Ripley Entertainment Inc.'s Blog, page 182
September 21, 2020
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September 18, 2020
Bringing Barbie To The Bachelor Party
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
Preaching the message of true girl power, this iconic leading lady has done it all. From astronaut to firefighter to pilot to president, never underestimate the power of Barbara Millicent Roberts. Or, as she’s more commonly known, Barbie! Aside from the fact that her closet is a total dream and her convertible collection of hot pink hot rods is to die for, Barbie has made immense strides since she was first introduced to the toy business back in 1959. However, before she was saving the world, one occupation at a time, and inspiring young girls everywhere, Barbie made her rounds in a far more scandalous scene.
Any household full of young children is bound to have at least one Barbie doll, Ken doll, dream house, or holiday-exclusive collectible lingering in the attic or playroom. But, before Barbie could walk—or should I say, strut—into our homes, the Lilli doll had to run.
The Lilli doll was created in Germany back in the year 1952. Unlike her poised successor, Lilli was a bit more provocative and, dare we say, saucy. She was born from a popular comic-strip character who often graced the pages of the Hamburg newspaper, Bild-Zeitung.
The Bild cartoon was born when Lilli’s creator, Reinhard Beuthien, was asked to create some “filler” art to cover a blank space in the paper. Originally, he drew an adorable baby. When his boss rejected the idea, he decided to keep the face of his original drawing but add a ponytail and curvy features—bringing us Lilli in her purest form.
Rather than sporting one of present-day Barbie’s glamorous outfits, Lilli hardly wore any clothing at all—see what we mean by “saucy?” And aside from being half-naked or wearing provocative clothing, Lilli’s attitude truly matched her look. She was often presented as sassy, irreverent, and even a gold digger. Some of her lines in the comic went as far as mocking police officers and criticizing the garb of politicians. In one panel, a policeman informs Lilli of the ban on two-piece swimsuits, to which she replies, “Oh, and in your opinion, which part should I take off?”
Lilli became such a hot commodity on paper that, of course in true “give the people what they want,” fashion, she was immortalized as a racy plastic doll. Unlike today’s Barbie—bought, sold, and gifted to provide inspiration—Lilli was marketed as an adult novelty. They took her on-paper look and gave the doll a pure pale face, bright red lipstick, high narrow eyebrows, and modeled eyelashes over her side-eye glance, giving a truly flirtatious feel.
Bild Lilli Doll || Photo by teadrinker via Flickr
Lilli was found in bars and tobacco shops, ready to purchase as a gag gift. Bachelor parties, rearview mirrors, and even brochures were host to this curvy figure. Her wardrobe and attitude made her “the star of every bar.”
So, where did the Bild Lilli doll make a turn from stiletto-wearing, back-talking woman to mild, made-for-children Barbie? As one can imagine, this wasn’t an overnight transition. It was Ruth Handler who eventually brought the Lilli doll back down from her bachelor days to her dream house ways.
While vacationing in Switzerland in 1956, Ruth took notice of the abundance of Lilli dolls filling the arms of, not just adults, but children as well. Her daughter, Barbara, often played with paper dolls back at home. In the hopes of mixing her child’s love of paper dolls with the reality of a preexisting plastic version, Ruth brought three Lilli’s back home with her to California.
Just three short years later, Ruth introduced her own adaptation at the American International Toy Fair in New York. The new doll was named Barbie, after her daughter. It’s no surprise that this age-appropriate blonde beauty took off with flying colors. Keeping some of the “sexier” features of the original Lilli was intentional on Ruth’s part. In her 2002 obituary, it was stated that she didn’t see anything wrong with the mature features of Barbie. To quote Ruth herself, “Every little girl needed a doll through which to project herself into her dream of her future.”
Editorial credit: DinosArt / Shutterstock.com
Since the original 1959 Barbie who, in Ruth’s eyes, portrayed inspiration of beauty and dreams for young women, the doll has certainly made immense strides. Her original look, sporting the platinum blonde hair and flawlessly poised figure, has since been adapted. Now you find Barbie and her friends in all shapes, sizes, colors, and occupations—one for every little girl with a big dream. And if you haven’t caught up with Barbie and Ken on social media, they’re even hosting their own vlogs and giving advice to young people everywhere on the internet.
