Kelly-Hopkinsville

INCIDENT RECORD · 1955

Two families at a farmhouse near Kelly, Kentucky reported a night-long siege on 21 August 1955 by small silver figures with outsized ears and clawed hands, which shrugged off shotgun fire and floated back out of the dark each time they were driven off. Eleven people fled to the Hopkinsville police station near midnight; officers found no creatures but logged the damage and took every statement. The case is the most heavily witnessed close encounter on record in the United States, and the press coverage of its "little green men" put that phrase into the language.