Almost
a year ago I emailed an editor of one leading UFO magazine about
potentially writing an article for them for publication. I sent some
of my work that I had written up to that point and he seemed
interested in me potentially expanding one of my original articles
for Binnall of
America. So with that in mind I worked somewhat diligently at the
task for a few months. At the same time I commissioned my
girlfriend Ashley to
do artwork that would appear in the magazine. Eventually for reasons
that I'm still not too sure of the article never appeared in the
magazine (I think the editor quit and then the magazine folded or
something) and because of this I've sat on the article for quite some
time. But I've finally decided to share it with you guys, including
Ashley's original artwork, to help me get back into the swing of
regular updates as I'm out of school for the summer. Presented below
is the article in it's entirety (be warned it's a bit lengthy, after
all it was going to appear in a magazine). Hope you enjoy!
Little Green
Meme?
When the modern UFO era
began after Kenneth Arnold’s 1947 sighting of objects near Mount
Rainier, Washington sightings of flying saucers began to be reported
from all over the world. Not long after these sightings people also
began to report seeing the occupants of the disks. People from all
different walks of life were apparently sighting a myriad of strange
creatures. In South America little hairy dwarves were sighted, while
in other parts of the world the sightings of 9 foot tall
monstrosities were reported. But whenever anyone refers to the
occupants of these crafts, especially in the 'mainstream' media they
only speak of “little green men”. The reason for this is the
events of the Kelly-Hopkinsville Case, the aftermath of which is that
the term “little green men” would enter the vocabulary of the
population and became an infective meme that would be with Ufology
for years to come.
On an August night in 1955,
Billy Ray Taylor and his wife were visiting the family of Lucky
Sutton. The Suttons; Vera Sutton, JC Sutton, Alene Sutton, and three
Sutton children, lived in the rural town of Hopkinsville, Kentucky.
Glennie Lankford, June Taylor and O.P. Barker were also visiting the
Lucky Sutton house. Early in the evening Taylor went outside of the
Sutton house in order to get some water from the outside pump. Just a
few minutes later Taylor rushed back into the house exclaiming that
he had just seen a flying saucer fly over the house, hover around the
woods, and descend into a gully located nearby the home. No one in
the family took Taylor's claim seriously as no one went outside to
investigate.
An hour later the Sutton’s
dog began to bark, so Lucky and Taylor grabbed their guns and went
outside to see if they could find what was upsetting the dog. The
frightened dog ran under the house and would not return until the
following morning. While outside of the house, Lucky and Taylor were
amazed to see a 3½ ft tall being approaching them with its arms
raised up. They later described the being to researchers as having a
large round head, long thin arms that extended nearly to the ground,
and legs that did not appear to move. The hands of the being were out
of proportion to the rest of its body, and looked more like the
talons of a bird than human hands. While the being's eyes appeared to
be glowing with a fire that was the shade of yellow.
Being the good country folk
that they were, Lucky and Taylor decided to shoot first and ask
questions later. When the bullets from their rifle and shotgun struck
the creature it back flipped, landed on its feet, and ran back into
the darkness. At this point the men went back into the house to check
on the family and tell them what had happened. When they rejoined the
group in the living room they were astonished to see the same, or
similar to it, being at the window. Again, Lucky and Taylor took a
shot at the creature. This caused the being to flip backwards and
retreat into the shadows. At this time the men were certain that they
had either killed or at least wounded the creature(s), so they went
outside to see if they could locate the bodies.
Taylor walked outside, but
paused on the porch for just a moment. Suddenly, from the roof, a
talon reached down and grabbed his hair. Alene pulled Taylor back
into the house. Lucky fired upon the creature which caused it to
release Taylor and fall from its perch. At this point, it’s not
clear who, but someone noticed that one of the beings was in the
tree. So both Taylor and Lucky fired at the creature knocking it from
the limb, however, instead of falling straight down, the being
appeared to float in a falling leaf motion to the ground.
This attack lasted for a
little while longer before the group could no longer stand it.
Everyone ran to their cars and took off towards the police station in
Hopkinsville. When they arrived and began telling their story, it was
obvious to the officers on duty that something had happened to these
people as they were clearly shaken. A few sheriffs’ deputies and
the chief of police, Russell Greenwell, accompanied the Suttons and
Taylors back to the house. Once the police arrived they searched for
a long time, but could find no apparent trace of anything out of the
ordinary. They did, however, see plenty of buckshot meaning that
shots had been fired on the grounds of the home that night. The
police couldn’t directly tie the buckshots to the sightings of the
numerous beings, however in a few places that Taylor and Lucky had
fired on the creatures there appeared to be a strange green
luminescence on the ground, the source of which the police were never
able to determine. A photograph was taken of the luminous patch of
grass but a sample was not collected, upon returning the following
day the patch had mysteriously disappeared. Police also interviewed
neighbors that live close to the Sutton house, most reported not only
seeing strange lights flying around in the sky that same night but
also heard the gunshots that came from Lucky and Billy’s guns.
