Speaker 1: You're listening to an air wave media podcast. I considered
Speaker 1: a lot of different ways to try to start this story. Finally,
Speaker 1: I decided to just read straight from what many people
Speaker 1: consider to be the definitive ride up of the subject
Speaker 1: matter for this episode. What follows is a brief excerpt
Speaker 1: from Close Encounter at Kelly by Isabel Davis. Late in
Speaker 1: August nineteen fifty five, newspapers and radios all over the
Speaker 1: country carried a UFO sty which is still one of
Speaker 1: the most bizarre incidents on record, the alleged landing of
Speaker 1: the little Green Men of Hopkinsville. The description was far
Speaker 1: from accurate. They were not green, they were certainly not men,
Speaker 1: and they were seen not at Hopkinsville, but some seven
Speaker 1: miles north at Kelly, Kentucky. The stories were approximately as follows.
Speaker 1: Shortly after sunset on the evening of Sunday, August twenty first,
Speaker 1: a saucer landed in a field behind a farmhouse occupied
Speaker 1: by a family named Sutton, and soon thereafter a group
Speaker 1: of little men. In some newspapers, an army of little
Speaker 1: men approached the farmhouse. The creatures were about three feet tall,
Speaker 1: with oversized heads, huge luminous yellow eyes, big ears, long arms,
Speaker 1: and big hands ending in talons. They glowed all over
Speaker 1: with the silvery luminescence, and they seemed to float rather
Speaker 1: than walk. For three or four hours they besieged the farmhouse.
Speaker 1: Shotguns and rifles fired at them had no effect. About
Speaker 1: eleven o'clock, the terrified family fled the farmhouse in two automobiles,
Speaker 1: driving as fast as they could travel to the police
Speaker 1: station in Hopkinsville for help City police, county police, State police,
Speaker 1: military police from nearby Fort Campbell, The Hopkinsville newspaper photographer
Speaker 1: and other investigators drove to the farm and searched the house,
Speaker 1: the yard, and the fields, but found no concrete evidence
Speaker 1: to support the family story. When the investigators left between
Speaker 1: one and two o'clock in the morning, they were understandably skeptical.
Speaker 2: Half an hour or so after they had.
Speaker 1: Gone, the little men returned again. They approached the house again.
Speaker 1: They were impervious to bullets. Shortly before sunrise they disappeared
Speaker 1: for good. It's actually quite unlike anything we've ever seen before.
Speaker 3: A giant, very creature in part apart in Luckness, a
Speaker 3: twenty four a mile long bottomless lake in the Highlands
Speaker 3: of Scotland get the creature known as the Luckness Monster.
Speaker 1: Monstertal. Welcome to Monster Talk, the science show about monsters.
Speaker 1: I'm Blake Smith. My co host Karen stoles No was
Speaker 1: out this week, but'll be back soon. The Kelly Hopkinsville
Speaker 1: case has many names. Variants containing Kelly Hopkinsville, Kentucky Goblins, Spacemen,
Speaker 1: tub men, and little green Men can be found all
Speaker 1: over the UFO, monster and paranormal literature. I personally like
Speaker 1: referring to this as the Kentucky Goblins or the Kelly
Speaker 1: Goblins case, or referring to the whole thing as the
Speaker 1: k H Case. I had been intending to cover the story,
Speaker 1: but had put it off because I wanted to get
Speaker 1: time to dive into it and get back to as
Speaker 1: many primary sources as I could. Like a lot of
Speaker 1: monster stories, over time, the tale of the Kelly Goblins
Speaker 1: has changed, and it has been dramatized, rewritten, and distilled
Speaker 1: by retellings into something that may be a little or
Speaker 1: even a lot removed from what went down that night
Speaker 1: in August of nineteen fifty five. I should talk about
Speaker 1: my sources for this episode. Much of the information available
Speaker 1: about this case comes from an impressive document compiled by
Speaker 1: the Civilian Saucer Intelligence Group. They were a band of
Speaker 1: investigators founded in New York who tried to research the
Speaker 1: field of UFOs from the time the phenomena began until
Speaker 1: about nineteen fifty nine. Two of their lead investigators were
Speaker 1: Isabel Davis and Ted Blecker. That's spelled Bloe c R.
