As UFOlogists look into the Kelly-Hopkinsville case, the Air Force performs its own secret investigation...
There is a curious
passage in Bud Ledwith’s notarized report on his interviews with Lucky, Miss Glennie
and the others. When he was describing the process of creating the composite
sketches (in the end he produced three slightly different versions), Ledwith
mentioned that someone from the Air Force base was also present: “A PFC from
nearby Ft. Campbell had come out to do the same thing I had done earlier with
the women, draw an artist’s conception of the ‘little men.’”[1]
Shortly
afterward, Ledwith said he offered his sketches to an Air Force officer, “but
he expressed no interest.”[2]
These statements,
arising as they do from events that transpired within 24 hours of the incident,
are significant because over the following days the Air Force went to great
pains to appear to take no interest in the Sutton family’s story. Davis reported that two days after the incident Fort
Campbell issued a pair of statements to the press: “…first, that there had been
no official investigation of the reports of the spaceship and its passengers,
and second, that there had been no basis to the report.”[3]
One might find it disingenuous
for the Air Force to declare that there was no basis to the report while
admitting that there had been no official investigation of that report, but the
Kelly-Hopkinsville incident seemed to inspire dramatic episodes of cognitive
dissonance within the Air Force, to the point where it is difficult to tell
just how many Air Forces there were in operation at the time.
Documents and news
clippings from Project Blue Book and the CUFOS case files reveal the efforts
the Air Force took to ignore the events at the Sutton farm:
The local Hopkinsville
newspaper, for example, reported the next day that, along with the civilian law
enforcement officers who had raced to the Sutton farm the night before, “Four
MP’s also went.”[4] The
article also said that “All sorts of investigations were going on today” in
connection with the incident, but that, “Most official of the probes was
reportedly being staged by the Air Force.”[5]
Also on
the 22nd, The Madisonville, Kentucky Messenger reported that “At least a carload of Military Police sped
to the scene” of the Sutton farm the night before.[6]
A story that
appeared the same day in the Evansville, Indiana, Press, stated that “The
Public Information Office at Ft. Campbell, Ky., several miles from the scene,
reported no knowledge of the incident,” but added that “Ft. Campbell authorities today sent Major
Albert Coren to the scene to investigate, sheriff’s officers said.”[7]
“Chief Greenwell stated definitely that Air
Force Intelligence from Fort Campbell was on the scene,” Davis’ report
confirmed.[8]
A full year later,
in a September 10, 1956 letter to then-new Blue Book project chief Captain
George T. Gregory, none other than Dr. Hynek reported that “It was
(Hopkinsville Police Chief Greenwell) who stated that the affair was
investigated by Air Force officers from Fort Campbell. I understand that MP’s
and a Pfc from Fort Campbell investigated at the farmhouse on late Monday
afternoon. The Pfc was a Mr. Hodson and his account and pictures were published
in the Clarksville Tennessee Leaf
Chronicle.
“Chief Greenwell
also stated that the affair had been investigated by two men from an unidentified
agency at Standiford Field in Louisville, a commercial field,” Hynek reported.[9]
The August 24,
1955 article in the Clarksville Leaf
Chronicle mentioned by Hynek relied on Pfc. Hodson’s testimony to an
astonishing degree, in fact, and makes it clear that he was assisted in his
efforts by the Hopkinsville Police.
“On Monday
following the incident, Pfc Gary F. Hodson, who works in the Educational
Center at Ft. Campbell and is a better than average artist, made the trip to
the Sutton farm house with the assistance of the Hopkinsville police,” the
article read. “There he talked with all the people who supposedly saw and
fought with the little people who
came from space to try to gain entrance to the Sutton home.
