Kentucky Unknown
Sometimes, I’m talking with a friend, and I mention the legend of the Kentucky Goatman, and they have no idea who I mean.
Sometimes, I’m talking about famous U.F.O. sightings, and I learn that the person I’m speaking to has never heard of the U.F.O. sighting over Louisville, Ky.
Check the name of this website. I collect stories about U.F.O.s, alien encounters, strange cryptids, fanciful monsters, ghost stories and more. Some may feature in the Junior Rangers Investigative Club Novels. Others may fuel interesting stories in another series I’m cooking. Some I just like to talk about for fun.
(two of today’s topics combined into one 10 minute sketch.)
I listen to paranormal podcasts. (only very entertaining ones. I have to do something while I run.) I collect folklore and note it alongside all of the historical facts and legends that I learn during research. But sometimes, I forget that these stories, legends, and tales aren’t as widely known as I’d expect them to be. Sometimes, they are well known, but new to me. Othertimes, they are barely more than an anecdote tucked away inside a book with sparse support and little else to source.
So, I thought that I might start writing about a few of the more interesting stories I happen to know, if for not other reason than that I want other people to know them too.
Here are three of those stories, all located in the state of Kentucky. And 1 bonus, which is about anywhere and everywhere.
#1 The Hopkinsville Goblins (the-Kelly Hopkinsville encounter)
This is one that escaped me for far too long. It wasn’t until the solar eclipse of 2017 that I learned of the encounter between a family in south-eastern Kentucky and several strange, floating apparitions.
Accounts vary and escalate with time, but the story begins in the town of Hopkinsville, Kentucky on August 21-22 of 1955. The evening of August 21st, five adults and seven children rushed into the Hopkinsville Police department with a harrowing account of aliens attacking their farmhouse. They described the aliens as small dark figures who could glide through the trees.
It was dark when they first took notice of the figures which popped up at the door. Frightened by the strange, alien, figures, several of the adults involved grabbed their guns, and began to fire at the little green men in self-defense. For several hours they fired defensive shots out of the house, through windows, through doors. While they claimed to have hit the floating figures several times, none of the aliens fell to gunfire.
Taking stock of the account, and worried that they were hearing a one-sided account of a family feud turned violent, several groups of police officers and four military police from Fort Campbell drove out to the homesite to investigate. They found no evidence of the alien attack save for bullet holes in the windows and walls, and other signs of gunfire. No bodies were found.
While the people who had witnessed the alien attack never gave a specific number of aliens, one of the earliest articles written of the account put the number of aliens between 12 and 15. According to that article, the aliens were described as “about 4 feet tall.”
The article contains a better account of the events leading up to the police report. Apparently, one of the men went out to draw water from the well when he noticed a flying saucer land near the house. He retreated to the home. A short time later, “little men with big heads and long arms,” and “Huge eyes and hands disproportionate to their small bodies” began to approach the home. “The looked to be wearing metal plate.”
It was when one of these ‘little men’ put his face up to the window that the first volley in the brief interstellar war was fired. After a few more rounds were exchanged, and once the ‘little men’ retreated, everyone then packed up and then went to report to the police, who found: nothing but bullet holes.
A brief and often forgotten anecdote collected in this article, is that two of the adults, (the 12 people had returned the farm house after the police investigation) later fled the house ad 3:30 am of August 22, telling police officers as they were leaving that the ‘little men’ had returned. No further shots were fired, and none of the police made mention of witnessing the aliens for themselves.
Over the years there have been several attempt so arrive at an credible explanations of events.
Was it an attempt at first contact gone horribly wrong?
Did the quick thinking, and well armed, occupants of that farmhouse repel potential planetary invaders?
Were they drunk?
Police reports seem to have taken account of the last question, and they cite no evidence of inebriation.
Some Ufologists cite this case as one of the more credible alien encounters. Others point out that only the 12 people in that farmhouse witnessed anything, and no physical evidence of the aliens have ever been found. Over the years, people who have heard the description of the ‘little men’ note their similarity to another well-known creature of folklore, leading to the aliens from this encounter sometimes being called the Hopkinsville Goblins.
The descriptions of “creatures with large eyes flying through the trees” have also lead some to believe there might be a more Earthly explanation for the monsters, as the description, (when you account for the late hour, and squint really hard) also seems to fit another nocturnal creature known to fly through the trees and frequent southern Kentucky: The Great Horned Owl. How these owls were able to pilot the initial flying saucers is really anyone’s guess.