Speaker 1: And there may be other pronunciations, but the only folks
Speaker 1: I was able to find with that name here in
Speaker 1: Georgia say it like Blecker, so I'm going to go
Speaker 1: with that.
Speaker 2: Ted and Isabel's report.
Speaker 1: Is available online as a PDF that's in our show
Speaker 1: notes at MonsterTalk dot.
Speaker 2: Org as well.
Speaker 1: In addition to that, I also looked at contemporary news reports,
Speaker 1: some provided to me by listener Chris Henderson.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Chris.
Speaker 1: I'll put a lot of links to these references in
Speaker 1: the show notes.
Speaker 2: This is the first episode we've covered.
Speaker 1: Where I'm genuinely nervous about getting all the details right,
Speaker 1: and that's because there's so many details and so many
Speaker 1: weird little variants out there that it's really tricky to
Speaker 1: be accurate. But I'm going to do my best, and
Speaker 1: if it turns out to make any mistakes, here. I'll
Speaker 1: try to correct them in the follow up episodes because
Speaker 1: this story has some sprawl to it. But keep in
Speaker 1: mind there are conflicting bits of information in all these sources.
Speaker 1: So let's begin by talking about the setting. I had
Speaker 1: to pick make sure in my mind of where this
Speaker 1: event took place. I'd always heard it described as taking
Speaker 1: place in rural Kentucky on a tiny farm, but it
Speaker 1: wasn't as far away from town as i'd imagine. The
Speaker 1: farm lay about eight miles north of Hopkinsville and closer
Speaker 1: to Kelly, Kentucky. Kelly's a small town. It was a
Speaker 1: small town then and it still is a small town now.
Speaker 1: It's unincorporated and I could find no census data for it,
Speaker 1: though at the time it was reported to have about
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty residents. Hopkinsville was much larger.
Speaker 2: In nineteen fifty five.
Speaker 1: It had a population close to twenty thousand according to
Speaker 1: census data, or about twenty six thousand according to the
Speaker 1: incident report from the civilian saucer intelligence investigator who wrote
Speaker 1: this case up, and that was about ten months after
Speaker 1: the events. Now, if you're from a big city, that
Speaker 1: may not sound like a big place, but I'm from Cartersville, Georgia, Salute.
Speaker 1: And when I was a kid, we had about forty
Speaker 1: thousand people in our county and about ten thousand people
Speaker 1: lived in town. So Hopkinsville was at least twice as
Speaker 1: populated as my hometown was. And it didn't feel small,
Speaker 1: but it was. And so we're about seven to eight
Speaker 1: miles north of a pretty good sized southern town here
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty five, one with a large military base
Speaker 1: as well. This farm where all this took place, lay
Speaker 1: close to Highway forty one, across a train track, and
Speaker 1: off the old gravel road which forty one had replaced,
Speaker 1: called the old Madisonville Road. Again, I find an eerie
Speaker 1: similarity as I grew up across the service road from
Speaker 1: Highway forty one myself. Only my house was in Georgia.
Speaker 1: But unlike the family and this poor farmhouse, I grew
Speaker 1: up with indoor plumbing and lots of electric lights, a radio,
Speaker 1: and a TV. Not so for the folks here in
Speaker 1: our story. This little Kentucky farmhouse was unpainted, wood shaded
Speaker 1: by maple trees, surrounded by bare dirt under the trees,
Speaker 1: and weaves where the sun would let them grow. The
Speaker 1: farm had one bedroom with two beds, a living room
Speaker 1: with two beds, a little kitchen with a little refrigerator,
Speaker 1: but no radio or phone. Inside were a few electric
Speaker 1: light bulbs described as being low powered, and also a
Speaker 1: light on the front and back entrances to the house.
Speaker 1: These were so meager, I'm not sure they could be
Speaker 1: described as porches. The farm itself grew tobacco and vegetables
Speaker 1: to feed the family, and there were some live stock,
Speaker 1: And there was a lot of family packed into the
Speaker 1: small rooms of that farmhouse.
Speaker 2: I'll let Miss.
Speaker 1: Davis's words introduce us to the folks who were there
Speaker 1: that night. It remains to sort out the cast of characters.
