The Kelly Encounter: Where Little Green Men Came From

Where did the term “little green men” come from? As far as relating to UFOs and aliens, that is. That’s also sometimes how gremlins are described.

Have you ever wondered? Or did you just think, like I did, that it must have some Roswell connection?

It does, of course, have a UFO connection, but it relates to the 1955 UFO incident in Kelly, Kentucky, that came to be known as the Kelly Encounter. Which is both ironic and appropriate given that “Kelly” is sometimes used to describe a shade of green.

I first learned about the Kelly Encounter during a jaunt to Hopkinsville, Kentucky, in 2012. We’d stopped at the Pennyroyal Area Museum en route to check out Edgar Cayce’s gravesite. The museum had an exhibit about the Sleeping Prophet, who hailed from Beverly, Kentucky, which, like Kelly, isn’t far from Hopkinsville.

Once inside, we couldn’t help but also notice another colorful display. One detailing the night in August 1955 when a family suddenly found their farm under siege.

This was the sort of family who wasn’t inclined to call upon the law if they didn’t have to. They were a pretty self-sufficient lot, but the events transpiring that night were beyond their scope. They needed professional help and more man —and fire— power. When there was finally a lull in the “battle,” they made the decision to hightail it to the police.

Let’s take a closer look at the Kelly Encounter and the origins of “little green men.”

The Landing at Lucky Sutton’s Farm

The incident began just before 7:30 p.m. on Aug. 21, 1955. In a newspaper article titled “Little ‘Flying Tubmen’ ‘Invade’ Town of Kelly” (The Messenger, Aug. 22, 1955), three of the 11 people there that night detailed the encounter. (In all there were eight adults and three children who witnessed the events.)

Billy Ray Taylor, Lucky Sutton, and John Sutton say they saw an object “all lighted up” land in a nearby field. They described it as “egg-shaped” and about the size of a No. 2 washtub.

They didn’t think much of it until about half an hour later when they saw “‘two or three shiny little men,’ about three or four feet tall, walking toward the rear of the house.”

Note: Did you catch how there’s no mention of a color? No green? Keep that in mind. We’ll come back to that.

Anyway, the men said in no time at all, they noticed about 15 of the little men “all over the place.” The yard, the roof, the trees…

Taylor stepped out of the front door. He screamed when one of the little men reached down and grabbed his hair.

Sutton yanked Taylor back inside, grabbed his single-barrel .12-gauge shotgun, and shot the hair-puller. It knocked him off the roof but didn’t kill him. It served as a heck of a warning shot, though. All the other little men fled.

But not for long.

Over the next three hours, they kept coming back. The men would shoot at them each time. Not that it did any good. As the paper printed it, “John Sutton said he fired four boxes (200) of .22 cartridges at the creatures, but they had no effect, ricocheting off the little men like they would off a steel plate.”

Other than the incident with Taylor’s hair, the little men never physically threatened the people on the farm. Just their sheer presence did, though.

However, after three hours, with terrified women and children to consider, when they saw a chance to flee for help, they took it. All 11 of them piled into two cars and sped off.

The Police Investigation

At 11 p.m. on a Sunday night, what else could the police do when the people who had been battling little men at the Sutton Farm burst in, hysterical, telling their fantastic story?

It didn’t appear to be a case of too much alcohol. Their fear seemed real enough. What if there was something to their story?

Deciding not to take any chances, Christian County officers and Hopkinsville city police called upon State police to join them. Seven or eight cars, plus at least one carload of Military Police from Fort  Campbell, ended up rushing to the farm to investigate, which they did that night and again over the next couple of days.

The problem was, they could find no evidence anywhere of little men, of any kind of craft that had landed in a field…nothing. Except for one thing. A couple of officers reported observing “two objects —presumably meteorites — flashing across the sky.”

But, again, no little men came out to greet them. And no ship or evidence of a landing was found.

The Mystery of the Little (Green) Men

Here’s how The Messenger article relayed the witnesses description of the little men. See if you can spot what’s missing:

…three to four feet tall, shiny “like chrome” all over, arms which stretched to the ground and oversized hands, slick bald heads with big eyes and pointed ears. Their faces were like ‘skin stretched over a skull.’

Did you notice that the color green doesn’t factor into the original description of the little men encountered on the Sutton Farm? Chrome, yes, which is more aligned with what many UFO experiencers describe as witnessing when they encounter aliens, or Grays as they’re often called.

So where did the green come from?

The rumor mill and papers, as detailed in this newspaper clipping:

Was the Kelly Encounter a Hoax?

Not much has changed in the 66 years since the Kelly Encounter happened. As far as people go. We hear or see something sensational and we rush to check it out.

Heck, Haunt Jaunts is built on my morbid curiosity so I’m not passing judgment. I’m totally guilty of that!

However, when people start charging for others to tour their property or hear their story, that’s where it gets sticky. People are less inclined to believe a story is true.

That’s what happened in the case of the Suttons. Suddenly they were flooded with lookie-loos. They put up a “no trespassing” sign —except they’d admit sightseers willing to pay 50 cents.

Between that and the lack of evidence, it’s no wonder, as an article in The Paducah Sun pointed out, that authorities quickly “concluded that someone with a cosmic sense of humor” was playing a prank and the Kelly Encounter was dismissed as a hoax.

Check-In

Is it just me, or do you see similarities between the Kelly Encounter and M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs?

And how do you feel about people who claim to have either fantastic otherworldly or paranormal encounters and then charge people for tours and such? Does it make you suspect they may be more motivated by profit rather than truth, or not?