A Most Unusual Gun Battle in Kentucky, 1955On the night of August 21st, 1955 a man named Billy Ray Taylor was visiting his friends, the Sutton family, on their family farm near Kelly, Kentucky. A large farming family, the Sutton household that night consisted of eleven members including widowed family matriarch Glennie Lankford (50); her children, Lonnie (12), Charlton (10), and Mary (7); two sons from her previous marriage, Elmer “Lucky” Sutton (25) and John Charley “J.C.” Sutton (21), and their respective wives, Vera (29) and Alene (27); Alene’s brother, O.P. Baker (30 or 35); and a Pennsylvania couple, Billy Ray Taylor (21) and June Taylor (18).
At around 7:00 pm Billy Ray went to fetch water from the well when a bright light streaked over the sky, landing in the distance near the treeline. An hour later several strange creatures approached, described as four feet tall and were said to have large pointed ears, clawlike hands (with talons at the fingers’ ends), and eyes that glowed yellow. Billy Ray and Elmer “Lucky” Sutton member fetched a .22 rifle and a 12 gauge shotgun. When the creatures approached to within 20 ft of the house, they opened fire.
When shot the strange creatures were knocked to the ground with a metallic thud, but not harmed. The men shot at the creatures in the trees and even on the house as they crawled on the roof. At one point one of the creatures was able to grab Taylor by the hair and lift him off of the ground. The men barricaded themselves within the cabin with their family and friends. However the creatures would peer into the windows, trying to find a way in. When they did so Taylor or Elmer Sutton would open fire, knocking the creature to the ground and causing it to scamper away into the forest.
After three hours a there was a lull in the fighting and the Sutton’s quickly piled into their cars and headed to the local police station. An hour later dozens of officers from the local and state police swarmed the area. They found a barricaded cabin riddled with bullet holes but no sign of the strange creatures. The Sutton’s were not the only ones to witness strange things that night, dozens of people, including police officers sighted strange lights, flying saucers, and strange sounds throughout the night. However, it is unknown whether the battle at the Sutton farm was an elaborate hoax or the truth.