Speaker 1: On the evening of Sunday, August twenty first, nineteen fifty five,
Speaker 1: the farmhouse was occupied by eight adults and three children,
Speaker 1: as follows, Missus Glennie Langford, age fifty, the widow of
Speaker 1: Oscar Langford, her second husband, Elmer Lucky Sutton twenty five.
Speaker 1: Missus Langford's son by her first husband deceased, Tillman Sutton
Speaker 1: Vera Sutton twenty nine, his wife j C. Or John
Speaker 1: Charlie Sutton twenty one, Missus Langford's son by her first husband,
Speaker 1: Aileen Sutton twenty seven, his wife three children, Lennie Langford
Speaker 1: age twelve, Charlton Langford aged ten, and Mary Langford age seven.
Speaker 1: Billy Ray Taylor age twenty one, a friend of Lucky's
Speaker 1: June Taylor eighteen, his wife op Baker, who was thirty
Speaker 1: or thirty five and was the brother of Aileen Sutton.
Speaker 1: Op Baker lived in Hopkinsville, but often stayed overnight at
Speaker 1: the farmhouse, where the person with whom he wrote to
Speaker 1: work could pick him up more conveniently than in town.
Speaker 1: So the permanent residence of the farm where Missus Langford,
Speaker 1: the J. C. Suttons and the three children, but the
Speaker 1: Taylors and the Elmer Suttons had been staying there for
Speaker 1: some months. These two couples had been traveling with a carnival,
Speaker 1: and we need to introduce the guns. There were four
Speaker 1: firearms in the house, three of which were said to
Speaker 1: have been used. There was a twenty gauge single barreled
Speaker 1: shotgun wielded by J. C.
Speaker 2: Sutton.
Speaker 1: There was a twelve gage shotgun used by Lucky Sutton.
Speaker 1: There was a twenty two rifle used by Billy Ray Taylor.
Speaker 1: According to Davis, and there was a twenty two pistol
Speaker 1: which was unused according to Davis, but was used by
Speaker 1: Taylor according to the local newspaper. I'm inclined to think
Speaker 1: this was a mistake on the paper's part. These little
Speaker 1: differences come up. But let's get onto the monsters. Well, actually,
Speaker 1: in this case, we need to start with the flying
Speaker 1: sauce her In nineteen fifty five, there were a lot
Speaker 1: of strange creatures landing on the earth if you believed
Speaker 1: the reports. The Davis Blecker Report actually starts out with
Speaker 1: the summary of the state of UFO claims. Since the
Speaker 1: first flying saucer reports in nineteen forty seven, by nineteen fifty,
Speaker 1: sightings of saucers and crafts with occupants were popping up
Speaker 1: around the US and the world, and more than a
Speaker 1: dozen example cases are listed, including the famous Flat Woods Monster,
Speaker 1: which has several aspects in common with the Kelly Goblins.
Speaker 1: In other words, while this was the first flying saucer
Speaker 1: with occupants reported on this farm in Kentucky, it was
Speaker 1: not the first such report to blow up in the media.
Speaker 1: Around sunset that day, Billy Ray Taylor was going out
Speaker 1: to get some well water and came back to the house,
Speaker 1: seeing he'd seen the spaceship land in the gully behind
Speaker 1: the house. Billy Ray was not trustworthy according to the
Speaker 1: day of his report, and she includes several examples of
Speaker 1: him giving outlandish testimony only to have to walk it back. Apparently,
Speaker 1: the rest of the Sutton in the Langfords didn't even
Speaker 1: bother to go look when he said he'd seen a
Speaker 1: flying ship with rainbow exhaust landing out back. The sun
Speaker 1: set around seven thirty pm on this hot August night.
Speaker 1: A little after dark, the dog began to bark and
Speaker 1: hid under the house. Lucky Sutton and Billy Ray Taylor
Speaker 1: went out to look and see what was caused in
Speaker 1: the ruckous. There they saw a strange thing approaching the house. Again,
Speaker 1: we'll refer to Davis's report where she describes what Sutton
Speaker 1: and Taylor saw approaching from the fields was a strange glow.
