Ep.73 Goblin Night in Kentucky

A family card game, a flash of lights over a Kentucky farmhouse, and a night that still rattles believers and skeptics: we unpack the 1955 Hopkinsville encounter with a clear eye and open curiosity. We start with the eyewitness core—more than ten people describing small, glowing-eyed beings at close range—then follow the trail through police reports, broken windows, strange lights in the woods, and the enduring question of intent. Were these cautious observers, confused animals, or the spark of a panic that rewired memory?

We dig into the alien hypothesis—floating movement, resilience to gunfire, and the classic “craft with lights” motif—while stress-testing natural explanations like owls, raccoons, and nighttime pareidolia. Appalachian folklore enters the frame too: tales of little people and subterranean tricksters that echo the goblin look and behavior. Along the way, we bring in modern accounts from Kentucky and Tennessee, including car-chasing figures and treeline watchers, to show how patterns repeat across decades and platforms.

You’ll also hear how we evaluate our own eerie eye-shine encounter and what gear, methods, and note-taking help turn fear into data. Plus, we sample a primary-source interview with witness Lonnie Langford to anchor the story before it hardened into legend. If you’re here for UFO lore, cryptid theory, or the craft of investigation, this one threads the needle between folklore, fieldwork, and forensic thinking.

Got a story of your own? Share it with us—email exploringtheunknownpod@outlook.com or leave a voicemail at 412-533-3483. If this deep dive sparked new questions, hit follow, rate the show, and pass it to a friend who loves a good midnight mystery.

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Transcript

Cold Open: A Night of Terror

SPEAKER_06 0:03

Picture this, Kentucky, 1955, a quiet farmhouse sailing erupts and chaos as glooming eye creatures creeps out of the woods, scratching out windows while a gunfire echoes through the night. This wasn't a movie. This is real life. Witnesses claimed they were under attack by what we call the Kentucky goblins.

SPEAKER_01 0:42

Something crosses the road.

SPEAKER_02 1:26

The calcur is big, it's white. It runs faster than anything to ever run. And you lean out behind a tree. That's why we never go out.

Welcome, Updates, And Listener Hotline

SPEAKER_05 1:53

Oh, is it me? I thought it was you. Okay, what's going on, guys? Welcome back to another episode of Exploring the Unknown. I'm Dustin. I'm Luke. And today we are talking about the Kentucky Goblins. But this is gonna be fun. This is gonna be fun. But before we get into that, if you've had an encounter and would like to share your story with us, please let us know. Reach out to us through email at exploring the unknown pod at outlook.com. Or uh sorry, I'm fumbling around to find the phone number. You can call uh and leave a voicemail. Make sure that you're in a quiet room whenever you do call and leave your voicemail. Tell us about your encounter, and the number is 412-533-3483. Yes, yes, yes. But um, yeah, so how you doing, buddy? I'm doing good.

SPEAKER_06 3:02

Good.

SPEAKER_05 3:04

This is this is the first podcast that we've recorded in the last two months, month, a month, if I would say. Oh my gosh. We uh life since I've left the school, life has gotten different. The consistency in the podcast isn't as consistent. Yeah, yeah. Right. Right. But what's new with you? Nothing, same shit, different.

SPEAKER_06 3:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 3:45

You want to hear something exciting?

SPEAKER_06 3:47

What's up?

SPEAKER_05 3:49

I'm going to uh go meet somebody here soon, here within the next hour or so about uh an apprentice being an apprentice uh for in music production. So yeah.

SPEAKER_06 4:02

That's cool. Um I had an idea the other day. Um you know how I gave you all these dolls? Yeah. What if you set them up in your garage and just like reconsistently live stream, like do like a 24-hour live stream, just like on the dolls to see if anything happens.

SPEAKER_05 4:27

That's not a bad idea. Uh would have to clean out my garage uh tremendously. It's it's bad. It's real bad.

SPEAKER_06 4:36

Well, if we just keep like the camera focused on the dolls, it doesn't have to be like a whole we we can hide my mess behind the scenes, it'll be fine.

