The Hopkinsville Goblins | Unusual Encounters in Kentucky

In 1955, a small farmhouse in Kentucky became the site of one of America’s most bizarre UFO encounters.
The Sutton family claimed they were terrorized by small, metallic-skinned creatures—what we now call the Hopkinsville Goblins.

In this episode, host Robert Barber investigates the timeline of the incident, the military response, and the long legacy of this rural legend.

👽 Alien visitors? Mass hysteria? Or something stranger still?

🎧 Listen now—and if you enjoy deep dives into paranormal folklore, follow State of the Unknown and leave a review. It helps more than you know.

State of the Unknown is a documentary-style podcast tracing the haunted highways, forgotten folklore, and unexplained phenomena across America’s 50 states.

👁️‍🗨️ New episodes every other Wednesday.
📬 Reach out: contact@stateoftheunknown.com
📣 Follow the strange: @stateoftheunknownpodcast on Facebook, Instagram & Threads
🔍 Want more? Visit stateoftheunknown.com to explore show notes and submit your own story.

## Join the Conversation ##
Join the conversation! Head to our Facebook group at State of the Unknown Listeners to connect with other listeners, suggest topics, and get behind-the-scenes updates.

Some stories don’t stay buried.
We go looking anyway.

Chapters

• 2:10 The Setting – Rural Kentucky, 1955
• 4:35 Nightfall – The Siege Begins
• 7:57 Aftermath – Police, Press, and Disbelief
• 11:17 Theories – Explanations, Debunkings, and What’s Still Unexplained
• 19:04 The Beings Themselves
• 21:46 Legacy – The Festival, Pop Culture, and What the Family Left Behind
• 24:35 Final Thoughts

