They come in peace? Not in the view of a group of residents in Kentucky who in 1955 had a prolonged shoot out with extraterrestrials that year. The aliens were only about 3.5 feet high but scared the wits out of the Kentuckians who pumped endless rounds into the critters who seemed impervious to the bullets and then floated away.
The drama kicked off around 7pm on August 21 1955 after somebody in the town of Hopkinsville saw a bright light and heard a strange hissing sound. A brilliant object had landed about a block away from the house. The next thing, he saw the aliens making their way towards him. Calling to his friends, they formed a posse to take on these unwelcome visitors from another planet.
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The aliens were described as being “made of aluminium foil and had two big, far-apart eyes”. Another witness said they were “nickel plated”. In other words, not dissimilar to nearly every alien in the average 1950s sci-fi movie. A more curious description was that they resembled the bones of a skeleton covered in shiny metal. In addition there were webbed hands, talons and pointed ears.
There was no attempt at peaceful dialogue. The Hopkinsville posse proceeded to expend 150 rounds of ammunition in a shoot out with the aliens. But the bullets just bounced off them. The police received calls from the scene and the men involved were reported to be “hysterical”. When one Kentucky State Police Trooper arrived, he did later mention a “swishing noise” while another heard an odd noise in the woods but found no physical evidence of aliens.
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The “little green men”, as the press mockingly referred to the ETs, made one return visit after which the men in the posse moved out of their homes. Their claims were greeted with a great deal of scepticism in the years that followed with one accusation that in the dark of night, they had mistaken the local great horned owls for aliens.
Chief of Police Russell Greenwell acknowledged the wave of cynicism but said the Hopkinsville residents he met were genuinely shaken by the experience. Also, their stories all concurred in the police investigation that followed. However, the first officer to arrive at the scene, George Batts, claimed the men at Hopkinsville had been involved in a drunken brawl. He remarked that before their alleged shoot out with aliens, the men had been reading comic books, which might have informed their imagination.
