'Project Blue Book' Season 2 Episode 4: The 'green men' of Hopkinsville, the true story unfolds
This article contains spoilers for Season 2 Episode 4.
On tonight's Episode 4 of 'Project Blue Book' Season 2, we see Dr. J Allen Hynek (Aidan Gillen) and Captain Michael Quinn (Michael Malarkey) travel all the way to Hopkinsville to investigate the bizarre alien attack reported by local residents, the Schumacher family. And while the show takes a lot of creative liberty in approaching the real-life titular investigation undertaken by the US Air Force, this alien sighting is a real story that happened back in 1956, in the town of Hopkinsville, Kentucky.
In short, the true incident that happened on August 21st, last year, near Hopkinsville, Kentucky, "made headlines in the newspapers out there, and for once it was carried by the press wires - I suppose just because they thought it was ridiculous," You may remember reading the wire story about "little green men" - actually, they weren't green, someone put that in because he thought they ought to be green," said Frank Edwards, in a lecture organized on April 28, 1956, by the Civilian Saucer Intelligence of New York, at the Pythian Temple, 135 West 70th St, New York City.
Whom we encounter as the Schumacher family on the History show, are actually the Sutton family from Kelly, Hopkinsville in real life. The known 'patriarch' of the family on the show - Jimmy Jay Schumacher, claims he was enjoying a night of eating and drinking with his family and friends when he stepped outside upon hearing a commotion and witnessed a flying saucer instead. In his recount of the tale, he and his wife talk about seeing little green men, with heads as big as watermelons, beady eyes and hands with three fingers. Schumacher opens fire on these supposed aliens but their relentless lot comes back a second time to attack the next night. Later, when Hynek and Quinn investigate, they come across a green handprint on one of the trees in the woods, which eventually turns out to be an elaborate hoax planted by Schumacher himself.
In real life, with the Suttons however, things are slightly different. Visiting the Sutton family was the patriarch - 'Lucky' Sutton's Pennsylvanian friend, Billy Ray Taylor who had spotted the first traces of this supposed encounter when he had stepped out to get some water from the family well. Seeing a shiny object land in a small gully, Billy ran back into the house to inform the 11 people inside, only to be met with disbelief from them. Soon the Suttons' dog started barking loudly, which forced Lucky and Billy to step out and that's when they saw a glowing, hovering light approaching them. When they were able to make out what it was, they figured it was a three and a half feet tall creature approaching with its hands up.
The creature was described with "two large eyes with a yellow glow, more on the sides than in the human face, a long thin mouth, large bat-like ears, thin short legs, and unusually long arms with large hands ending in claws." This reportedly prompted the two men to open fire with a 22 and a shotgun that they were carrying and to their horror, not only did the shot pass right through the creature, but it just did a backflip before standing up and fleeing into the woods. When Lucky and Billy rushed inside the house, a clawed hand allegedly tried reached down from the rooftop, and soon they found themselves under siege by an army of these little creatures. This went on for quite a while as the family found themselves targeted by these little men who allegedly kept on teasing them, moving from one window to another - rendering the human weapons completely useless.
As this kept repeating, what was constant was these little creatures keeping their hands up in the air as if in some friendly gesture, every time they headed towards the Sutton family home. When shots would be fired at them, only a metallic clang would be heard when the bullet touched the alien's body, causing them to either float in the air, or flip over, or just run on all fours into the woods nearby, before returning just minutes later. Although they never attempted to invade the house, three full hours later, with the Sutton kids terrified and screaming in panic, the family decided to approach the local police station for help.
When they arrived, the police found no trace of the little men, but there were several bullet and rifle holes in the walls and windows. According to their recount, the Suttons looked sober and quite terrified by their self proclaimed encounter, with the neighborhood reporting of "hearing of shots being fired," and the observation of "lights in the sky." When the police left the farm, just 90-minutes later the creatures allegedly returned only to shower their horror on the Suttons for several more hours through the night, stopping some ninety minutes before daybreak.
On the show, Hynek and Quinn debunk the Schumacher's claims as a hoax, but the Suttons' encounter still remains mostly unsolved. In her 1998 book 'The Kelly-Hopkinsville Incident - An Historical Review', Karal Ayn Barnett wrote: "Based on my experience of the region, I would testify to the fact that no one in that area would consider making up anything remotely like what the Suttons and Taylor said they saw. The residents of southwestern Kentucky are people who even now are largely religious, and (I mean on disparagement) conformists. To make up a story like this, one would run the risk of being branded as insane or a congenital liar with a pox on their family to boot. The ridicule, the contempt, the ostracism, the media circus - no one would risk it. It just wouldn't happen. Unless it really happened."