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:03

It started with the light in the sky. Too fast. Too bright. Too quiet. And then, nothing. Just the sound of frogs and crickets outside a farmhouse in rural Kentucky. Just another summer night in the country. Until something stepped out of the woods. They weren't human. Not exactly. They were small. Maybe three feet tall. with skin like silver foil, arms too long, and ears that came to sharp points like horns. And their eyes, they glowed. The Sutton family didn't wait to ask questions. They fired. Shotguns and pistols for nearly four hours. And the creatures? They didn't bleed, and they didn't fall. They just kept coming. popping up at windows, floating towards the house, and vanishing into the dark. What happened next drew headlines, soldiers, and skeptics. But that night out on a farmhouse near Hopkinsville, something came out of the woods, and no one ever figured out what it was. I'm your host, Robert Barber. Today, we head to Western Kentucky, where a summer night in 1955 turned into something far stranger than a ghost story. A family under siege, a creature no one could kill, and a legend that forced even the military to take a closer look. This is the story of the Hopkinsville Goblins. This is State of the Unknown. Christian County, Kentucky. Late August, 1955. It was the kind of summer where the air clung to your skin. The kind where the sounds of cicadas and bullfrogs could drown out your own heartbeat. And when the sun went down, the dark didn't creep, it dropped. The farmhouse sat five miles outside the city of Hopkinsville. No neighbors close by. No electricity in parts of the house. Just well water, kerosene lamps, and shotgun shells in the drawer. There were 11 people inside that night. Two families, all visiting for a weekend dinner. They'd just finished supper. The kids were out chasing fireflies. The adults were passing around a jug of cold well water. It was quiet, familiar. The house belonged to Glenny Lankford, a widowed matriarch raising her children on her own. Her son, Lucky Sutton, was visiting with his wife, along with Billy Ray Taylor, his wife, and a few other relatives. Simple people, not drunks, not fortune seekers, just rural Kentuckians trying to make it through another humid night. The stars were bright that evening. to see the Milky Way smeared across the sky like milk on a blackboard. But something brighter than a star flashed overhead. Something fast. Something quiet. Billy Ray was the first to notice it. A streak of silver light arcing over the treetops, moving too slow to be a shooting star and too quiet to be a plane. He told the others. Most of them laughed it off. But he kept looking toward the tree line. And just before the sun was gone for good, he saw something step out of the woods. It didn't look human. Didn't move like anything he'd ever seen. It wasn't walking. It was gliding. And in the last streak of light from the setting sun, he swore he saw it shimmer. Like metal or silver skin. At first, it was just a feeling, something in the air, a quiet, too quiet. Billy Ray Taylor had gone out to the well when he saw the figure again, closer this time. He ran back into the house, pale and shaking, telling the others he'd seen a little man, glowing. But this wasn't just the story of one man. Minutes later, they all heard it. a scratching at the screen, a soft thump on the roof, a high-pitched metallic sound like coins shaking in a tin can coming from just outside the walls. Then they saw it. At the back window, two glowing yellow eyes, wide set and unblinking, staring into the house. The body behind them? Small. Three, maybe four feet tall. with spindly arms that reached nearly to the ground, hands with claws instead of fingers, pointed ears sticking out sideways like antenna, and its skin shimmered like polished aluminum in the moonlight. Lucky Sutton and Billy Ray grabbed their guns, a 20-gauge shotgun and a.22 rifle, and fired through the screen. The blast knocked the creature backwards. It flipped, somersaulted in the dark, then stood back up unharmed. They fired again and again. One creature leapt to the roof. Another hovered, not jumped, hovered off the ground, floating towards the house before darting back into the woods. For the next four hours, the family huddled inside, taking turns firing at the windows. Every time they hit something, it would tumble, then vanish. But none of them ever fell for good. The children cried. The adults ran from room to room, trying to guard every wall. And outside, those gleaming eyes just kept appearing. At windows, around corners, even on the roof above them. At one point, Lucky stepped outside with Billy Ray to circle the house. And from the overhang, a clawed hand reached down and brushed his hair. He screamed, turned, and fired point-blank at the roofline. Again, nothing. The creatures didn't speak, didn't growl, didn't roar. They made no sound at all, except for the tinny metallic chirping that drifted in on the wind, just when you thought they were gone. The siege lasted nearly four hours, and then, as suddenly as it began, it stopped. No final blast, no running retreat, just silence. The creatures disappeared into the night, leaving the family alone with a smoking shotgun barrel, a house full of broken windows, and a fear that wasn't finished yet. By the time the sun rose, the Sutton farmhouse was eerily still. No blood, no bodies, no claw marks, just a wrecked screen door, holes in the siding, and 11 people who hadn't slept a second. At dawn, Lucky Sutton and Billy Ray Taylor drove straight into the town of Hopkinsville to the police station. They weren't wild-eyed or ranting. They were quiet, shaken, and and dead serious. They told their story, and it didn't sound like a prank. It sounded like something that needed investigating. So the Hopkinsville police chief, state troopers, and even a few military police from nearby Fort Campbell drove out to the farmhouse. They expected a hoax, maybe a family squabble, maybe something worse. But when they arrived, they found something. Odd. Not just the busted windows. Not just the spent shells littering the floor. They found people who were still visibly terrified. Children clinging to their mothers. Adults refusing