Mrs. Lankford's farmhouse was dry.
She would not permit visitors on her property, to possess or to consume, any form of "adult beverage".
When she hosted eleven members of her family, and friends, on a hot August night, the evening's
entertainment, would be limited to playing card games.
That is until the Kentucky gathering was unexpectedly interrupted, by the goblin invasion of 1955.
The country farmhouse, sat between the towns of Kelly and Hopkinsville.
After Mrs. Lankford's three children had been sent to bed, family friend, Billy Ray, left
the house to draw a bucket of water from the well.
He claimed to have seen an object in the sky, shaped like a saucer, which appeared to land
in the woods, just beyond the back yard.
He called for Mrs. Lankford's son, Lucky, to put down his cards, and come outside.
Lucky came out, but there was no longer anything to see... until they noticed a small body
emerging from the woods behind the house.
As it drew near, they later said, it resembled a hideous dwarf, with a bulbous head, and
long, thin arms with oversized hands.
It appeared to be floating, rather than walking, and its chest was covered by a metal plate,
which was gray and silver.
The two men, ran back inside.
The nearest neighbor, about a quarter mile distant, reported having seen lights behind
the Lankford farm.
When later he heard weapons fire, he thought perhaps a bobcat was preying upon their swine.
Lucky told his mother, they had seen a goblin, and while he loaded his twelve gauge, Billy
Ray was loading his twenty two carbine.
Lucky's brother, JC, remained unconvinced, as Billy Ray posted himself at the back door,
and Lucky stood guard in front.
In the back yard a creature, three foot tall, came into view.
Billy Ray discharged his weapon, perforating the screen door.
He could not have missed.
He advanced onto the back porch, but the intruder had disappeared.
Next, according to the witnesses, a hand with claws, was reaching down from the porch roof,
trying to grab Billy Ray's hair.
JC's wife was watching from the doorway, and she grabbed him by the shirt, pulling him
back inside.
Lucky burst out onto the porch, taking aim at the figure on the roof, and getting off
one volley.
The otherworldly goblin rolled off the roof and vanished into the brush, apparently unharmed.
At the livingroom window, two yellow eyes and a pair of clawed hands appeared.
JC let fly a double charge from his twenty gauge, shattering the glass.
The figure fell back, but then picked himself up, and ran away.
One of the strange little men was spotted.
It was standing on the branch of a Maple tree, in the front yard.
Lucky and Billy Ray went after it.
When the rounds found their target, it sounded like lead hitting metal.
Rather than falling from the tree, the creature rose up, straight up into the air, higher
and higher, until it merged with a moonless night.
Like the others, it was impervious to assault.
The one-sided battle continued for hours, consuming four boxes of ammunition.
Before midnight they abandoned their defense of the property, as eight adults and three
children, packed themselves into two automobiles, heading for police headquarters in the city
of Hopkinsville.
The goblin invasion made national headlines.
It is the first time that the words, "little green men," were used to describe alien invaders,
in spite of the fact, that all the eyewitnesses, had given descriptions of them, as little
gray men.
Within ten days of the encounter, the family vacated the premises.
Mrs. Lankford had always lived in the country.
Now she sold her farm, moving to an apartment in the city.
She said, she felt safer, with other people around.
Today this Kentucky community celebrates the anniversary of the incident, with an annual
festival, in honor of the "Little Green Men".