Picturesque Bantam Lake where the Green Whale UFO was spotted in 2012. Image: Wikipedia

Before dawn on April 10, 2012, a motorist and a state trooper ten miles apart reported witnessing a colossal, neon-green object plunging from the sky into Bantam Lake, Connecticut.

Sightings of the “Green Whale”

A map of the location of Bantam Lake in Connecticut

The Republican American newspaper first reported the story on a Thursday morning. They said a driver in Litchfield saw a green, glowing object as big as a whale fall from the sky into Bantam Lake around 2 a.m. on the previous Tuesday. At the same time, a police officer about 10 miles away in Warren told the police station he saw something fall from the sky near Bantam or Morris.

Firefighters from Morris went up and down the lake in a boat to see if a plane had crashed, but they didn’t find anything. The search was stopped, and the mystery was not solved.

People living in the area found the story interesting, and some businesses tried to use the story to attract customers. But some people wanted to know what really happened.

Robert LaBonne, who used to be the president of the Bantam Lake Protective Association, wrote an email to two local politicians, State Sen. Andrew Roraback and State Rep. Craig Miner. He told them he was getting emails from people as far away as Florida asking what was being done to figure out the mystery.

Bob Leigh, called The Litchfield County Times one late Thursday afternoon. He said that he and two of his friends saw the same thing at the same place about two years ago, around the same time.

Mr. Leigh said that the whole sky turned into a strange green light and then it was gone.

Leigh and his friends looked at each other and wondered what that thing was. He said it came from the sky like a green blob.

A new report covering the story of the Green Whale of Bantam Lake

Possible Mundane Explanations for the Green Whale

It is not known for sure what exactly fell from the sky on that fateful April monring and so far there have been no searches conducted in the lake.

Brian Koberlein, a space scientist and writer, told CT Insider that meteoroids and asteroids can look green when they burn up in our atmosphere because of the iron-nickel in them. He thinks a meteor might be responsible for what was seen.

He said that it’s hard to tell where something is and how big it is in the night sky. For example, the moon looks really big when it’s low in the sky, but it’s always the same size. The same thing can happen with meteors.

They might look big, bright, and close to the ground, but they’re usually higher up and just look like they’re near the horizon. Since this event happened during a meteor shower, and green meteors are not unusual, he thinks it was probably a meteor.

Have you ever seen anything like the Green Whale of Bantam Lake? Tell us about it in the comments.

If you enjoyed learning about the Green Whale of Bantam Lake you might also be interested in the story of Sam the Sandown Clown or Kristina Florence’s Alien Abduction story.

A drawing of the Kentucky Goblins provided to Project Bluebook. Image: ATI

The Kelly–Hopkinsville encounter was a close encounter with extraterrestrial beings in 1955 near the communities of Kelly and Hopkinsville in Kentucky. UFOlogists regard it as one of the most significant and well-documented cases in the history of UFO incidents.

The Kelly-Hopkinsville Goblins

On August 21, 1955, while visiting his friend Elmer “Lucky” Sutton at a farmhouse in the small town of Kelly, Billy Ray Taylor from Pennsylvania went outside to get water from the well. Suddenly, he noticed something flying across the sky that was very bright and had colorful exhaust. Filled with panic, he quickly ran back inside and informed everyone, including his wife and the Sutton family, that he had just seen a UFO.

Taylor also mentioned that he didn’t hear any loud noise like an explosion, but there was a hissing sound when the object landed somewhere near the back of the farmhouse. However, nobody took Taylor’s claim seriously until they heard the dogs barking, indicating that someone or something was approaching the house.

The intruders had large, round heads and long arms with claws that almost reached the ground. Every aspect of their appearance appeared to shimmer and emit a glow in the darkness.

Their eyes emitted a yellowish light, and their bodies glistened as if they were composed of silver metal.

The groupgathered at the Sutton farmhouse were determined not to surrender without a struggle. Sutton and Taylor quickly armed themselves with guns. When one of the creatures approached the window and pressed its face against it, they immediately began shooting at it.

Later that evening, a group of five adults and seven children rushed to the Hopkinsville police station in a state of fear and desperation. One of them managed to utter, “We require assistance. We’ve been battling them for almost four hours.”

The group claimed that they had been fending off the otherworldly invaders for nearly four hours using gunfire. Sutton and Taylor recounted shooting at around “twelve to fifteen” short, dark figures that kept appearing at the door and peering through windows.

UFOlogist Jerome Clark describes the creatures as floating through the trees and the sound of bullets hitting them resembling bullets hitting a metal bucket. He also mentions an unusual glowing patch and a mysterious green light.

Thinking they were dealing with a gunfight between locals, authorities swiftly responded to the scene. Four city police officers, five state troopers, three deputy sheriffs, and four military police officers from the nearby United States Army Fort Campbell rushed to the Sutton farmhouse in Christian County, near the town of Kelly.

Despite an extensive search, they found no trace of the alleged extraterrestrial beings, except for bullet holes in the window and door screens caused by the residents’ gunfire.

The farmhouse was occupied by Glennie Lankford, her children Lonnie, Charlton, and Mary, as well as Elmer “Lucky” Sutton, John Charley “J.C.” Sutton, their wives Vera and Alene, Alene’s brother O.P. Baker, and Billy Ray Taylor with his wife June.

Reportedly, the Taylors, “Lucky,” and Vera Sutton were transient carnival workers who happened to be visiting the farmhouse. The following day, neighbors informed the officers that the families had hastily departed after claiming that “the creatures had returned around 3:30 in the morning.”

Possible Mundane Explanations

A documentary about the Kelly-Hopkinsville Goblin encounter by Fire of Learning

Psychologists Rodney Schmaltz and Scott Lilienfeld use the incident as an example of pseudoscience to teach critical thinking. They suggest that alcohol may have influenced the sighting, despite claims of no drinking.

Skeptic Joe Nickell proposes that the family mistook nocturnal owls for aliens, noting their aggressive behavior and resemblance to reported creatures. Author Brian Dunning highlights the similarities between the owl’s height and the reported size of the beings.

According to French UFOlogist Renaud Leclet, the simplest explanation for the case is that the residents mistook great horned owls for the creatures.

Investigations by police, nearby Air Force officers, and civilian UFOlogists found no evidence of a hoax, although there are discrepancies regarding the involvement of Air Force investigators.

Some UFOlogists compared the creatures to gremlins, leading to their popular nickname, the “Hopkinsville Goblins.” UFOlogist Allan Hendry noted the case’s significance due to its duration and the number of witnesses involved, while Project Blue Book labeled it as a hoax without further comment.

Kentucky Goblins and the ‘Little Green Men’

The encounter with the goblins in Kelly-Hopkinsville led to the popularization of the term “little green men.” Before this sighting, beings in flying saucers were simply referred to as “little men,” while “little green men” was mainly used in science fiction stories.

After the alleged sighting, local reporters began describing the creatures as “little green men,” and the phrase quickly spread through newspapers, radio, and translations into other languages.

Have you ever seen a UFO? Tell us about it in the comments!

If you enjoyed learning about the Kentucky Goblins you might also be interested in the Falkville Metal Man or the Astral People of Dogon.