“From their
descriptions, he was able to draw ‘likenesses’ of the little men which all who
saw them agreed was nearly what they had seen. The picture that emerged from
Hodson’s pen onto the drawing board is that of a man, if it could be called
that (the people had no apparent sex organs), between 2 1/2-3 feet tall. His
most noticeable characteristic is a huge head and long dangling arms from which extend
appendages resembling a cross between hands and claws.”[10]
“Hodson said
that the people on the scene all said that the folks came in a conventional
flying saucer that glowed all over and shot fire from the back end,” the
article went on. “One noticeable thing about the saucer, apart from what has
already been said, was that there was a rim about it that glowed more brightly
than the rest.
“When a
reporter asked Hodson his opinion of the story, he said that he still didn’t
believe it but that it would be extremely difficult for such a large group of
people to agree on and commit to memory such a large number of details about
the appearance of the little men.”[11]
If Hodson’s
description of Billy Ray Taylor’s UFO seems suspiciously over-detailed,
Ledwith’s report reveals why: After mentioning that Hodson “…came as a private
individual. He was not there in any official capacity,”[12]
Ledwith confessed that he foisted Billy Ray on Hodson when he realized that
Taylor was lavishly embellishing his description of the creature with features
no one else had seen. “The sad part of it,” Ledwith wrote, “was that the
soldier was swallowing hook, line and sinker, all the new details.
“Taylor was
thoroughly enjoying his popularity.”[13]
In addition to
being immortalized in the sketches of Ledwith and Hodson, the little men of
Kelly-Hopkinsville were also rendered in three-dimensions, according to another
amateur investigator who entered the fray some time later. Davis quoted an
Albert Andre from Green Brier, Kentucky, who interviewed Miss Glennie sometime
in 1959 and came away with this fascinating story:
“Another incident
reported by Mr. Andre was a visit to the farm, sometime during this period, by
three other investigators from Fort Campbell, who asked for a detailed
description of the little men. They returned a few hours later with a model, to
have the family confirm its accuracy. No changes were made. Mrs. Lankford said
that ‘the man who made it must have known exactly what they looked like.’”[14]
As if that weren’t
enough indication that the Air Force had investigated the incident in force at
the time the events took place, further evidence came out over 40 years later, when one of the
responding state troopers confirmed first-hand that there was an Air Force
presence at the Sutton farm that night. In a March 16, 1996 letter to Swedish
UFO investigator Clas Svahn, former state trooper Russell N. Ferguson, Jr.,
wrote, “There were several police agencies there at the time—Kentucky State
Police (of which I was one), Hopkinsville City Police, Military Police from Ft.
Campbell, Ky.”[15]
Surely
after all this investigation there must have been a very thick file on the
Kelly-Hopkinsville incident in the Blue Book offices, not to mention a
sculpture of an odd little man that could hardly have escaped attention. But
when, in 1957, the Air Force public affairs office learned that a magazine
article on the second anniversary of the incident might soon be published,
there were no records to be found.
This put ATIC in a
complicated position. It was unavoidably clear from existing documents, news
clippings and eye-witness testimony that the Air Force had been all over the
Sutton farm on August 21-22, 1955—the case was by this time actually being
presented in detail in Air Force Intelligence classes as a fully-investigated prototypical
UFO hoax—and yet, two years after the fact, there was no case file from which
Blue Book could draw information should reporters start to make inquiries. Thus
the absurdity of this telling memo from Captain Gregory: “This case which has
not yet been brought to the ‘official’ attention of the Air Force, may cause
some embarrassment if suddenly submitted ‘cold’ to ATIC.”[16]
How to hide this
gaping hole from public view?
“Preparatory
countermeasures are considered warranted.”[17]
To that end, a
previously anonymous adjutant at Fort Douglas, 1st Lieutenant Charles
N. Kirk, was given the formidable task of reconstructing the original
investigation, which, as far as anyone at Blue Book knew, had never even
occurred. In due course 1st Lt. Kirk came through with a pair of
documents that made it look as though Project Blue Book had been on top of the
situation from day one.
