Ep 81: The Kelly–Hopkinsville Encounter Part 3
Detail from Tim Bertelink's Artist Impression of the Kelly-Hopkinsville "goblin." Image used under CC BY-SA 4.0 license.
"In and around the whole area, the house, the fields, that night, there was a weird feeling. It was partly uneasiness, but not entirely. Everyone had it. There were men there that I'd call brave men, men I've been in dangerous situations with. They felt it too. They've told me so."
– Hopkinsville Police Chief, Russell Greenwell
Approximate location of the Sutton family farmhouse on Old Madisonville Road, in the unincorporated area of Kelly, about 8 miles north of Hopkinsville, KY
BACKGROUND:
It's easy to dismiss the entire Kelly-Hopkinsville Encounter as the booze-fueled fantasy of a bunch of backward hicks who can't tell the difference between a goblin and an owl, or maybe you think it was an outrageous hoax perpetrated for cash. But before you begin telling people what they saw, or make assumptions based on character or class, just remember: unless you were there, you weren't there. These people didn't ask for this incident to happen to them, and they especially didn't ask for the notoriety or ridicule that followed. What the authorities at the time believed, and what many skeptics agree on in hindsight, is that the Sutton and Taylor families were genuinely terrified of something real, and yet even the most seasoned paranormal researcher can't definitively say by what or by whom. So maybe your educated reasoning doesn't allow for the possibility of otherworldly creatures? Well, that's fine, it's a natural human desire to make sense of the impossibilities of our strange world with rationalizations that we can comfortably live with. But as you do so, keep one more thing in mind: you can spend years or a whole lifetime developing and refining your rationale for disbelief, but it only takes one undeniable, paranormal experience to make you a believer.
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Reference Links:
The KH Incident 62 years later and the Eclipse, video segment from WDRB News
"Hoptown" or "The Hop" i.e. Hopkinsville prepares for the eclipse
Siege of ‘Little Green Men’: The 1955 Kelly, Kentucky, Incident by Joe Nickell on the CSI website
The Kelly-Hopkinsville Encounter by Brian Dunning on the Skeptoid website
"The Owl Whisperer" YouTube video – WARNING: FOWL, er FOUL LANGUAGE!
SONG: Elvis Costello's What's So Funny 'bout Peace, Love and Understanding?
The KH incident from the Graphic Novel: Encountering Aliens: Eyewitness Accounts by Chris Kincade
The "Chinese Whispers" game, or as it's known in the US, "The Telephone Game"
Police urge people to report crop circle damage in Wiltshire, UK
Natives not being able to see Captain Cook/Columbus/Magellan's ships
Discussion on Snopes about natives not being able to see western sailing ships
Kelly Hopkinsville Geographic Information Systems PDF Map 1 by ARC Member Cody Rice
Kelly Hopkinsville Geographic Information Systems PDF Map 2 by ARC Member Cody Rice
Kelly Hopkinsville Geographic Information Systems PDF Map 3 by ARC Member Cody Rice
Close Encounter at Kelly and Others of 1955 by Isabel Davis and Ted Bloecher (PDF)
Original report from the Kentucky New Era newspaper, Monday, August 22, 1955
Another UFO report from Garrard Co. Kentucky, October 9, 1955, from the Albuquerque Journal
Kelly Little Green Men Days Festival, August 18–21, 2017, Kelly-Hopkinsville, KY
NASA's event bulletin board about the 2017 Total Solar Eclipse
Where, when and how to see the Total Solar Eclipse on Space.com
Could Kelly's "Little Green Men" return with the coming Total Solar Eclipse?
The Kelly-Hopkinsville Incident article by Joe Nickell on the CSI website
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Credits:
Episode 81: The Kelly-Hopkinsville Incident, Part 3. Produced by Scott Philbrook & Forrest Burgess; Audio Editing by Sarah Vorhees; Ryan McCullough Sound Design; Research Assistance by Tess Pfeifle and the astonishing League of Astonishing Researchers, a.k.a. The Astonishing Research Corps, or "A.R.C." for short. Copyright 2017 Astonishing Legends Productions, LLC. All Rights Reserved.