Livestream Dolls And DIY Investigations

Shifting To Kentucky Goblins

Are They Aliens? Early Theories

SPEAKER_05 4:44

Yeah, we could we could probably try to figure out something like that. I mean, I don't have the best internet service, so I mean it it might be what it is. I was thinking about though regularly just going out there and you know taking my GoPro with me and and filming you know a little investigation with one of the dolls that way, like and kind of like do it gradually, like one doll at a time. That way, you know, I can rule out. But then again, you can't really rule it out because the other dolls are within the vicinity, so it's like yeah. I mean, we'll we'll talk, we'll we'll get more into dolls and stuff like that at another time, but uh yeah, about these Kentucky goblins. What are your thoughts on this? Before we start getting into this, what is what is your thoughts? I think they're aliens. You think they're aliens? Okay, that's interesting. I think that they could be aliens, especially because there was a lot of uh weirdness happening in the area at the time. Uh, I don't know if you had seen about the meteor shower and uh the the hum the machine type uh machine-like hum that people were hearing during that time. Yeah, I I seen something with that. Yeah, cool. So do you want to kind of give us a little introduction as to what the Kentucky Goblins are? Yeah, let me find my note. This man, this man not prepared. That's okay. I wasn't either. My phone, the phone number was all the way at the bottom of my of my notes here.

SPEAKER_06 6:34

So in 1955, these creatures came to Kentucky and um they came up on this farmhouse in August 22nd, 21st and 22nd. I had that backwards. And um this is where they got the name the Hobskinville Goblins because it's Hopskinville. And um people think so like I was saying it was in Hopsonville, Kentucky, August 22nd, and 1955. So these creatures that look like goblins came up on this house and started terrorizing them, scratching out the windows, and these people got so scared they started shooting at them. Which I probably would have done the same thing.

SPEAKER_05 7:55

Yeah. And you know what makes this encounter so interesting to me is the number of witnesses. So we're not just talking about like one or two people seeing something strange. There was there's more than 10 family members and friends that described almost the exact same thing. You know, they were like you were they were so terrified that they ran to the Hopskinville police station late at night begging for help. That's insane.

SPEAKER_06 8:25

Um I started watching The Hell year, which is about these kind of talking golfers. And that show was crazy. Um and the guy who reached out to the guy on the show with all the nerves and stuff like that. All the nerves he had on this thing is pretty on ridiculous. Um yeah.

The 1955 Hopkinsville Account

SPEAKER_05 8:58

No, I was just I was gonna say uh about the police being military police. Sounds like a robot. Yeah, that is my internet. Am I good now? Can you hear me all right now? Yeah. No, no, yeah, now yeah, you go. Um but the police said that they searched the area and found bullet holes in the house, obviously, from you know, the family shooting at these things, broken windows, and strange glowing lights in the woods. They didn't find any bodies, there wasn't no blood or anything like that. Just, you know, a scared family and a really confusing situation.

SPEAKER_06 9:44

What would you do in that type of situation if you were the police?

SPEAKER_05 9:50

I don't know. I I uh I see, hold on. Let me get my let me get my thoughts together here. I base a lot of what I believe, like when when I'm talking to other people, when people are telling me stories and things like that. I I base it off of how I feel. Like if I if I can feel that you're just not telling me the truth, then I know that you're you're full of crap. But yeah, if you're being genuine, I'm I don't I I would have to be like, you know, I I definitely believe you experienced something. I'm not saying that it was aliens, I wasn't saying it's goblins, but something freaked you out. Yeah, what would you do?

SPEAKER_06 10:42

I probably have to go the same job after you're going if like you don't have a feeling that you can tell if someone's lying or like being like making sure if ten people witnessed it and they all have the same story, it looks kinda hard not to believe.

SPEAKER_05 11:07

Yeah, yeah. I just realized I I I meant to have music in the background and it never it never came on. Um so I've seen a lot of different expl explanations of what the Kentucky Goblins are. A lot of people are saying aliens, um people are saying mass hallucination, elaborate hoax. W you think that it's aliens? Why?

Police Search, Evidence, And Doubt

SPEAKER_06 11:42

Yeah, um just looking at a picture of um it gives me alien vibes, and like the big rag eyes, the one I see has like giant round rag eyes, and that just like screams aliens, but I mean it could be some type of crypto.

SPEAKER_05 12:11

Well, that's interesting that you say that. Um, have you ever heard of Little People or the Children of the Earth?