Speaker 1: As it came nearer, they could make out what seemed
Speaker 1: to be a small man, though a man not much
Speaker 1: like any they had ever seen before. He was about
Speaker 1: three and a half feet tall, with an oversized head
Speaker 1: that was almost perfectly round, and arms that extended almost
Speaker 1: to the ground. The huge hands had talons at the
Speaker 1: ends of the fingers. The eyes were much bigger than
Speaker 1: human eyes and glowed with a yellowish light. They were
Speaker 1: directed neither to the front nor to the side, but
Speaker 1: about midway between. The whole creature was seemingly made of
Speaker 1: silver metal that gave off an eerie light in the darkness,
Speaker 1: like the light from the radium dial on a watch.
Speaker 2: Fronted with this weird.
Speaker 1: Entity, they went for their guns. Lucky grabbed the twenty
Speaker 1: gauge and Billy Ray got the twenty two. The creature
Speaker 1: was approaching with his hands raised, but when they got
Speaker 1: within twenty feet of the back door, they both fired
Speaker 1: at it. They said it flipped and then scurried away
Speaker 1: into the darkness. The men went to the living room
Speaker 1: to join the women and saw a creature in the window.
Speaker 1: They fired through a screen at it. This point gets
Speaker 1: a little confusing by now J. C. Sutton is also armed,
Speaker 1: apparently with the twenty gage shotgun, which I assume means
Speaker 1: that Lucky's now switched to the twelve gauge.
Speaker 2: JC fires through.
Speaker 1: The screen no more than two feet from the window
Speaker 1: at the thing outside. Billy Ray also fires with the
Speaker 1: twenty two. Let's return to Davis to describe what happens next,
Speaker 1: the men decided to go outdoors and see whether they
Speaker 1: had actually hit the creature. As they started out the
Speaker 1: front door, there occurred one of the most talked about
Speaker 1: and terrifying incidents of the story. Taylor went through the
Speaker 1: doorway first. As he stood under the small overhanging roof
Speaker 1: about to step down into the yard, those behind him
Speaker 1: in the hall saw a claw like hand reach down
Speaker 1: to touch his hair. They screamed at him, and the
Speaker 1: lean suddenly seized him to pull him back into the house. Lucky,
Speaker 1: close behind Taylor, pushed past him into the yard, turned
Speaker 1: the twelve gates, shotgun up towards the creature on the overhang,
Speaker 1: fired and knocked it over the roof. There's one up
Speaker 1: in the tree too, Billy Ray said. It was on
Speaker 1: the limb of the maple tree to the right as
Speaker 1: you leave the house. Both Lucky and Taylor shot at
Speaker 1: that one, knocking him off the limb. He floated to
Speaker 1: the ground. They shot at him again, and he too,
Speaker 1: scurried off into the weeds. Almost at the same time,
Speaker 1: around the northwest corner of the house, right in front
Speaker 1: of Lucky came another one or the same one that
Speaker 1: had been knocked off the ridgepole. Lucky shoots at that
Speaker 1: one it close range with a twelve gage, and it
Speaker 1: just flips and scurries away again. Apparently befuddled by the
Speaker 1: ineffectiveness of the weapons. The men retreated to the house
Speaker 1: to decide the next course of action. The matriarch of
Speaker 1: the house, Missus Langford, points out that the creatures, whatever
Speaker 1: they are, haven't harmed anyone. All of this first wave
Speaker 1: activity is more than a little bit confusing. Davis describes
Speaker 1: what happens next understandably the sequence of events was and
Speaker 1: remains confused. No one was keeping a log. Missus Langford,
Speaker 1: for example, when interviewed by mister Andre in nineteen fifty nine,
Speaker 1: thought the incident of Taylor's hair being touched a curt
Speaker 1: around ten thirty pm. She said that at first she
Speaker 1: did not pay attention to the boys, thinking they were
Speaker 1: only joking and shooting for the fun of it. She
Speaker 1: and the other women were busy with the supper dishes
Speaker 1: and putting the children to bed. We thought the boys
Speaker 1: were only kidding. Although they were coming into the house
Speaker 1: and telling about seeing and shooting at the things. I
Speaker 1: did not take them seriously until about ten o'clock when
Speaker 1: Aileen came in terrified, white, nervous, shaking, saying that she
Speaker 1: had seen one of the little men. She was terribly upset,
Speaker 1: and her nervousness continued for several days. I suggested to
Speaker 1: the boys that we turned the lights out, which we did.
