Episode 21: Remembering the Kelly-Hopkinsville Goblins Case

My favorite UFO/humanoid experience case when I was a kid (8 or 9 years old) was the infamous 1955 Kelly-Hopkinsville Kentucky Goblins Case. I loved that story, because it was about as full of High Strangeness as it could be.

It was also set in Appalachia, among people who sounded like my relatives, and the way that they reacted was very familiar to me. I always believed them, because they were scared enough to all pile into their vehicles and bug out, heading to the police department for help. Everyone I knew growing up would only have done that if something had truly terrified them.

Appalachian folk are not known for being overly trusting of local authority figures.

When I found out from Greg Bishop that the daughter and granddaughter of two of the original witnesses was not only alive and still telling the true story, but her brother was making little resin replicas of the wee wicked goblins, I had to contact her.

So prepare to meet Geraldine Sutton Stith, who will set right a few things writers and investigators have gotten wrong in the story over the decades, and tell a great story besides. She epitomizes the Appalachian tradition of story telling, with a natural knack for getting at the heart of a tale, spinning the thread of truth into a story that is timeless and riveting.

She’s written three books, and yes, her brother is still making those goblins, both in Kelly Green—which is not the color they were—and grey—-the actual color of the original goblins. Click here to go to her Etsy shop where she sells her books and those big-eared little deceptively innocent looking UFOnauts.

She’s also organized a festival celebrating those little critters and her family’s experience, and has done the little community of Kelly, Kentucky a great deal of good.

Morganna and I had great fun connecting with Geraldine, and we know you’ll end up loving her, too.