(do you see the resemblance?) P.S. I know I didn’t include the “Plate Armor.” The Goblins were supposedly wearing, but that’s because it would have taken too long to draw.
Fun facts about the Hopkinsville Goblins-
Apparently, Stephen Spielberg planned to use the encounter as the basis for a sequel to Close Encounters of the Third Kind. However, eventually parts of the script for the movie Night Skies were used instead in ET, and Poltergeist.
The design of the Pokémon Sableye was based upon descriptions of the Hopkinsville Goblin.
For years Hopkinsville held the Little Green Man festival in honor of the encounter, peaking in 2017 with the solar exlipse. Unfortunately, the festival has not survived into the 2020’s, but perhaps, if you spread this tale far and wide, it may come back.
Links to read more
Article about the Little Green Man Festival
#2 The Kentucky Meat Rain
Olympia Springs, Bath County Kentucky, 1876.
Mrs. Crouch. Wife of Allen Crouch was outside their home making soap when meat which looked like beef began to rain from the sky. Every article ever citing this account calls her "The Wife of Allen Crouch. Or Mrs. Crouch.” This is dumb. I did a quick check and found her on findagrave.com (not sponsored.) Her name was Rebecca Stanton Crouch. (Mrs. Crouch would be fine, as the initial article about the Kentucky Carnal Shower refers to everyone as Mr. or Mrs. but a lot of subsequent articles go on to list Allen’s first name, and never his wife’s)
Let me start over.
Olympia Springs, Bath County, Kentucky, March 3rd, 1876.
Rebecca Stanton Crouch was making soap outside of her home when meat which looked like beef began to fall from the sky. According to her, “The sky was perfectly clear.” But that did not stop the meet from falling like drifting snow. She called out to the people in her home at the time (Miss Sadie Robinson, a nursemaid. Her daughter Sallie Crouch, and her 11-year-old grandson. The 11-year-old was the only one to make it out in time to witness the meat raining from the sky.
But the nursemaid, and eventually Allen Crouch and their older son (when they returned,) were able to see the aftermath of the shower: small pieces of meet stuck in the fence, and spread about an area of about two acres. The largest piece was about 10cm across, but most were about 5x5cm or smaller. Several of the animals on the property, including pigs, chickens, and the family dog, all ate some of the meat, which was not spread evenly, nor thick enough to blanket the yard.
There was still much left over, and the family left it out overnight. (This is important, as the people who saw it that first day describe the meet as fresh, but most say that it spoiled overnight.) Two unidentified men are said to have tasted the meat, likening it not to beef but instead to lamb or venison. (Let’s hope that they did this on day one.)
News of the incident attracted other people to come and check it out. Most importantly, according to the first news article I could find about it, was a man named Harrison “whose veracity is unquestionable.” (It’s this article which also describes the anonymous meat tasters.) Eventually, the story spread far and wide enough to attract the attention of the New York Times, and the New York Herald. (Kentucky Carnal Shower, and first news article respectively.) Reading through the New York Herald article, it seems that they were the only ones to send a reporter to interview the Crouches, and it’s a much more in depth article. (but harder to read in the link.)
The reporter from the Herald, unnamed on the page, did a much better job of collecting evidence. And it’s through this article that we learn that several of the Crouches neighbors suspected Mrs. Rebecca Crouch to have fabricated the rain, as, according to them, she wanted her husband to sell the farm. He, however, did not. They suspected the rain was concocted as an excuse to prompt him to sell.
However, Mr. Allen Crouch rebuked this idea, and stated he was actually much more willing to sell than she was, and defended his wife, also stating the impossibility of the hoax. (We know, from the obit, that they never did sell their home and move to Indiana as Mr. Crouch wanted.)
The Herald reporter also collected some of the meat, in alcohol, for further testing. He also went to interview the local butcher, Mr. Fritz who, it turns out, was one of the people who tasted the meat. Unfortunately, he did so after the meat had been left outside overnight. Fortunately, he did not swallow. He goes on to describe the meat as “tasting unlike anything else he’d ever tasted.” He only likened the texture to that of venison, and the way it pulled apart to that of lamb. (New York Times not really pulling their weight.) The grossest parts of Mr. Fritz’s description, is that some “white liquid” came out when he squeezed the meat before tasting.