Speaker 1: I decided then to see just what it was they
Speaker 1: were seeing. I went out into the hallway and crouched
Speaker 1: down next to Billy and asked him, now, just what
Speaker 1: have you been seeing? He replied, way, and you'll see.
Speaker 1: We remained crouched down about three feet from the screen
Speaker 1: door the front door for about twenty minutes. When I
Speaker 1: saw one approaching the door. Billy and I remained crouching
Speaker 1: until it came right up to the screen. It looked
Speaker 1: like a five gallon gasoline can with a head on
Speaker 1: top and small legs. It was shimmering bright metal, like
Speaker 1: on my refrigerator. I tried to get up from my
Speaker 1: crouched position to move back further from the door. I
Speaker 1: did not make it, as I am heavy and my
Speaker 1: legs have become stiff from remaining in a crouch position
Speaker 1: a long time and being in the dark. I lost
Speaker 1: my balance and fell flat on the floor, making a
Speaker 1: thud like noise and letting out a shriek. At the
Speaker 1: same time, the thing jumped back into the yard and
Speaker 1: Billy shot at it right through the screen. That would
Speaker 1: be Billy Ray Taylor, who was using the twenty two,
Speaker 1: which is a very.
Speaker 2: Small caliber rifle.
Speaker 1: By eleven PM, the family had enough and they piled
Speaker 1: into two vehicles and headed a high speed for the
Speaker 1: Hopkinsville Police Department. They arrived at the station and explained
Speaker 1: their situation. Whether or not the police literally believed every
Speaker 1: word being told them by their family members, they could
Speaker 1: tell that the fear these people had was sincere. The
Speaker 1: Suttons would not return home until the police had given
Speaker 1: the all clear. For a few hours, the farm swarmed
Speaker 1: with policemen, a few interested onlookers, some military police that
Speaker 1: were on duty that night in Hopkinsville, a newspaper photographer,
Speaker 1: sheriff department officials, and eventually the Suttons. The police didn't
Speaker 1: find any silvery spacemen or any feathers, nor blood, nor
Speaker 1: liquor bottles. They did find a few spent shells, a
Speaker 1: few beer cans, and they spent some time calming the
Speaker 1: family down to the point that when they left everyone
Speaker 1: tried to get some sleep. This was about two am.
Speaker 1: Around two thirty am, the matriarch, Missus Langford, looked up
Speaker 1: and saw one of the glowing figures in the window.
Speaker 2: She alerted Lucky, and after.
Speaker 1: Some protestation from her, he fired at it through the window.
Speaker 1: This apparently had no effect. The creatures continued to be
Speaker 1: intermittently spotted until about four forty five am that morning.
Speaker 1: This was the last time they were seen on the farm,
Speaker 1: but the family story.
Speaker 2: Was about to blow up.
Speaker 1: The next day, despite being sleep deprived, Lucky Sutton and
Speaker 1: Billy Ray drove eighty miles away on some errand or
Speaker 1: another that had to do with delivering a truck or
Speaker 1: possibly delivering furniture. It's a little bit unclear, but the
Speaker 1: rest of the family started having to deal with the
Speaker 1: curious and the days that followed, newspaper and radio coverage
Speaker 1: told of the war with the Little Green men on
Speaker 1: the Kentucky farm. Curious onlookers just descended on the land,
Speaker 1: looking for monsters, looking for evidence, looking to make fun
Speaker 1: of people, looking for who knows what, but they would
Speaker 1: not go away. By the time the crowds finally dispersed.
Speaker 1: The Sutton family had not made any money, they were ridiculed,
Speaker 1: and they generally seemed to have been ill treated by
Speaker 1: the community, at least as far as the court of
Speaker 1: public opinion goes, and in the respect of privacy, one
Speaker 1: might be due when having suffered some kind of traumatic experience.