to go outside. And that house? It wasn't just shot up. It looked like a place that had seen a battle. Officers spread out, searching the area. they found strange footprints in the mud. Small, with three claw-like toes, unlike any human or animal tracks in the region. They tested the wells, checked the woods, examined the windows. No drugs, no alcohol, no reason to think these people were anything but sober and scared. One officer remarked that the group was more frightened than anyone he'd ever interviewed before. Another wrote in his notes that something happened here. Even if it wasn't what they said, it was something. Later that morning, the press showed up. And within hours, the Hopkinsville goblins were front page news. Words like aliens and little men started to appear in headlines. Cartoonish sketches were drawn. Big ears, glowing eyes, sharp claws. Radio shows picked up the story. Even Project Blue Book, the U.S. Air Force's official UFO investigation program, filed the incident labeling it unexplained. And yet, the ridicule came just as fast. Reporters mocked the family's accents, called them poor, suggested that they'd been drinking or trying to get famous. But if that was the plan, it backfired. The Suttons turned down offers to go on national television, refused money from Hollywood. They didn't want attention. They wanted privacy. But the story had already taken on a life of its own. And for the rest of their lives, they'd never fully outrun it. So what really happened on that warm Kentucky night? Something strange, yes. But strange doesn't always mean supernatural. And for nearly 70 years, people have tried to explain the Hopkinsville goblins. Some use science. Some use folklore. And some just, well, believe the family. The most frequently cited explanation is the owl theory, specifically the great horned owl. These birds are big. wingspans up to five feet, bright, reflective eyes, feathers that shimmer silver in the moonlight. And they can fly silently, so silently that many prey animals don't hear them coming until it's too late. Owls are also territorial. They'll swoop if they feel threatened. And under just the right conditions, low light, adrenaline, fear, an owl might seem bigger, stranger, and more menacing than it really is. Skeptics claim that what the Suttons experienced was a group of owls defending a nearby nest. That in the stress and confusion, an owl perched on a branch became a glowing-eyed goblin at the window. But even wildlife experts admit it's a stretch. Owls don't walk upright, don't hover upright, and don't survive multiple rounds of gunfire. And most importantly, they don't show up in coordinated waves across four hours. There were dozens of sightings from multiple angles, seen by 11 different people in a range of lighting conditions. For all the similarities, a barn owl does not explain why the Sutton shot at one and saw it flip, float, and land upright again, unscathed. If it was just an owl, it would have been dead by midnight. And the story would have ended there. Then there's the skeptical fallback. It was all made up. A prank that spiraled out of control. A tale told too well. Or maybe a group hysteria episode shared by an isolated, anxious family. But here's the problem with that idea. The Suttons weren't media savvy. They didn't chase interviews or book deals. They turned down multiple offers, including from Hollywood, when a film studio offered money for the rights. Instead, they avoided reporters. They were treated from the public eye. And for decades, they refused to talk about that night, unless asked. Mass hysteria usually spreads after people talk about something, after a rumor takes hold. But in this case, it happened before. All 11 witnesses saw the same thing at the same time in real space with consistent details. There were children, elderly relatives, and even a police officer who believed something real had shaken them. Even the military police who responded that night took the case seriously enough to file a report, though they couldn't explain what happened either. A hoax? Maybe. But for what? The family never benefited, never changed their story, never wanted the fame that followed. If it was a lie, it was the kind that cost more than it gained. And that makes it harder to dismiss. Then there's the theory that refuses to fade. The one that draws believers from around the world every year. Descriptions of the creatures fit classic alien imagery. Small, humanoid figures. Large, glowing eyes. Metallic or reflective skin. No visible mouths or ears. Movements that seemed to defy gravity. An object in the sky seen moments before the encounters began. Some believe they were wearing suits, not shining skin. that the glow was a result of technology, not biology, and that the chirping, the floating, and the bulletproof behavior were all part of their design. The detail about the light in the sky seen by Billy Ray Taylor when getting water was often brushed aside, but it matches countless other close-encounter cases reported across the country during the 1950s. The Sutton encounter occurred just eight years after the Roswell incident and two years after the term UFO entered the national vocabulary. What's odd is how primitive the encounter feels. There were no craft, no messages, no beams of light or abductions, just watching, floating, staring through windows. The kind of behavior you might expect from a drone or from something sent to observe. Some researchers even believe that goblins weren't the pilots, but scouting entities. Biological robots sent by something larger that never stepped into the field. And then there's the theory that this wasn't a visit from the stars, but a leak from somewhere else entirely. The ultra-terrestrial theory suggests the creatures weren't from space, but from another dimension. A slip, a momentary crossing, a weak point between worlds. It might sound outlandish, but it explains the things that nothing else does. The creature's invulnerability, their silent flight, their strange sounds, their refusal to interact in a meaningful way. and their sudden disappearance without a trace. There are older names for beings like this. The Fae, the Djinn, shadow people, goblins, tricksters. All across the world, folk cultures have