Ultimately unable to truly
prove anything, the police left the family to resume their duties. A
little later that night once the police had finally gone and the
family tried to go to sleep, Glennie Lankford spotted another one of
the creatures back at the same window and told her son Lucky. Of
course Lucky wanted to shoot it, but Glennie told him not to as the
creatures, although certainly bizarre, had actually done nothing to
harm them that night. Lucky fired at the creature anyway and once
again the bullet had no effect and the creature retreated back in to
the darkness. The being’s presence at the home lasted until dawn.
The following day the story
was repeated in the Kentucky New Era Newspaper and
the Sutton Farmhouse became a huge tourist attraction. The family was
interviewed about the events of that night and no matter how many
times the story was recounted it was always the same. A man named
Andrew Ledwith, who worked with WHOP a radio station in a nearby
town, interviewed each of the seven adults involved in the incident
separately and each told the same story and described the creatures
almost identically. Except that the female witnesses thought that the
creatures had a more husky build than what the male witnesses
described. Ledwith, who was also an artist, was one of the first
people to illustrate what the witnesses saw. As later newspapers
picked up the story over the weeks and months that followed, they
began to refer to the beings as “little green men” although the
original descriptions had been that they were in silver suits or were
silver themselves.
After the initial media
attention, people began to swarm the Sutton house. If the Suttons
believed that the worst of their ordeal was over they were sadly
mistaken. They were inundated with people seeking proof, stories, or
in some cases even autographs. Sadly this was not all that the Sutton
family had to deal with. Local public opinion almost immediately
labeled the incident as a hoax. Eventually the family could no longer
take all of the negative publicity and they started to charge the
thrill seekers that came to see them. This only fueled the charges
that the family was hoaxing the entire event simply to exhort money
from people.
The Sheriff’s department,
to its credit, took the family at their word. Chief of Police,
Russell Greenwell had a few things to say about what had happened
that night. When he described his initial meeting with the Sutton
Family the night of the events he said that they appeared to have
been frightened “beyond reason, not ordinary”. He would also
remark to Ufologist Isabel Davis that when he and the other officers
arrived at the Sutton household that, “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 … they felt it too.”
The local police were not
the only group to get involved in the investigations or to take what
happened seriously. The US Air Force, upon hearing about the
incidents, sent officers from the nearby Fort Campbell to do some
investigations. Although the Air Force investigation also turned up
empty handed for any kind of concrete evidence, this incident remains
as an open case to this day. Project Blue Book, the official Air
Force UFO investigation from the time period, never did an official
investigation but kept a file on the incident none the less. They
labeled the case as an 'unknown' which is something they were not
very fond of doing at the time.
Eventually the family got
completely fed up with all of the attention they were getting, so
they sold the property to extended family and moved away. To this
day, the surviving witnesses to the event are hesitant to ever talk
to anyone about the case. Although on the rare occasion that they
have told anyone their stories, they are exactly as they were on that
late night oh so many years ago.
Persons that were skeptical
of the case almost immediately came forward with alternative theories
as to what the Suttons may have actually seen that night. One of the
most obvious alternative explanations was that the family simply
hoaxed the entire event. As it stands, although others may have also
seen unidentified lights in the sky that night, only the families
involved in the incidents ever claimed to have actually seen the
beings. The local community seemed to accept this theory pretty
readily at the time, as a matter of fact they wrote the entire saga
off as a drunken hoax that had simply gotten out of hand. It's
unlikely that this was the case as Glennie Lankford was known for not
allowing the consumption of alcohol at her house, especially when
young children were present.
In any event it wasn't too
long before a member of the Air Force was ready to offer a very
down-to-earth explanation for the strange firefight that had occurred
on that August night just two years prior. Speaking in 1957 U.S. Air
Force Major John E. Albert came to the conclusion that what Lucky and
Taylor had been shooting at was none other than an escaped monkey
from a circus that was dressed in silver. There are a few problems
with this explanation however. While it is true that a circus was in
town during the week of the sightings, the circus never reported
losing a monkey. Additionally if Lucky and Taylor shot nearly as many
times at the creatures as they have said, there would have been a
body of some kind that was discovered by the Police or other
investigators that night.
The most recent terrestrial
explanation for what had occurred that night was first proposed by
French Ufologist Renaud Leclet. He suggested that perhaps the beings
the family had sighted that night, were in fact Great Horned Owls.
