August 21st, Not only the Eclipse, but a UFO Anniversary as Well
August 21st Eclipse, Colorado Springs
August 21st, 2017 was a great day for the USA, we put aside our personal politics, and came together for one awesome solar eclipse event. Here in Colorado, we experienced 90% totality, but our friends next door in Wyoming, got to see the “Big Show”. I experienced my eclipse event, using my older eight inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope with an eight inch solar filter cap. It was 90 percent of totality awesome! But during the event, it reminded me about past solar and lunar events, where UFO’s were spotted. Some people believe these events spark UFO activity, but I believe it’s just because more people are looking towards the sky’s, and see something unusual. But August 21st, also reminded me of a very interesting UFO-related event that happened back on August 21st, 1955, where farmers came head to head with extraterrestrials.
The 37th Parallel: Kelly/Hopkinsville, Kentucky, Alien Encounter, August 1955.
It all started on August 21st, 1955 when five adults and seven children went to the Hopkinsville police station to report a close encounter with extraterrestrials which involved gun fire. They claimed earlier in the evening, small aliens, who had landed their spaceship nearby the farm-house, were trying to get inside their home. For nearly four hours, two of the adults, Elmer Sutton and Bill Ray Taylor, stated they had been shooting at twelve to fifteen short dark creatures, trying to keep them away from their home.
Four city police, five state troopers, three deputy sheriffs, and four military police from nearby US Army Fort Campbell, drove to the Sutton farmhouse located near the town of Kelly, in Christian County, Kentucky to investigate. They found no evidence of extraterrestrials, but did find evidence a fire fight took place.
Wikipedia:
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, and their respective wives, Vera and Alene, Alene’s brother O.P. Baker, and Billy Ray Taylor and his wife June. Both the Taylors, “Lucky” and Vera Sutton were reportedly itinerant carnival workers that 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”.
The Encounter:
Billy Ray Taylor and his wife were visiting the Sutton farm that night, when Billy left the house to gather water from the Sutton family well. While getting the water, he watched a bright shining object land about a quarter of a mile from the farmhouse. Frightened, he ran back to the house explaining what he saw, but no one believed him at that time.
Shortly thereafter, strange things started happening. The family dog began to bark as if there was an intruder nearby, Lucky Sutton and Billy Ray went outside the farmhouse to investigate. They were both frightened when they saw a three to four-foot creature walking towards them with its hands up. They said the creature had large eyes, thin build, a long thin mouth, short legs, large ears and had claws at the end of its fingers. In fear, Billy Ray fired his .22 caliber rifle, and Lucky fired his shotgun towards the creature. The bullets had no effect on it, making a pinging sound as if it was wearing some type of metallic armor. The creature then fell backwards and headed back into the woods.
Kelly/Hopkinsville alien
Lucky and Billy Ray, ran back to the farmhouse fearing for their lives. No sooner had the two men reentered the home, that another creature appeared at the window. They shot at it, leaving a gun shot hole through the screen. They ran back outside to see if the creature was dead, but found no trace of it. Standing at the front of the house, the men were terrified when a clawed hand reached down from the roof trying to touch them. Again they shot at it, but the creature just slowly floated down to the ground, then took off towards the woods.
The two men ran back into the farmhouse, where they and their family appeared to be under siege. The creatures would periodically peer into the windows, surrounding the house. After several hours of taking pot shots and in fear for their lives, the family decided to make a break for it, scrambled to two vehicles, and headed for the police department.
After the police had visited the farmhouse and finding no evidence of the creatures, they left the area about 2:15am. As soon as they did, the creatures returned and began peering into the windows. More gun fire took place, but with no effect. Several more hours of intense confrontation took place, and finally just before daybreak, the creatures left.
On 08/22/55, the Kentucky “New Era” newspaper ran the story of the event, but several readers thought it to be a hoax.
Obviously something took place on that farm back in 1955. The Sutton family never made any money from the story and didn’t seek any publicity. All of them were questioned periodically and described the creatures and the events correctly. As the years passed, their story never changed or was exaggerated.
One note I need to make: While reading about this particular event throughout the years, at no time did I ever read the aliens tried to harm the occupants. They never used any type of weapon, while being shot at, and never tried to commit bodily harm to any family member. They appeared to be more curious than deadly. We the humans, appeared to be the aggressor. But in defense for the Sutton family, this was a very unusual, out of the ordinary, scary event. With all the space alien and UFO type movies in the theaters at that time, from “The Day the Earth Stood Still”, to “It Came from Outer Space”, and of course “War of the Worlds”, no wonder a farmer would fear for his and his family’s lives, and shoot first then ask questions later.
Movies can be positive for disclosure like with ET, and this year’s 40th anniversary, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but also equally negative, like with Aliens, and Predator.
Today, the 1955 event is celebrated with the “Kelly Little Green Men Days Festival” August, in Kelly, Kentucky. The annual Kelly Little Green Men Days Festival is 4 days of music, games, food, set in a family friendly environment. Similar to the other events like the Roswell Festival in July; Kelly, Kentucky doesn’t shy away from the 1955 event, but embraces it with a festival. Since 1955, sightings still occur of these Gremlin-like creatures, as recently as 2016, so this story is never going away.
Some References:
UFOcasebook Kelly-Hopkinsville
Wikipedia Hopkinsville Encounter
Kelly Festival
Category: In the News, The Z-Files