While people speculated on what the meat was and where it had come from, some suggested lunch dropped from a balloon while other suggests freak storm hitting a butcher or ripping an animal to shreds, several samples were sent off to be investigated. One scientist was bold enough to make a prediction without seeing a sample, and suggested that the meat was not meat at all, but instead some type of cyanobacteria called Nostoc. This is a very bold claim since blue-green algae is usually somewhere along the line of blue or green. (not always.) As Nostoc is interesting in it’s own right, you should read about it, but since this scientist was wrong we’ll move on.
Other scientists, using microscopes later identified the samples as lung, muscle, and cartilage tissue. (Tissues only found in animals.) So the Kentucky Meat Shower was Meat!
But where had it come from?
Well. According to Dr L. D Kastenbine, who set fire to a piece of the meat he obtained, it smelled like rancid mutton. Putting together a series of facts: the different types of tissue meat, the lack of weather phenomena, the bad smell, and that both of the vultures native to Kentucky (the Black Vulture and Turkey Vulture) are prone to disgorging their dinner as a flight response, he came to a plausible solution. A kettle of vultures, flying high enough overhead as to not be noticeable to Mrs. Crouch, must have been frightened all at once, (or put off by a bad meal) and all-together projectile vomited out their last lunch.
So. Nothing really paranormal about it, I guess, unless those vultures were spooked by little green men flying a saucer, scouting out Kentucky for a landing 74 years later.
It’s raining meat!
Still, weird.
Would you taste meat which rained from the sky?
Links.
slim and inaccurate New York Times Article (at least they host their old articles.
Much better New York Herald Article. (doesn’t cover the explanations, because it was written early days.)
Scientific American Article which walks through the final answer.
#3 The Stone-Gobbler
The last story I have for you is hard to source. (If you can find more, or have seen this creature yourself, please let me know.)
The only account I can find of the Stone-Gobbler is in a great book by Coleen O’Conner Olson and Charles Hanion, called Scary Stories of Mammoth Cave (Amazon link, check it out.) She sources a newspaper article from 1867. “From Philadelphia to Mammoth Cave,” in the Philadelphia Inquirer. However, I can’t find that article online. And don’t expect I’ll be in Philadelphia anytime soon to search through old microfiche. Instead, I suggest you check out her book. It’s a collection of old and spooky stories about Mammoth Cave. There are lots of great stories in it, including one small anecdote about. . .
A horse rumored to live in Mammoth Cave. The horse is said to only come out at night. It’s diet is rocks, stones. Hence it’s name: the Stone Gobbler. Guides would tell the tale of the petrovorous (stone-eater) horse, warning guest that if they saw it, the should not try to shoot it, as it was said that it could fling a stone as fast as a rifle-shot back at you in defense. The stone-gobbler is a benevolent cryptid, and is even said to help clear farmer’s fields of stones helping to increase thier yeild
I don’t have much other information on this strange, nocturnal, cave-dwelling, rock-eating horse, but, like the others, I will include an artists rendition:
This is the first time I’ve drawn a hors. (he’s standing on rocks, and gobbling on one too.
Now, check out Scary Stories of Mammoth Cave! There are a lot more interesting tales in that book!
Fun fact, Geologists use HCl (hydrochloric acid) to identify rocks. It dissolves limestone. It’s also the same stuff in human stomachs which helps us breakdown food. However, this doesn’t mean you can go out munching on stones like the Stone-gobbler. Do Not Eat Rocks! (this message brought to you by Amelia Zhang)
#4 (Extra) The Lattean
This strange creature is known to frequent coffee shops, ordering as much of the tasty brown brew as a barista will allow. Some Latteans prefer coffee black. Some prefer coffee with milk. Some prefer lattes, mochas, or other designer drinks. If you are approached by one, note that they change color often, color is not an indicator of their mood (it’s usually random) and although they have rows and rows of teeth inside their moonpie heads-they are not a threat.
A normal lattean, doing normal lattean things.
If you would like to know more Check out Coffee Chronicles Season 1. Which will be finding a new home shortly, or find them in brief mentions inside the various Junior Rangers Investigative Club Novels. They also like to hang out around this website for some reason.