We spend a lot of time here on Halloween Love talking about horror movies, but you know as well as I do that horror movies aren’t nearly as horrifying as real life.
Today, we kick off a new feature shining the spotlight on True Horror, and we begin our journey with one of the most chilling accounts of extraterrestrial contact that’s ever been documented…
The event known as the Kelly-Hopkinsville Encounter took place over the course of one night in Christian County, Kentucky. It was on August 21st, 1955 that the Taylor family visited their friends the Suttons at their rural farmhouse, and around 7pm that the night took a turn for the strange.
The ordeal began when Billy Ray Taylor left the house to grab a drink at the Sutton family’s outdoor water pump, noticing strange lights in the sky over the farmhouse. Disc-shaped in its appearance, Taylor noted that the unusual craft was outfitted with brightly colored lights, and he quickly made his way back inside the farmhouse, to tell the tale to his friends and family members.
Shortly after noticing the UFO in the night sky, the Sutton’s dog began barking loudly and then hid underneath the house, apparently spooked by something it saw or sensed on the property. The dog’s strange behavior served to bolster Billy Ray’s claims, and he and Elmer Sutton grabbed their guns and went outside to investigate what they believed to be a potential alien invasion.
Now here’s where things get really weird, and quite chilling.
Outside the house, Billy Ray and Elmer spotted a gremlin-like creature roaming around the property, which was silver-colored and stood around three feet tall. With upright pointed ears, long slender limbs and claws for hands, the creature needless to say spooked the men, who fired at it with their guns. After being shot, the alien creature ran off but appeared to be unharmed, and they compared the sound of the bullets entering its body to the sound you’d hear if you rattled a bullet around in a metal drum.
The two men returned to the farmhouse, which was quickly besieged by at least two of the creatures, who seemed intent on inflicting harm upon the seven people inside. Though they never made their way inside the house, they allegedly attacked it for several hours, scratching away at the door and scurrying about on the roof. Each time one of the so-called gremlins was seen, the Suttons and Taylors shot at it, though the bullets again seemed to do no real damage. Each time that same unusual sound was heard, as if the creatures were made of metal.
Since the little silver monsters were never seen in numbers greater than two at any given time, nobody inside was sure how many of them were actually attacking the house, and they could only confirm that two of them were out there. According to their reports, the creatures floated in the air and moved as if they were wading through water, and it was noted that their long legs appeared to be atrophied and totally useless.
At around 11pm, after hours of torment, the seven people fled the farmhouse and drove to the Hopkinsville police station, where officers described them as being quite clearly shaken by some very real occurrence, and not under the influence of drugs or alcohol. One officer, who was medically-trained, even noted that Billy Ray’s pulse was several times faster than the usual human pulse rate, indicating that what they were dealing with wasn’t any sort of hoax or tomfoolery.
Adding to their story were various reports of meteor-like objects spotted in the sky near the farmhouse at around the same time, including one from a state highway trooper. None of the reports came from people who knew or had anything to do with the Suttons or the Taylors, which lends a whole lot of credibility to their seemingly outlandish claims.
Fairly certain that something, or someone, had indeed invaded the farmhouse, the police escorted the families back to the property, and the damage to the house reflected their story. The farmhouse was riddled with bullet holes and spent shell casings lined the floor. The police witnessed strange lights and noises for themselves, though they never actually saw any of the creatures. One officer even reported seeing a strange discoloration on a fence near where one of the creatures had allegedly been shot – its blood, perhaps? – though it disappeared before a sample could be obtained.
Investigators concluded that all parties involved were sane and sincere and had indeed been spooked by something that had attacked them, though it was never officially determined who – or what – the culprit was. The families reported that the creatures returned to the property after the police left, before disappearing forever a couple hours later.
The Sutton family ended up moving from the farmhouse after the story received national attention, and they never seemed to want to talk about the incident or obtain any sort of fame from it. It’s said that they never profited in any way from the harrowing story, lending much credence to their claims.
The Kelly-Hopkinsville Encounter is one of the most significant accounts of the extraterrestrial in history, and to this day family members stick by their stories, and rarely speak about that terrifying night, in 1955.
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