Talk:Kelly–Hopkinsville encounter

Rewrite and extension needed
This article is a bit unfair and the redneck jokes aren't really helpful. Lucky Sutton was reputed to be a solid, sensible fellow, but the real lesson is that even solid, sensible people can be misled by their senses and expectations - David Gerard (talk) 17:50, 23 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Take out the redneck jokes if you like. Regarding the Suttons being solid and sensible: that depends on which account you read. The flying saucer crowd exaggerate their reliability for obvious reasons, but other accounts characterize Billy Ray Taylor as unreliable with a tendency to tell tall tales. It doesn't seem the community regarded them highly, either. A year later, the local news and law enforcement community was publicly making fun of the incident . - Leuders (talk) 19:04, 23 March 2013 (UTC)


 * I've done a slight extension of the article for the blog, suitable for backporting - David Gerard (talk) 21:05, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

"Regarding the Suttons being solid and sensible: that depends on which account you read." - That's inevitable. Ask three people about the same family, and you'll often get three different accounts.--Albannach (talk) 17:16, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
 * When in doubt, I always go with the account that supports an alien landing. - Leuders (talk) 13:36, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

This talk is a decade old. However, I've been researching this fable for an article I'm writing. "Lucky" Sutton is not normally referred to as a "solid upstanding citizen." Both Sutton and Billy Ray Taylor were carnies. They were in Kentucky visiting relatives because they were in between shows. Taylor was known to spin tall tales and play pranks on the pair's wives. Lucky was observed to be a dominating force in the household in the days following the incident. He was observed bullying or at least admonishing Taylor when he started embellishing details for investigators. When Taylor's description of the "little man" deviated from Lucky's story, Sutton was again observed "leaning" his carnival partner. One of the most detailed, if a bit pro UFO, accounts was assembled by the Civilian Saucer Intelligence of NYC research group. The report, conducted by Isabel Davis, was later published by CUFOS. http://www.cufos.org/books/close_encounter_at_kelly.pdf

Explanation
"it seems likely that the famous 1955 Kelly incident is easily explained by a meteor and a pair of territorial owls."

What to say? Sometimes the explanations given are less convincing than the wild story. This sounds like something Tommy Lee Jones' character in MIB would come up with.-Albannach (talk) 01:13, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Maybe the aliens disguised themselves as owls. Advanced cloaking technology and all that. - Leuders (talk) 23:18, 24 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Sounds like a load of bollocks to me, even worse than the original story. Mind you, Leuders, you think that all ufologists are into the ETH which shows how far behind you are.


 * Neighbour heard what s/he thought were fire crackers/fireworks, the family sees small people running around. And it's seven in the evening. What's small, looks slightly like an adult human, cunning, plays pranks all the time (especially in the dark), and is often out at seven in the evening? Clue: Not owls. Another clue: Often goes to an elementary school (unless home schooled).


 * Apart from the owl explanation posited being a little too neat, and stretching credibility... it's hardly a very likely one. I buy the meteor part (assuming that wasn't a firework Billy Ray Taylor saw in the sky), but the owl thing doesn't explain the rest very well. What I referred to in the previous paragraph is far more likely, and far more common.--Albannach (talk) 17:06, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Why shouldn't aliens look like owls rather than knobly-pepperpots-with-sticks, greys, humanoids, 'jelly things' and similar? (and owl-world probably has a debate on 'human aliens') 171.33.222.26 (talk) 19:34, 25 March 2013 (UTC)


 * I admit I am far, far behind on my Ufology, Al. But even if the aliens are time travelers, extradimensional beings, spirits, demons, inner-earth dwellers, or cryptids...why can't they disguise themselves as owls? - Leuders (talk) 13:31, 26 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Did you actually look at my explanation above? (I've given you two clues to help you). -Albannach (talk) 13:49, 26 March 2013 (UTC) ps Ufologists have been discussing the psychological and physical origins of "alien sightings" for years, as well as the list you provided, so yes, you are pretty far behind.


 * You mean local kids playing a prank? Absolutely. If someone shot at me through the window my first reaction would be to tease them further by hopping around in trees and jumping on their roof. Yes that sounds like a reasonable explanation, glad to hear it's the default position of UFOlogists nowadays. - Leuders (talk) 14:16, 26 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Well, the vast majority of these incidents have dull explanations. Reaching for owls seems to be a bit outrageous. This is the kind of explanation that gives sceptics a bad name, because it's silly, and doesn't fit the facts as neatly as Mr Nickell would like us to believe. Since we have to deal with a trimmed down testimony (nearly sixty years after the events), there's only so much we can guess now. Almost all of the protoganists must be dead now. Only one bit of this story reminds me of owls at all really, and that's when it's said that one of the creatures floated down. Even the clawed hand could be explained more easily by a branch or a human hand, than by berserker owls.


 * "my first reaction would be to tease them further by hopping around in trees and jumping on their roof." - This is no doubt a greatly exaggerated account, and my suggestion is someone was playing around with fireworks (which the neighbour thought that they had heard), possibly in a mask. There are contradictions in the number of "creatures" here, but several kids, climbing up in trees and on roofs and throwing things... yes, heard that kind of story many times in real life. We used to do that kind of thing. And given that it was pretty dark, and that "amateur" witnesses are notorious for bad estimates of size and distance, I don't see much of a problem with the height discrepancies.


 * I used to live out in the country, and farmers would come at us with guns occasionally. I knew someone who had actually been shot in the backside (butt) with some kind of salt pellets... but most of us survived the day. I don't recall anyone being badly hurt, but I do remember some highly annoyed adults. One of the nocturnal tricks was to tie a black button to a bit of thread, stick it to the window and tap it against someone's window by pulling the thread. Since the button was black, people couldn't see it against the night sky, but they could still hear the tapping noise at the window. It used to scare the crap out of some people. When we got older, several of us would lift up a small car, and either turn it around, or move it around the corner. That puzzled some people as well... but no need for teleportation...


 * I wouldn't have the chutzpah to do any of these things any more, but it's easier to get away with them when you're smaller and more agile.--Albannach (talk) 16:21, 26 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes, I could imagine local kids pranking the family. Although I don't follow you re: the fireworks. The family didn't tell the cops they heard any gunfire (or anything that could be mistaken for gunfire) except their own. The owls also seem like an equally mundane explanation, at least to me. Despite my crabby tone, I do enjoy our talks, Al. - Leuders (talk) 18:39, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Again this is old news, but even though owls may have been present, it seems to be a stretch as the sole explanation. These were "country boys". I've always noted how the sketches resembled carnival "punks" - those canvas-covered, wood-core "dolls" people try to knock down and wind up losing $100+ trying to win a teddy bear. Though the average height is 17" to 24", some in mid-century were up to 3 feet tall. They all feature huge eyes and a grotesque appearance. Both Sutton and Taylor were running carnival games at the time.


 * —cosmikdebris talk stalk 18:10, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

Those drawings of the 'aliens'...
It couldn't be their fellow townsfolk, it being rural Kentucky 'n' all? --Scherben (talk) 21:01, 14 October 2017 (UTC)