Speaker 1: When Isabel Davis came to Hopkins Filter research the report
Speaker 1: that became close encounter at Kelly, she was hoping to
Speaker 1: talk to the original witnesses. What she found was that
Speaker 1: the family had grown quite sullen and read to talk
Speaker 1: about the case. This seems unremarkable given the treatment they
Speaker 1: had at the hands of their own community. Davis was
Speaker 1: able to talk to missus Langford, but also to many
Speaker 1: people who were involved in the investigation, including reporters, a
Speaker 1: deputy sheriff, the police chief, state troopers, relatives of the family.
Speaker 1: He knew many details and Whop radio engineer Bud Ledworth,
Speaker 1: who had conducted interviews and made drawings of what the
Speaker 1: witnesses described shortly after the events took place. Led with
Speaker 1: sketches are the iconic images which most people recognize as
Speaker 1: the true shape of these goblins. This show is monster
Speaker 1: Talk and I'd be lying if I didn't admit that
Speaker 1: I'm mostly interested in the goblins in this story, more
Speaker 1: so than any other mysterious phenomena that kicked off events.
Speaker 1: But we need to talk about that. The story all
Speaker 1: starts when Billy Ray Taylor comes into the Suton Hoouse
Speaker 1: claiming he had seen a spaceship land in the gully outback. Taylor,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned at least in the days report, comes
Speaker 1: across as an unreliable witness. That being said, there were
Speaker 1: meteors seen that night. The kapp of Signets meteor shower
Speaker 1: had just peaked a few days before. Whether these meteors
Speaker 1: were from that shower, I don't know, but other witnesses
Speaker 1: did see them. But if those other witnesses saw streaks
Speaker 1: of light, why did Billy ray Taylor claim he saw
Speaker 1: a craft shooting rainbow exhaust I've linked to close Encounter
Speaker 1: a Kelly in our show notes, and you can read
Speaker 1: through it yourself if you're curious. It's a very interesting
Speaker 1: detailed account. One thing that will stick out through the
Speaker 1: whole thing is that it's written in the time when
Speaker 1: the belief in saucers was very much a popular item.
Speaker 1: I'd suggest you check out our coverage of the long
Speaker 1: John nevill radio show back on episode one oh nine.
Speaker 2: This was the time when.
Speaker 1: Talk of saucers filled the late night airwaves of New York,
Speaker 1: and Davis and Blecker were keenly interested in the topic.
Speaker 1: While the report does eventually get down to the creatures
Speaker 1: and experiences of the Suttons, it does so well placed
Speaker 1: in the context that this was the time when the
Speaker 1: country was experiencing a very large interest in saucers and
Speaker 1: their occupants.
Speaker 2: I actually just.
Speaker 1: Changed the word to occupants instead of aliens, because whether
Speaker 1: these saucers came out of outer space, are inner space
Speaker 1: or other space was and still is a big debate
Speaker 1: among interested parties. We'll talk about that in our subsequent episode.
Speaker 1: I wish Karen was here with me to discuss this,
Speaker 1: because it's definitely more fun to review these topics as
Speaker 1: a conversation. This is a bit of a side here,
Speaker 1: but I'm gonna go ahead and mention it and then
Speaker 1: get back to these pesky goblins in order to prepare
Speaker 1: a monster talk, and honestly, in just in keeping with
Speaker 1: a lifelong passion for the weird, the bizarre, and the unusual,
Speaker 1: I listen to and consume a lot of paranormal literature
Speaker 1: and media. One show I enjoy a lot is the
Speaker 1: podcast Astonishing Legends, which is hosted by Scott Philbrook and
Speaker 1: Forrest Burgess. They recently did a three part coverage of
Speaker 1: the Kelly Hopkins Fiell Goblins, and part of why our
Speaker 1: coverage of this case will likely be three episodes as
Speaker 1: well is because of some things that got covered in
Speaker 1: their conclusion. We'll get to that, and I'm in discussion
Speaker 1: with Scott and Forrest to try and have them on
Speaker 1: to talk about it, and I believe we'll manage that.
Speaker 2: Pretty soon as well.
