On this day in 1955, the Taylor family of Kelly-Hopkinsville were attacked by what they claimed were an army of little green men, an event which has since become known as the Kelly-Hopkinsville Encounter.
According to the family and news reports of the encounter, the Taylors were entertaining family and friends on their farm one evening, when all of a sudden they became aware of something eerie. Members of the household were shocked to see approximately fifteen small figures who were peeping at them from behind door frames and through windows of the house, which understandably spooked the occupants into action.
Luckily everybody in the household was packing, and thus a one-sided gunfight ensued, lasting for up to four hours as the family attempted to hold the shadowy creatures at bay. Despite the intense retaliation to the intergalactic trespassing however, the family's account of the events do not indicate any sign of danger posed by the creatures, minus when Billy Ray Taylor bravely left the comfort of the house to investigate the situation, and promptly had his hair pulled by one of the kinkier aliens hiding out on the roof.
Following the battle, the family high-tailed it to the local police station to report the event, leading officers and state troopers back to their property to investigate the situation, despite the fact that most of the members claiming to have seen these beings were heavily intoxicated at the time. Unsurprisingly upon arrival no evidence of otherworldly visitors could be found, although police did note there was plenty of evidence of the reported gunfire. With nobody around to arrest and/or kill, the police left the property and thus the family were themselves left to the mercy of the aliens, who were seemingly very upset at the family's involvement of the feds and proceeded to torment the family until 3am the next morning. Hours later, the family packed up all of their belongings and evacuated their home, telling neighbours of their continued ordeal that had forced them to flee.
Despite the lack of evidence minus statements from the Taylors and bullet-holes in all of the walls, the story sparked huge media coverage. In their statements the Taylors only ever described the creatures as small and "shadowy" but when their statements hit the news they were jazzed up a little for readers, and thus the infamous title of "little green men" was born. Other descriptions of the creatures, such as their pointed ears, claws, glowing eyes, and 2-4 foot height were also completely the media's own creation, which in turn also led to the creatures being referred to as the Kelly-Hopkinsville Goblins, as I suppose goblins are more believable than aliens. UFOlogists only further built on the tale and re-cemented the creatures as other worldly instead of fairytale-esque, by claiming the family had also witnessed lights in the woods, sighted actual UFOs, and that bullet impact with the beings made a metallic sound.
Now that the story was of national interest, despite the fact 70% of it being fictitious and fabricated by outside sources, the incident received a government investigation and wound up as one of the cases in Project Blue Book, where it was officially classed as either a hoax or misunderstanding - the misunderstanding being that the creatures, if they even did exist, were most likely great horned owls, who have similar features to that of the "aliens", and can become very aggressive when guarding their nests.
Regardless of all of this however, the little critters have remained of interest to those with an interest in the strange and mysterious - in fact the film Critters was loosely based on the event, and the Pokemon Sableye is almost identical to illustrations of the creatures released by papers covering the incident.
So what it owls? aliens? bullshit? We may never truly know, but man what a story.
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