SPEAKER_06 12:21

I think so, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 12:22

I was seeing a lot of a lot of people talking about that. So apparently this is that's a story, some like Appalachian folklore or something that has been passed down through generations. We should look into that one. I haven't done a whole lot. I did see um where was it? I think it was on YouTube. I think it was a video. Uh they were talking about this exploration that they went on looking for them, or something like that, or somebody went on an exploration looking for them, and they did end up finding like little tools and things like that. Uh, whenever they were out there looking for these things.

SPEAKER_06 13:00

I seen something, it's not in the US, I'm not in like Kentucky or anything, but I think Alaska. It was um I think it was the Alaskan Triangle, and they had little people like that underground little people that like kidnap kids and stuff like that. So I mean, it's a very possible thing it could just be like a little person.

SPEAKER_05 13:30

Yeah. If that is the case, those creatures I do believe are known for like stealing and kidnapping. Yeah, what do you think that they do with people if you know that they've stolen or kidnapped or taken?

SPEAKER_06 13:46

They say they like kill them, but I mean eat them. Yeah. But maybe they might just take them to like experiment on an air, like anirings do. Maybe. Maybe maybe they're type of anion.

SPEAKER_05 14:05

Maybe. You know what else is interesting though? This this just came to mind because I have I have some stories lined up here that I found on Reddit uh that are similar to the the Hopskinville goblins or the Kentucky Goblins, and it reminded me of our incident in the woods that night when we had seen the glowing eyes. Now, what if, because it could have been, you know, I'm not saying that it was 10 feet tall, I'm not saying that it was you know three, four feet tall, but what if it was just further up the hill and it was smaller like that, and it was you know, because a lot of these stories talk about seeing glowing eyes.

SPEAKER_06 14:47

Interesting.

SPEAKER_05 14:50

Let's listen. No, go ahead, go ahead. I'll I'll I'll read it after after that, after you say what you're gonna say.

SPEAKER_06 14:59

I never really thought about it. They were gobbling type bitch. I always thought like Bigfoot. But um, it's very possible.

Folklore: Little People And Appalachia

SPEAKER_05 15:09

So this is a story, like I said, from Reddit. Uh, this user wrote about camping in rural Kentucky in 2012 when they saw small pale figures watching from the tree line. They described them as three to four feet tall with glowing eyes reflecting their campfire. The creatures never approached, but they heard clicking noising noises and soft scratching uh around their tent all night. Now, you know, the noises, the soft scratching, that can be written off as you know, a small animal or something like that. You're out in the woods camping. If you're not used to being out there in the woods and you're seeing glowing eyes, you're obviously going to be a little bit more freaked out. So without any, you know, like knowing your background, I don't really feel like that story holds any kind of weight. But it says small pale figures, so was it humanoid or was it a deer?

SPEAKER_06 16:16

Yeah, it's hard to say in those type of situations because with us, we didn't actually see the fact, we're just seeing it. Right. So, I mean, if we were to saw a little creature, or if we were to saw the six foot, eight foot creature, then we'd be worried it would be like, oh yeah. But since we actually haven't seen it, we can't really determine how big it was. Right. Um and with the scratching and stuff in the woods, things scratch in the woods, animals scratch at trees, scratchings, climbing up trees, squirrels climbing up trees. I mean, there's always there's possible expect like things to explain what that was, right?

SPEAKER_05 17:02

But see, for our sake, for our situation, I know we both we both have a background in you know, like going hunting and being in the woods, so we have that experience in seeing what certain animals' eyes look like at night. What we seen that night wasn't an animal. It did I've never seen any animal that had an eye shine that looked like that.

SPEAKER_06 18:07

Yeah, neither did I. So I never seen anything like that, and nothing out there glares.

unknown 18:15

Right.

SPEAKER_06 18:15

Neither.

Our Woods Encounter And Eye Shine

SPEAKER_05 18:16

We should look at this was about the time that we had that experience. We should go back out there.

SPEAKER_06 18:21

I was gonna see maybe about trying to go out tonight. Tonight, yeah. No, I got to the uh down by the lake.

SPEAKER_05 18:31

Oh, down by the lake. Yeah, we could maybe maybe do that. I was I was you know, you you almost had me on board. I was kind of like, oh, maybe he said tonight. Hey, let's go, maybe.