The owls would match the descriptions of the beings 'glowing' eyes
and would explain some of the apparent otherworldly abilities
displayed by the entities. As the owls fly silently it is unlikely
that either Lucky or Taylor would have heard the owls flying around
from say a limb to the top of the porch. Another part of this
explanation that would seem to solve this case, is that the Great
Horned Owl aggressively defends its nest. Perhaps, the theory goes,
when Lucky and Taylor first started firing on the beings they must
have accidentally hit the owls nest causing them to attack for most
of the night. The problem with this explanation is not unlike the
circus monkey theory. Where are the bodies? At many times Lucky and
Taylor apparently hit the beings dead on, so if they were simply
misidentifying owls, bodies would or should have been found somewhere
at the house. Not only that none of these theories can explain the
luminescence patch of ground that was seen, nor the very eerie
feeling that was reported by all present at the house the night of
the siege.
As with most cases of UFO
occupant accounts, the skeptics are still skeptical and the believers
still believe in the basic validity of the story. No official
explanation has ever been offered by either the police that
investigated nor by the Air Force. The surviving members of the
incident still maintain that the testimony that was given on that
fateful night in 1955 is what actually occurred to them. The legacy
of the case, besides offering yet another anecdotal story of human /
non-human interaction, is the term 'Little Green Men'. The term has
become a meme that has been picked up by people ever since. To this
day you will still hear people mockingly refer to the occupants of
UFOs as little green men. The next time you hear this, you can smile
knowing where this term originated.
6 comments:
The escaped circus animal is ANOTHER infamous meme --a favorite among lazy debunkers :P
BTW it seems that Spielberg was so interested in the Sutton case that the initial script of ET the Extraterrestrials was going to be based on it.
Eventually the story morphed into the positive fairy-tale we all came to adore as youngsters. But I personally think that Spielberg-o never let go of his fascination with the Sutton case; that's why another of his most memorable films --'Gremlins'-- have as protagonists trickstery green goblins with suspiciously long ears ;)
Thanks for the reply RPJ!
I remember hearing about the Spielberg thing, He has such a weird tangential involvement with the whole ET/UFO enigma. His name seems to pop up every now and then in relation to some new story. My favorite was always were he had supposedly screened ET for then President Reagan and Reagan said something to the effect that there was some truth to the movie.
I can totally see the Gremlins connection with this case! Can't believe I hadn't noticed it before.
He has confirmed the story... sort of.
"It was in the White House screening room and Reagan got up to thank me for bringing the film to show the President, the First Lady and all of their guests, which included Sandra Day O’Connor in her first week of as a Justice of the Supreme Court, and it included some astronauts… I think Neil Armstrong was there, I’m not 100% certain, but it was an amazing, amazing evening.
He just stood up and he looked around the room, almost like he was doing a headcount, and he said, 'I wanted to thank you for bringing E.T. to the White House. We really enjoyed your movie,' and then he looked around the room and said, 'And there are a number of people in this room who know that everything on that screen is absolutely true.'
And he said it without smiling! But he said that and everybody laughed, by the way. The whole room laughed because he presented it like a joke, but he wasn’t smiling as he said it."
Alien or Martian "GREEN MEN" first came from EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS' MARS series, first published in 1911. The Martian "Tharks" as they were called were the first green aliens, four-armed and... extremely popular!They were not little,though--12 feet tall.But ERB's characters were extremely popular---JOHN CARTER was just released by Disney shows the THARKS in all their glory
(BTW commenting on a previous comment, Reagan was just part of the NWO who wanted to bring everyone on lil ol' earth together (under totalitarian socialism )from an "alien threat from outer space".The SHINING PATH has been planning this alien hoax thing since at least the early 1900's!Read William Milton Cooper or listen to his radio broadcasts--he'll fill you in).
Also, possibly "the connecting thread" between MOST Forteana (read about in newspapers, magazines,et al)is that these "stories" are controlled by a very small clique and has been for many, many years. The only TRUE fortean events should be from direct observation. Everything else is suspect. Why should I believe THE TIMES when it says it rained fish in Bristol when they can't even spell my name right?
We should also remember that leprechauns, elves and most fairy folk have been usually been depicted wearing green clothes.
I met an ET just like the one in the photo, with the eyes on the side of head, and ears like triangles... the long arms. I had blocked the memory until last week, when something similar tugged at me, and that photo above -- YEP. Been there done that one!
Was in INDIA, over 35 years ago, where I had gone after NIXON put me on his "Enemies List" and my career as a Hollywood Executive and writer was ERASED by COINTELPRO... rather quickly, I might ad -- from HOT, to NOT.
I had told truth too many times. But heck, if Tricky Dick and his Corrupt Cops had not violated me, I never would have had the SHOCK of MEETING such a WEIRD LOOKING MORE INTELLIGENT ENTITY. WE got along fine. Then they ZAPPED ME. I was living in the jungle near GOA, at the time.
Cheers.
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