those early accounts and which can perhaps be traced to specific witnesses; eg the 'monkey' comparison which appears to originate from Ms Lankford, albeit she is describing what someone else (Alene?) saw.

 

[EnolaGaia]

... eg the 'monkey' comparison which appears to originate from Ms Lankford, albeit she is describing what someone else (Alene?) saw.

In her signed statement of 22 August Ms. Lankford claimed the three couples (Lucky, J. C., Taylor, and their wives) had seen a figure that looked like a little old man or monkey. She makes no such specific claims about the appearance of the visitor(s) she personally witnessed.

 

[EnolaGaia]

I can't imagine any of the reporters would have made a huge effort to establish consistent descriptions, chronology, etc. ...

In any case, they shredded, omitted, and / or merged descriptions of particular sighting / shooting events so as to provide a mismatched set of stories that resemble each other only in terms of citing some prominent elements (e.g., something grabbing at Taylor's head / hair). Even then, the earliest news stories don't agree with regard to which elements are mentioned, the order in which they occurred, or who was involved.

 

[BS3]

In her signed statement of 22 August Ms. Lankford claimed the three couples (Lucky, J. C., Taylor, and their wives) had seen a figure that looked like a little old man or monkey. She makes no such specific claims about the appearance of the visitor(s) she personally witnessed.

Indeed. The few instances where we get what Lankford is supposed to have seen (other than the Evansville Press description of something "walking around her house", which as you've pointed out seems to actually be an implied reference to someone else's sighting) describe something more like an 'object' with no real detail apparent.

By contrast someone else in the group (Taylor?) was giving descriptions describing something like "the bones of a skeleton" covered in foil or a head like a "skull" - quite specific and indeed quite different to the later 'canonical' descriptions.

 

[EnolaGaia]

... By contrast someone else in the group (Taylor?) was giving descriptions describing something like "the bones of a skeleton" covered in foil or a head like a "skull" - quite specific and indeed quite different to the later 'canonical' descriptions.

The 'bones of a skeleton" bit came from Elmer (Lucky) Sutton in the Evansville Press article of 22 August.

 

[BS3]

The 'bones of a skeleton" bit came from Elmer (Lucky) Sutton in the Evansville Press article of 22 August.

And the ""skin stretched over a skull" was, I see, the Madisonville Messenger (no specific witness given). None of these descriptions seem to match particularly well to even the sketches, except maybe those derived from Taylor?

 

[Comfortably Numb]

Yes, yes ... The same thing applies to circus monkeys and raccoons as well.

Such an astute reflection.

Even if something seems to be the absolute explanation, it often isn't and we need to go back and start again.

In the Arnold case, turned out there were no captured 'flying wings' which ever flew.

It had to be though... surely...

 

[BS3]

Part of the reason the owl theory appears convincing is that it overcomes any objection around animals being wary (of course, in reality there are still serious issues: great horned owls nest early in the year, not late summer - one reason I don't find it that strong an explanation). You could also surmise a tame monkey would have no issue with investigating a house with noisy people in it

 

[Comfortably Numb]

Part of the reason the owl theory appears convincing....

I have given this much consideration and It works, up to a point.

Great Horned Owls do not, however, have spindly legs, nor 6-inch long, upturned claws and are apparently only around 2 feet tall. Close though and obviously comparative facial characteristics, especially having ears.

All duly still 'on file', in the overflowing 'pending' tray.

 

[BS3]

As far as the owls go we have to imagine the witnesses were seeing something like this:

https://www.sciencephoto.com/media/127915/view/great-horned-owl-at-night

I think this is a good fit for the Stockton case I mentioned elsewhere, and Flatwoods of course, but apart from providing a good model for the "ears" I can't see much that would trigger those key repeated details mentioned by the Hopkinsville witnesses. Moreover as I noted great horned owls are starting to get territorial in December or January - not sure why they would suddenly turn up in August behaving aggressively.