SPEAKER_06 18:43

I was more thinking down by the lake.

SPEAKER_05 18:47

Oh well.

SPEAKER_06 18:48

But I mean, if you really want to.

SPEAKER_05 18:49

I'm still interested, right? I'm taking extra lights. Um, but this second story here I found on the high strangeness um subreddit on on Reddit, obviously. Uh it says a user in eastern Tennessee described being followed on a back road at night by three small beings that ran alongside their car on all fours before vanishing into the woods. They said the creatures looked like gray aliens but shorter with oversized heads. See, it's always slightly misidentified, but like you can't completely see it. It's it's in the dark. I don't know. I don't know. What are your thoughts?

SPEAKER_06 19:48

Misidentification.

SPEAKER_05 19:51

Probably some some kind of small animal or something. I don't know. I do think that there could be a possibility.

SPEAKER_06 20:04

I mean so I don't know.

Reddit Sightings: Kentucky And Tennessee

SPEAKER_05 20:19

I don't know. I don't know what more to oh, yeah, that's right. I did have a video that I wanted. I'm losing it. I'm losing it. It's okay. Yeah, we haven't done this in forever. And right, uh, give me a second here. So I have um a YouTube video from uh Eyes on Cinema, the Eyes on Cinema YouTube channel. Now, this is about the Hopskinville um well, this is Alien Invaders incident. But this is um oh, what was that guy's name? Oh, I can't remember his name Lonnie. Lonnie Lankford, that's right. This is him, this is the guy that had the experience telling the story.

SPEAKER_00 21:06

In 1955, Kelly, Kentucky, 70 miles north of Nashville, Tennessee, was a peaceful farming community. On the evening of August 21st, deep in the Kelly countryside, a party of ten people reported a wild encounter with aliens. The Langfords were winding down from a family get-together filled with laughter and card playing. Twelve years old at the time, Lonnie Langford says he remembers that night clearly.

SPEAKER_04 21:36

There was me, my brother, my sister, two half-brothers, their wives, and the friend his wife. My mother, you know, talk and play cards. My brother's friend, Taylor, he had to go out. You know, we didn't have no uh inside restrooms back then. And uh, as he was going out the door, he looked up and he noticed this uh round object had lights all around it.

SPEAKER_00 22:08

The Langford's guest raced inside to tell the others what he had seen. They all thought he was joking. The card playing went on uninterrupted. Finally, everyone turned in for the night, everyone except Lonnie's mother.

SPEAKER_04 22:22

She was just laying there awake with her eyes open and looking out the uh living room window, and uh I saw this uh little uh this object standing there. She screamed, you know.

SPEAKER_00 22:32

Everyone jumped out of bed, and Lonnie's brothers grabbed their shotguns.

SPEAKER_04 22:37

He saw uh little creatures three foot tall, well feet, well ears, big eyes, hands that were well shape black. They were sewer, had sewer uniforms, no noise, no sound, no talking. They were just there. I don't know why.

SPEAKER_00 22:59

Lonnie and his family watched the creatures float through the air as his brothers fired their shotguns. They say some bullets knocked the aliens over, but that to everyone's horror, the strange beings got back up again, unscathed.

SPEAKER_04 23:14

Everybody got roused up, started hollering and screaming.

SPEAKER_00 23:19

Lonnie's brother headed outside with his shotgun.

SPEAKER_04 23:22

Just as he was going outside, and one of them grabbed him by the hair of the head, and then he jumped on out of the yard and, you know, shot at him.

SPEAKER_00 23:29

Lonnie Langford said he and his family watched in terror as these glowing beams circled their home. When his brothers finally ran out of ammunition, they brandished their flashlights, the beams illuminated the sky, and to the family's surprise, the silver creatures quickly retreated into the darkness.

SPEAKER_04 23:49

They wasn't trying to hurt nobody. They weren't trying to hurt us all. I think they was more scared of us than we were then. You know, but I was I was really scared. You know, I'm just telling you the truth.

Primary Source: Lonnie Langford Interview

SPEAKER_05 24:09

I was muted.

SPEAKER_06 24:11

So uh how old was that interview? How old was that? How old was that interview? How old was that?