In the first, a September
17, 1957 letter to Kirk from a Captain Robert J. Hertell of the 3928th
Air Base Squadron, Capt. Hertell recounts his recollection of the event: “To my
knowledge, the Sutton incident was first investigated, thoroughly so, by the
State Highway Patrol, and later by the Sheriff's Office. The incident was never
officially reported to the Air Force. In fact, the first I remember hearing
about it is when several persons at Campbell brought to my attention an article
about the incident which appeared in the local Hopkinsville paper.”[18]
“As for the report
that the affair was investigated and reported upon by two Air Force Officers
from Campbell Air Force Base, I don’t beleive (sic) that there is any fact in
this,” Hertell went on. “I beleive (sic) that a couple of our officers may have
gone down—on their own—to view the place, as I heard some talk of this at the
time, but Colonel Donald McPherson, the Base Commander certainly never ordered
any official investigation, to the best of my knowledge.
“I
seem to remember Captain Benjamin Bennett saying something about going down to
see the spot, but since he is still stationed there, surely you have already
questioned him regarding this matter.
“The only other officer
who may have looked into this matter was the Deputy Base Commander, Major Ziba
B. Ogden, now stationed at Westover Air Force Base. I remember the two of us
talking about the incident, and he could possibly have been sent to the scene
by Col. McPherson, in an unofficial capacity, without my knowing about it.”[19]
Then, after
throwing around the names of half the officers on the base, Captain Hertell
went to great lengths—to the point of comic overkill—to distance himself from
the case: “In closing,” he wrote to Kirk, “I’d like to point out, that out of
all the cases that I investigated for the commander and out of all the
incidents that happened around Campbell during my three and a half years there,
this incident impressed me the least, and furthermore, I was never even
remotely connected with it. It follows then, that my memory concerning this
incident is rather faulty and I am not even sure exactly when it took place. Therefore
I’m afraid I haven’t been of much help, and for this I apologize.”[20]
The second curious
document was written only nine days later, by the very same 1st Lt.
Kirk. In this official report dated September 26, 1957, Kirk recounted a bizarre
statement made to him by a Major John E. Albert about his visit to the Sutton
farm the day after the incident.
Maj. Albert—who,
it should be noted, was not included in Capt. Hertell’s exhaustive list of
names—told Kirk that he was en route
to Fort Campbell the morning after the incident when he heard about the UFO
sighting on the news. He contacted the Base and asked if anyone there had heard
about the flying saucer landing. “They stated that they had not and it was
suggested that as long as I was close to the area, that I should determine if
there was anything to this report.”[21]
Maj. Albert
arrived at the Sutton farm and had this to report after meeting the witnesses:
“Mrs. Glennie Lankford was an impoverished widow woman who had grown up in this
small community just outside of Hopkinsville, with very little education,” he
said. “She belonged to the Holy Roller Church and the night and evening of this
occurrence, had gone to a religious meeting and she indicated that the members
of the congregation and her two sons and their wives and some friends of her
sons’, were also at this religious meeting and were worked up into a frenzy,
becoming very emotionally unbalanced and that after the religious meeting, they
had discussed this article which she had heard about over the radio and had
sent for from the Kingdom Publishers, Fort Worth 1, Texas and they had sent her
this article with a picture which appeared to be a little man when it actually
was a monkey, painted silver.
“It is my opinion,”
Albert told Kelly, “that the report of Mrs. Lankford or her son, Elmer Sutton,
was caused by one of two reasons. Either they actually did see what they
thought was a little man and at the time, there was a circus in the area and a
monkey might have escaped, giving the appearance of a small man. Two,
being emotionally upset, and discussing the
article and showing pictures of this little monkey, that appeared like a man,
their imaginations ran away with them and they really did believe what they
saw, which they thought was a little man.”[22]
After pointing out that the window through which Miss
Glennie saw the creature was low enough for a small monkey to reach from the
ground, Major Albert came to the following conclusion: “It is felt that the
Report cannot be substantiated as far as
any actual object appearing in the vicinity at that time.”[23]
Of course, if there was no “actual object in the vicinity
at that time,” that means there could not have been a monkey at the window. Be
that as it may, Major Albert had the foresight to get the following, somewhat
reductive sworn statement from Glennie Lankford:
“My name
Is Glennie Lankford age 50 and I live at Kelly Station,
Hopkinsville Route 6, Kentucky.
