BACKGROUND:

The 1950s was awash with incredible UFO sightings and purported alien encounters, but the Kelly-Hopkinsville Incident remains a highlight for the field of Ufology. The report was significant not only because of the long duration of the event and a large number of witnesses but also because the frightening contact sparked a one-sided gun battle. On the evening of Sunday, August 21, 1955, one of the occupants of the Sutton farmhouse, in the unincorporated area of Kelly north of Hopkinsville, Kentucky, reported seeing a saucer-like craft land a short distance away in a gully to the rear of the property. Moments later, the two families staying there claimed that a number of "strange little men" approached the house and peered through the windows, and one even tugged the hair of Billy Ray Taylor, the man who had first seen the craft land. Understandably bewildered and fearing for their lives, Taylor, and another adult male, "Lucky" Sutton, fired round after round at the unwanted visitors from close range, all to little effect. After about four hours of this awkward alien interaction, the families saw their chance to escape and rushed to police headquarters to get help. The unusually large police response which resulted in a flurry of sensational news reports for years to come would cast this incident as one of the most bizarre and intriguing "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" ever to be included in UFO lore.