best of the blog: the kelly goblins!

Monday, March 26, 2007

okay...

here's one of my favorite cryptid/alien tales.
i first read about the kelly goblins in dc/factoid books the big book of the unexplained--my favorite--and if you haven't dug up a copy fo this masterpiece for yourself, you're missin' out! also known as the hopkinsville goblins (and i've heard a few people refer to them as the "hopkinsville gremlins"...) in doing my usual searches for all things paranormal i found this great write up of it on wikipedia.

enjoy!


KELLY GOBLINS

On the evening of August 21, 1955, members of the Sutton family were entertaining a visiting friend, Billy Ray Taylor, at their farm house located near the towns of Kelly and Hopkinsville, Kentucky.

When Taylor went to an outside water pump for a drink at about 7.00 p.m., he observed strange lights in the sky to the west. He excitedly told the others about his "flying saucer" sighting, but no one believed him, instead thinking that he had become overly excited after seeing a vivid "shooting star". (Hendry, 190)

At about 8.00 p.m., the family dog began barking loudly, and then hid under the house, where it stayed for the entire event. Going outside a few minutes later, Billy Ray Taylor and Elmer "Lucky" Sutton then asserted that they saw a strange creature emerge from the nearby trees. Jerome Clark describes the creature as: a luminous, three-and-a-half-foot-tall being with an oversized head, big, floppy, pointed ears, glowing eyes, and hands with talons at their ends. The figure, either made of or simply dressed in silvery metal, had its hands raised. (Clark, 309-310)

When the creature approached to within about 20 feet of the Taylor home, the men began shooting at it, one using a shotgun, the other man using a .22 rifle. The creature, they said, then flipped over and fled into the darkness. Sure that they had wounded the creature, Lucky and Billy Ray went out to look for it. Hendry writes that as the men were stepping from the porch, "a taloned hand reached and touched his hair from above." (Hendry, 191) They shot at the creature -- it was perched on an awning over the porch -- and it was knocked from the roof.





Within minutes, Lucky's brother J.C. Sutton said that he saw the same (or a similar creature) peer into a window in the home; J.C. and Billy Ray shot at it, whereupon it too flipped over and fled.

For the next few hours, the witnesses would assert that the creatures repeatedly approached the home, only to be shot at each time they did. One time, the witnesses shot one of the beings nearly point blank, and would later insist that the sound resembled bullets striking a metal bucket. The floating creatures' legs seemed to be atrophied and nearly useless, and they appeared to propel themselves with a curious hip-swaying motion, steering with their arms. Clark writes that "[i]f the creatures were in a tree or on the roof when hit [by gunfire], they would float, not fall, to the ground." (Clark, 310)
Hendry writes that family matriarch "Mrs. Lankford … counseled an end to the hostilities," noting that the creatures had never seemed to try harming anyone. (Hendry, 191) Between appearances from the creatures, the family tried to temper the children's growing hysteria.





At about 11.00 p.m., the Taylor-Sutton crew decided to flee their home in automobiles; after about 30 minutes they arrived at the Hopkinsville police station. Police Chief Russell Greenwell judged the witnesses to have been frightened by something "beyond reason, not ordinary." (Clark, 311) He also opined "[t]hese were not the sort of people who normally ran to the police … something frightened them, something beyond their comprehension." A police officer with medical training determined that Billy Ray's pulse rate was more than twice normal (Clark, 311)

There might have been partial corroboration of the Taylor-Sutton tale: at about 11 p.m., a state highway trooper near Kelly independently reported some unusual "meteors" flying overhead "with a sound like artillery fire." (Clark, 311)

Several police officers accompanied the Taylor-Suttons back to their home, and according to Daniels et al, "[t]he official response was prompt and thorough." (Daniels et. al, 65) In 1998, Karal Ayn Barnett wrote, "By all accounts, the witnesses were deemed sane, not under the influence [of drugs or alcohol], and in such a state of terror, no one involved doubted that they had seen something beyond far their ken."[1]

Police and photographers who visited the home saw many bullet holes and spent shells, and further discovered what Clark describes as "an odd luminous patch along a fence where one of the beings had been shot, and, in the woods beyond, a green light whose source could not be determined." (Clark, 311) Though the investigation was inconclusive, Daniels et al. writes, "Investigators did conclude, however, that these people were sincere and sane and that they had no interest in exploiting the case for publicity." (Daniels, 65)

Police left at about 2:15 a.m., and not long afterwards, the witnesses claimed that the creatures returned. Billy Ray fired at them once more, ruining a window. The last of the creatures was allegedly sighted at about 4.45 a.m. on August 22.

aliens? gremlins? goblins?
outer space...or another dimension?

gotta run!
smell ya later!
todd