“On
Sunday night Aug 21, 55 about 10:30 P. M. I was walking through the hallway
which is located in the middle of my house and I looked out south the back door
& saw a bright sliver object about two and a half feet tall appearing
round. I became excited and did not look at it long enough to see if it had any
eyes or move. I was about 15 or 20 feet from it. I fell backward, and then was
carried into the bedroom.
“My two
sons Elmer Sutton age 25 and his wife Vera age 29, J. C. Sutton age 21 and his
wife Aline (sic) age 27 and their friends Billie Taylor, age 21 and his wife
June, 18 were all in the house and saw this little man that looked like a
monkey.
“About
3:30 A. M. I was in my bedroom and looked out the north window and saw a small
silver shinning (sic) object about 2 1/2 feet tall that had its hands on the screen
looking in. I called for my sons and they shot at it and it left. I was about
60 feet from it this time. I did not see it anymore.
“I have
read the above statement and it is true to the best of my knowledge and belief.”
Witness
s/John E. Albert
s/Glennie Lankford[24]
It
is not known whether the dreaded magazine article commemorating the second
anniversary of the Kelly-Hopkinsville incident ever appeared in print, but one
could hardly blame the magazine editors if they decided to drop the story
altogether once they learned about Major Albert’s silver monkey.
A conservative
head count arrives at a total of 13 MPs, officers and Intelligence operatives
from Fort Campbell descending on the Sutton farm between August 21st
and 22nd, as well as two men from an unknown, possibly civilian
agency. At what point does unofficial become official? At least one of the
officers was at the Sutton farm at the suggestion of his commanding officer. At
least one was there at the direct request of his CO, although perhaps not
technically under orders. At least one was with Air Force Intelligence.
This is important.
To Be Continued...
[1] Ibid.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Davis
& Bloecher, op.cit.
[4] “Story of Space-Ship, 12 Little Men Being
Probed Today,” unattributed, August 22, 1955, Hopkinsville, Kentucky New Era
[5] Ibid.
[7] Kentuckians Report Gun Battle With ‘Little
Men From Space,’ by Bill Burleigh, August 22, 1956 Evansville, Indiana Press
[8] Davis
& Bloecher, op.cit.
[9] Report
to Project Blue Book commander Captain George T. Gregory from Dr. J. Allen
Hynek, dated September 10, 1956, reproduced in Isabel Davis’ Kelly-Hopkinsville
investigation report.
[10] Kentucky Family ‘Describes’ Mysterious
Little Men Who Visited Their Farm In ‘Space Ship,’ unattributed, August 24,
1955, Clarksville, Tennessee Leaf
Chronicle
[11] Ibid.
[12]
Ledwith, op.cit.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Davis
& Bloecher, op.cit.
[15] Letter
from Russell N. Ferguson, Jr., to Clas Svahn, March 16, 1996, from the CUFOS
collection
[16] Undated
Memorandum from Project Blue Book Project Chief Captain George T. Gregory, from
the Blue Book files
[17] Ibid.
[18] Letter
from Captain Robert J. Hertell to 1st Sgt. Charles M. Kirk, dated
September 17, 1957, from the CUFOS collection
[19] Ibid.
[20] Ibid.
[21]
Statement by Major John E. Albert to 1st Lieutenant Charles N. Kirk,
4002D Air Base Squadron, Campbell Air Force Base, dated September 26, 1957,
from the CUFOS collection
[22] Ibid.
[23] Ibid.
[24] Sworn
statement by Mrs. Glennie Lankford, given to Major John E. Albert, dated August
22, 1955, from the CUFOS collection
2 comments:
I'm surprised Major Albert didn't report the possibility that kangaroos were jumping out of the forest.
Given more time, I'm sure he would have thought of that too...
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