SPEAKER_05 24:19

Yeah, that's a kill. I don't know if he'd still be alive. Larry Lonnie Land Lankford. Lonnie Langford. I'd be crazy. I don't know. He'd look a little older now.

SPEAKER_06 24:39

It'd be interesting to see if he's still alive.

SPEAKER_05 24:43

Or if any of the family, or if any of the family uh is still around that you know has any information about the story or would like to come on and talk about it. Um, so he was just 12 years old during the 1955 incident. So whatever that math would be.

SPEAKER_06 25:09

55 to 25.

SPEAKER_05 25:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 25:19

Yeah. But um next an interesting story. I mean, I would like to you have had the XP number, we should try to get your horror time.

SPEAKER_05 25:29

Oh, from the uh yeah, or hell year, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 25:36

Yeah, and these creatures just scream alien to me.

SPEAKER_05 25:41

It does seem that way. It does seem that way. Less goblin-like, more alien-like.

SPEAKER_06 25:49

Yeah, because I like I I mean it obviously does look like a goblin. Like I think I think more alien.

SPEAKER_05 25:57

Yeah. Um let me see here. Do you oh shoot? Wait, I just realized I don't have the wheel pulled up. I'm slacking. Oh it's okay. I'm slacking. Um, let me get the goblins out of here. The hops can pill goblins. There we go. So do you want to do you want to take a guess at what the next one might be? We got mermaids and sirens. Okay. Oh, here. I'll yeah, I'll just share the wheel. I'll just share the wheel. Um I gotta stop share. Do this and do that, and click this button, and click that button. There we go.

SPEAKER_06 27:08

Take the back squatch I gotta do. The bad squash? Yeah. All right. Um I'm gonna say mermaids and styles.

Goblins Or Greys? Anatomy And Behavior

SPEAKER_05 27:31

Mermaids and sirens? I'm gonna say I'm gonna say. Did we do haunted penitentiaries? No. No. Uh man, I'm I'm I think it's haunted penitentiaries, but I really kind of want it to be Reddit rabbit holes. Uh all right. I will spin the wheel. Should we yeah, spin the wheel? There it is. What's it gonna be? Get out! Get out, reddit, reddit, rabbit holes. That's crazy. All right, well, there it is. Yeah, that'll that will be interesting because Reddit can get weird. Reddit can get weird for sure. But uh yeah, again, if anybody's had any strange happenings in the woods or encounters of the unknown, we would love to hear your story. You can reach out to us at exploring the unknownpod.com, or you can email us at exploring the unknownpod at outlook.com. Or you can call our hotline, which I really hope somebody calls the hotline. There's been a lot of numbers that is called the hotline, but nobody's left a left a voicemail. I want I would love to hear from some people that listen to the podcast. Even if you just want to say hi, that would be that would be fine too. But the number is 412-533-3483.

SPEAKER_06 29:04

No, I gotta be a hard question for you. I kind of make it up on the spot, but okay. Would you do you know about um the eight king situation where the big folks are throwing the rocks at the uh miners and stuff? Have you ever heard of that?

SPEAKER_05 29:22

Yeah, I think I I've heard it once or twice.

SPEAKER_06 29:26

Okay, so would you rather be a part of the miners that dealt with the eight kingings, or would you rather be a family member that was involved with the Hops and Bill Goblins? Oh man.

SPEAKER_05 29:50

I think I would think I think I would have to go with the goblins. Cause like I said, I I do a lot of my interaction based off of feeling, and I feel like if I would have felt okay, then it would have been oh cool. They're throwing rocks at me in the canyon. I I I'm pretty sure that they're not okay with that, with me being there. So they're pissed, they're not happy. Yeah, what do you what would you choose? Which would you do?

SPEAKER_06 30:24

I'd probably say that golf dance as well. Because I mean, I'm pretty sure the reason why the big fix target got tacking them is because they shot one or something like that. Yeah, I th I that was a couple days. Maybe I think that was a couple day event too.

SPEAKER_05 30:43

Yeah, it's a couple day event.

SPEAKER_06 30:46

It wasn't just one night, it was a couple days. So one night versus a couple days. I'll take the one night. That's true too. That is true too.

SPEAKER_05 30:57

Cool. Do you have anything else for this? No. Awesome. Alright, guys. Until next time. Keep exploring exploring the unknown. See you guys.