Speaker 1: It turned into a very interesting lesson for me as
Speaker 1: a science advocate and a proponent of critical thinking. I
Speaker 1: believe a positive outcome has happened and that further positive
Speaker 1: outcomes will happen as a result of these conversations. I'm
Speaker 1: also planning to have the skeptic most noted for working
Speaker 1: on this case on to talk about his findings, so
Speaker 1: you can expect to hear from Joe Nickel on this
Speaker 1: as well. I mentioned this because I really want to
Speaker 1: get back to my planned agenda, which is which is
Speaker 1: in vampires in the History of Magic, but for now,
Speaker 1: Let's get back to goblins. Let's talk about these Kentucky goblins.
Speaker 1: You've got men and women and children in a dimly
Speaker 1: lit tin roof farmhouse looking out a screen window and
Speaker 1: a screen door. The men also see the thing from
Speaker 1: outside the house from their barely lit exterior out into
Speaker 1: the darkness of the Kentucky night, and they shoot at
Speaker 1: it from both inside and outside the house. Shortly after
Speaker 1: the events, the witnesses help a sketch artist draw what
Speaker 1: they saw. I'll put that image in the show notes.
Speaker 1: But the drawings of a roundheaded, big eyed, twenty year
Speaker 1: talent handed creature. It was described in several ways, and
Speaker 1: actually multiple witnesses gave their information to the sketch artists
Speaker 1: and he produced multiple drawings, but they're all very closely aligned,
Speaker 1: except for Billy Ray, who wanted to add antenna and
Speaker 1: a nose on his. They are described as being three
Speaker 1: and a half feet tall, with an oversized head that
Speaker 1: was almost perfectly round, as we mentioned, and arms that
Speaker 1: extended almost to the ground, and huge hands with talons
Speaker 1: at the ends. Their feet are rarely mentioned, and I
Speaker 1: thought this detail at the end. The whole creature was
Speaker 1: seemingly made of silver metal that gave off eerie light
Speaker 1: in the darkness, like the light from a radium dial
Speaker 1: of a watch. If that was the description that was
Speaker 1: given to reporters, it may be the source of the
Speaker 1: little green men take on the creature radium does glow
Speaker 1: green on watched hands. But it's important to note that
Speaker 1: the phrase little green men was already in general use
Speaker 1: in the public.
Speaker 2: It had been for a long time.
Speaker 1: It's possible that reporters just inserted that as sort of
Speaker 1: a handle for talking about the mysterious creatures.
Speaker 2: Around the turn of the century.
Speaker 1: The phrase appears in children's stories to refer to sprites
Speaker 1: or other mysterious humanoids of fairylands, and it's also associated
Speaker 1: with saucers before the Kelly case. Regardless, none of the
Speaker 1: original witnesses ever called them little green men or even
Speaker 1: described them as green.
Speaker 2: As far as I can tell, they.
Speaker 1: Were described as floating or gliding. One perched on the
Speaker 1: short shed roof over the back door. One floated into
Speaker 1: a tree I believe at one point, one glides and
Speaker 1: perches on a fence. On being shot, the creatures flip
Speaker 1: over and then ran or glide away. The eyes are
Speaker 1: described as large and without pupils. It was theorized in
Speaker 1: the Davis report that they were avoiding light. Davis mentions
Speaker 1: that perhaps without pupils they can't handle bright light, and
Speaker 1: I believe it was Missus Langford who said that she
Speaker 1: thought they might have been avoiding the lights around the house.
Speaker 1: They walked with their hands up in the don't shoot position,
Speaker 1: which could be pointed out was not effective if that
Speaker 1: was their goal. Their legs were described as spinly as
Speaker 1: broom handles. They were described as inflexible and unbending, like stilts.
Speaker 1: The creatures were described as glowing, but when the light
Speaker 1: was turned on them they were flashlights being used that
Speaker 1: night by the Suttons. The glow would disappear and the
Speaker 1: creatures appeared metallic.
Speaker 2: When they crawled on.
Speaker 1: The tin roof, they scraped the metal with their claws.
Speaker 1: They weren't described as hostile. Missus Langford said they never
Speaker 1: tried to harm anyone, but they were shot at.
Speaker 2: I like this description. She said.
Speaker 1: It looked like a five gallon gas can with a
Speaker 1: head on top and small legs. It was shimmering bright
Speaker 1: metal like on my refrigerator. That is such an interesting visual.
