The Kelly-Hopkinsville encounter in Kentucky.
On the evening of August 21, 1955, five adults and seven children arrived at the Hopkinsville police station claiming that small alien creatures from a spaceship were attacking their farmhouse, and that they had been holding them off with gunfire "for nearly four hours". Two of the adults, Elmer Sutton and Billy Ray Taylor, claimed they had been shooting at a few short, dark figures who repeatedly popped up at the doorway or peered into the windows. The Kentucky New Era, the first paper to report the incident, amplified the number to "12 to 15," and that number continues to be reported.
Concerned about a possible gun battle between local citizens, four city police officers, five state troopers, three deputy sheriffs, and four military police officers from the nearby United States Army Fort Campbell drove to the Sutton farmhouse located near the town of Kelly in Christian County. Their search yielded nothing apart from evidence of gunfire and holes in window and door screens made by firearms.
Residents of the farmhouse included Glennie Lankford, her children, Lonnie, Charlton, and Mary, two sons from a previous marriage, Elmer "Lucky" Sutton, John Charley "J.C." Sutton, their respective wives Vera and Alene, Alene's brother O.P. Baker, Billy Ray Taylor, and his wife June. Both the Taylors, "Lucky," and Vera Sutton were reportedly itinerant carnival workers who were visiting the farmhouse. The next day, neighbors told two officers that the families had "packed up and left" after claiming "the creatures had returned about 3:30 in the morning."
UFOlogists regard it as one of the most significant and well-documented cases in the history of UFO incidents, while skeptics say the reports were due to "the effects of excitement" and misidentification of natural phenomena such as meteors and owls. The United States Air Force classified the alleged incident as a hoax in the Project Blue Book files.
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