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Sighting
Kelly–Hopkinsville, United States

Kelly–Hopkinsville encounter reported by Sutton family

Eleven members of an extended family in rural Kentucky report being besieged through the night by small, silver-coated humanoid figures. The Hopkinsville Police, Kentucky State Police, and U.S. Air Force investigate.

On the evening of 21 August 1955, members of the Sutton family at a farmhouse near Kelly, Kentucky, reported a brightly lit object descending into a nearby field. They subsequently described being approached repeatedly throughout the night by small humanoid figures with large heads and silver, reflective skin.

Family members fired shotguns at the figures from inside the house and on the porch. After several hours, eleven witnesses drove to the Hopkinsville police station and reported the events. Hopkinsville police, Kentucky State Police, military police from Fort Campbell, and personnel from the U.S. Air Force investigated the property that night and again the following day.

The Air Force found no conclusive physical evidence and attributed the report to a possible misidentification of great horned owls. Project Blue Book carried the case but did not formally file it. The Kelly–Hopkinsville encounter is the most-investigated 'humanoid' close-encounter case in the U.S. record.

Primary sourceProject Blue Book Archive (National Archives)
Further reading
  • UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record
    Leslie Kean
    View on Amazon
  • In Plain Sight: An Investigation Into UFOs and Impossible Science
    Ross Coulthart
    View on Amazon
  • UFO: The Inside Story of the US Government's Search for Alien Life Here—and Out There
    Garrett M. Graff
    View on Amazon
Kelly–Hopkinsville encounter reported by Sutton family · Disclosure Archives