Speaker 1: It was also described as looking like a metal washtub.
Speaker 1: In some newspaper stories even refer to the creatures as.
Speaker 2: The tub men.
Speaker 1: Whatever it was they saw that night, The police and
Speaker 1: other investigators could find no physical evidence that night are
Speaker 1: the next day, but even the people who were skeptical
Speaker 1: of the metallic goblins agreed that the Suttons couldn't be
Speaker 1: faking their terror on that hot August night. So what
Speaker 1: did they see that night in Kentucky?
Speaker 2: Did they see anything at all? We'll have to continue
Speaker 2: our discussion of.
Speaker 1: This case in part two of our coverage of American Goblins.
Speaker 1: I don't want to leave you with a total cliffhanger,
Speaker 1: but I also don't plan for you to have to
Speaker 1: wait very long for part two of this story. We'll
Speaker 1: be back very soon with a look at how skeptics, believers,
Speaker 1: and debunkers view this case. I believe you'll find it
Speaker 1: very interesting. Also, I'm going to be conducting a little
Speaker 1: experiment this week in to try and duplicate one of
Speaker 1: the bits of physical evidence from the story. If anything
Speaker 1: useful comes from that, I'll share it in the next
Speaker 1: episode as well, and hopefully there'll be some photos or
Speaker 1: video to post on the Monster Talk Facebook page Monster.
Speaker 1: You've been listening to Monster Talk, the science show about monsters.
Speaker 1: I'm Blake Smith, and this was part one of our
Speaker 1: multi part coverage of the Kelly Hopkins Fille Goblin attack
Speaker 1: of nineteen fifty five. Whether the Goblin's attacked, or We're attacked,
Speaker 1: or were even goblins will be covered more in the
Speaker 1: next installment of this series. I hope you'll return for that.
Speaker 1: We also have some fun episodes planned about witches and
Speaker 1: other creepy Halloween themed critters coming soon. Monster Talk is
Speaker 1: an official podcast of Skeptic Magazine. The opinions expressed on
Speaker 1: this episode are mine.
Speaker 2: Just mine.
Speaker 1: They don't necessarily reflect the opinion of Skeptic Magazine or
Speaker 1: the Skeptic Society, but if you'd like to find out
Speaker 1: their official opinions, you can check out their magazine at
Speaker 1: your local newsstand. Do people actually still have newsstands? I
Speaker 1: honestly don't know. I see them in movies. I don't
Speaker 1: know anyway. Due to some recent events, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to run the full ad for the October convention for
Speaker 1: the Center for Skeptical Inquiry, but that event is still
Speaker 1: happening at the end of October, and you can learn
Speaker 1: more about it at CSI Conference dot org. It looks
Speaker 1: like a lot of fun and if you do happen
Speaker 1: to go, please tell Joe Nichol hello.
Speaker 2: He will appreciate it.
Speaker 4: We hope you've enjoyed this episode of Monster Talk. Each
Speaker 4: episode we strive to bring you the best in monster
Speaker 4: related content, with a focus on bringing scientific skepticism into
Speaker 4: the conversation. If you enjoy Monster Talk, we now have
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Speaker 4: A great way to support the show is to buy
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Speaker 2: Good Lord.
Speaker 1: The stack of books I have to read, but I
Speaker 1: am so thankful for all your support.
Speaker 2: You listeners are awesome.
Speaker 1: I know I'm a skeptic, but I just want to
Speaker 1: say it anyway. As a skeptic, I don't believe in much,
Speaker 1: but I believe in you. Thanks for being there for
Speaker 1: me and Karen. We really appreciate it. Monster Talk theme
Speaker 1: music is by Peach Stealing Monkeys.
Speaker 2: Thanks again for listening.
Speaker 3: Hungry for more skepticism Want to learn the truth about
Speaker 3: the scientific controversies of our time, then subscribe to Skeptic,
Speaker 3: the quarterly magazine Stephen J. Gould called the best journal
Speaker 3: in the field. To subscribe, visit skeptic dot com. I'm
Speaker 3: today and.
Speaker 1: A little kitchen with a little refrigerator. Good Lord, listen
Speaker 1: to me.