Hopkinsville Goblins

The Kelly–Hopkinsville encounter concerns a family’s report that small, luminous-eyed figures repeatedly approached a farmhouse near Kelly, Kentucky, during the night of August 21–22, 1955. The frightened group went to Hopkinsville police, and officers searched the property without finding a creature or decisive physical evidence. Later retellings coined the “goblins” label and expanded the event’s place in UFO lore.

Contemporary newspaper reports and later interviews preserve conflicting details, including the number and appearance of the figures. Project Blue Book classified the incident as a hoax. A skeptical explanation involving great horned owls, a meteor, fear, and gunfire has also been proposed.

Illustration standardized the figures as silver, long-armed, large-eared beings. Science-fiction retellings often detach them from the uncertainty and domestic confusion of the original testimony.

• Isabel Davis and Ted Bloecher, Close Encounter at Kelly and Others of 1955, Center for UFO Studies, 1978.
• Volker Janssen, “How the ‘Little Green Men’ Phenomenon Began on a Kentucky Farm,” HISTORY, January 2, 2020, updated May 28, 2025.