The Night of the Little Green Men
On the night of August 21, 1955, in rural Kentucky, the Sutton family farmhouse became the site of a terrifying siege. Elmer Sutton and Billy Ray Taylor rushed into the local police station, pale and shaking, claiming their house was being attacked by “small alien creatures.” Police officers, initially skeptical, followed them back to the farm, where they found evidence of a gun battle-bullet holes in the screens and walls-and a family paralyzed by fear.
Bulletproof Visitors
The witnesses described the creatures as three feet tall, with oversized heads, large pointed ears, and glowing yellow eyes. Their arms nearly touched the ground, and their legs seemed atrophied. When the men shot at them with a shotgun and a .22 rifle, the bullets reportedly pinged off the creatures as if they were made of metal. The beings would simply flip backward and float away, only to return minutes later.
- The Floating Beings: The creatures didn’t walk; they floated. One famously reached down from the roof to grab a family member by the hair.
- Great Horned Owls? Skeptics later argued the family had been fighting Great Horned Owls protecting their nest. The “glow” was reflection from flashlights, and the “metallic sound” was bullets hitting the belt buckles or the house itself.
- The Psychological Impact: The family moved away the very next day. They never sought fame or money, and until their deaths, they swore the event was real.
The Legacy: The Kelly-Hopkinsville encounter is cited as the origin of the “Little Green Men” trope in pop culture. It remains one of the few UFO cases where physical evidence (the shootout) and multiple credible witnesses (including police who saw strange lights) converge.