stories of small beings who live outside our reality, only crossing over briefly, just enough to frighten, confuse, and then vanish. It's not a coincidence that the Suttons called them goblins. Not aliens, not visitors. Goblins. Because that's what they felt like. Small, watching, mocking almost. Not evil, but not kind either. Some believe these beings thrive on belief and that they need to be seen. And when too many people believe they exist, they disappear again. Like the stories were only ever meant for a few eyes at a time. So what happened on that August night in Kentucky? A hoax? A misidentified bird? A psychological spiral? Or did something really visit that house? Something that doesn't fit in any category. Something we're still not ready to name. Descriptions of the creatures varied ever so slightly, but the details that mattered, the ones that haunted people, remained exactly the same. Three feet tall, glowing eyes, slender limbs that ended in claws, not fingers, ears like pointed horns, jutting sideways, impossibly long, and skin that shimmered like metal, or maybe wet foil reflecting moonlight even in the thickest shadows. When they moved, it wasn't like animals. They didn't run. They didn't crawl. They glided. Some said it was like they floated just above the ground, never making a sound, never disturbing the dirt. Others watched them flip and tumble after being hit by shotgun blasts, only to right themselves without limping without bleeding, and without retreating. And the strangest part? They made almost no noise. No breathing, no vocalizations, just that metallic clicking, like coins shaking in a tin cup, sometimes near the windows, sometimes just beyond the walls. A sound that wasn't quite mechanical and wasn't quite natural. It was the kind of thing you don't realize is unnatural until you notice how loud the silence has become. For years, artists and writers would depict the creatures in their own way, some with exaggerated claws, some with bug-like eyes, some as classic gray aliens in suits. But the early sketches, those taken from the witness descriptions the next morning, remain chillingly consistent. Wide set eyes, no neck, sloped shoulders, arms that stretched past the knees, and a head that gleamed with a strange silver light. They weren't monstrous. They weren't grotesque. They were wrong. Just wrong enough to make your stomach twist. Like something that wasn't built for this world, but it found its way in just long enough to look around. The Sutton family didn't give them names, didn't try to defend them. They didn't need to. Because when something watches you from the trees for four hours, you don't ask what it is. You just try to survive it. The Sutton family never wanted to be remembered, but their story was too strange to be forgotten. What happened on that farm outside Hopkinsville became a spark, igniting curiosity and disbelief, mockery, and obsession. In the years that followed, the Hopkinsville Goblins showed up everywhere. Sketches in UFO books, retellings in radio dramas, features in paranormal magazines, and mentions in psychology papers and government reports. And by the 1980s, they'd crossed over into something even bigger. Hollywood. The 1986 horror comedy Critters was loosely inspired by the Sutton case. So was M. Night Shyamalan's Signs, where a rural family is stalked by strange beings around their home, seen through windows and shadow, watched, but never quite reached. The creatures even made their way into video games, podcasts like this one, and fan art. They became more than a mystery. They became a symbol. And then, in the 2000s, something unexpected happened. The goblins came home. Hopkinsville leaned in. Locals launched the Little Green Men Festival, a yearly event where believers, skeptics, and the cryptid curious come together to celebrate the town's most famous and infamous visitors. There are costumes, panels, lectures, merchandise, tours of the area, and even reenactments of that night in 1955. What started as a nightmare for one family became a celebration of mystery itself. And somehow, in all of that, the original witnesses never wavered. Glenny Lankford, the matriarch of the family, held fast to her story until her death. Her children, too. Quiet, consistent, never asking to be believed, but never denying what they saw. To the end, they swore the same thing. They weren't lying, they weren't confused, and something was out there. Today, the Sutton farmhouse is gone. The land has changed, but the legend is rooted deeper than ever, because it wasn't just about aliens or goblins. It was about encounter. about that moment when something strange brushes against the edge of normal life and everything safe and known begins to shake. And once it's happened, it can't be undone. They weren't monsters. Not exactly. They didn't speak. They didn't attack. They didn't take anything, except the peace of mind from everyone inside that house. The Suttons weren't looking for fame. They didn't want a story. They already had one, and it lived with them long after the creatures were gone. The farmhouse is gone now, reclaimed by time. The field is quiet again. The woods have thickened. But if you stand there after dark, just long enough to listen, you might still feel it. That moment when the world around you feels too still. when the dark seems to lean in and your skin prickles for no good reason. The Hopkinsville goblins have become folklore, cartoons, mascots, tourist attractions. But for one night in 1955, they were real. Not just believed, but seen. And that's what makes this story matter. Because whether they came from the stars, from the woods, or from somewhere we still can't name, they were here. This is State of the Unknown. Every other Wednesday, we travel to another corner of America, uncovering the haunted highways, hidden legends, and untold stories that refuse to stay buried. if you enjoyed this episode follow the show and leave a review it helps others find these forgotten stories next time we leave the cornfields of Kentucky behind and step back into the shadows of early America long before Salem became infamous another town was gripped by fear accusations flew lives were lost in history tried to forget Don't go to the window. Just let it pass.