While Ruth’s adaptation of Barbie has certainly evolved, it’s safe to say that life in plastic has truly been fantastic. In fact, by the time Barbie turned 50, 11 years ago, Mattel had sold more than 1 billion copies of the doll. Today, 100 Barbie dolls are sold every minute. Ruth’s whole philosophy in her years with Barbie was to show little girls that they could be anything they wanted to be. Barbie represents the fact that a woman has choices.
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Jasper: The Eyeless, Hairless Cat
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
[September 14-September 20, 2020] An official UFO protocol, an elderly python’s miracle of life, and the historical discovery of a prehistoric cadaver—all round-up in this week’s weird news from Ripley’s Believe It or Not!
Japanese Military: If You Know, UFO
On Monday, Japanese Defense Minister Taro Kono issued a statement to the Self-Defense Forces (SDF) detailing proper procedures for handling UFO sightings that could potentially threaten Japan’s security. Members of the SDF were ordered to photograph and record any unidentified aerial phenomena and take the appropriate steps to ensure a proper analysis of the sightings, including public testimony. But before anyone packs a bag and prepares to beam up, there is no reference to aliens in this statement. The Defense Ministry made it clear that the SDF has never encountered otherworldly UFOs, formally known as UAPs (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena). In fact, after issuing the statement, Kono clarified that he does not believe in alien UFOs and that these orders are strictly to prevent a foreign invasion where the aircraft may be unidentifiable to the untrained eye. The statement comes a month after the U.S. Defense Department established an Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force intended to understand these mysterious objects and the nature of their appearance.
Golden Girl Python Doesn’t Need A Man
Call this old dame, Ms. Independent! The St. Louis Zoo has a mystery on their hands after a 62-year-old ball python proved she’s still got it by laying seven eggs without having seen a male in 15 years! Oddly enough, the nameless python making babies without a mate isn’t even the strangest part of this story! Although unusual, asexual reproduction is not considered rare for ball pythons. What’s genuinely wild is that not only is she the oldest snake ever to lay eggs, but also the oldest ever to live! Ball Pythons have an average lifespan of 30 years, so she’s well past her senior years. Having been donated to the zoo in 1961, when she was just 3-years-old, the python has zoologists baffled, including Mark Wanner, the zoological manager of herpetology. According to Wanner, the zoo will publish information about the situation when genetic testing is complete. If it turns out the eggs were produced via mating, the only other ball python in the zoo, a 31-year-old male, would have some explaining to do. In the meantime, two of the eggs did not make it, while two others are being used for genetic study, with the remaining three in incubation, due to hatch in a month!
An 88-Year-Old Man Taking the World in Stride
Brad Hathaway of Massachusetts is gearing up for the final steps of his 24,900-mile journey. He’s well on his way to completing his goal of walking the total distance of the Earth’s circumference at the grand age of 88! Hathaway began walking in his mid-50s at the request of his doctor, who suggested he walk three miles a day to help manage health issues, including diabetes and heart problems. Hathaway then took it upon himself to map out his entire hometown of Mattapoisett. Since then, he’s gone above and beyond his doctor’s request, walking up to 10 miles every day, even when it rains. It wasn’t always easy, though. As time went on, walking got harder for Hathaway, and he began using a walking stick, eventually turning to a walker to assist him along the way. He’s found ways to entertain himself during these daily strolls, making friends and even a nice chunk of change along the way! Hathaway collected discarded items during his walks, turning one man’s trash into treasure to the tune of $7,000! Having logged his miles over time, he decided to tally up the total and realized he’s only a mile away from 24,901—the entire distance of the Earth’s equator. Hathaway is putting his walking on hold until October 3, when he will be completing that final mile as a fundraiser for the Mattapoisett Land Trust to increase the amount of conservation land the trust holds in the Aucoot area. Donations can be made through Hathaway’s GoFundMe page!
September 17, 2020
A Historic Acquisition Joins Ripley’s Collection: President Lincoln’s Hair
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
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The Newest Addition to our Collection
Believe It or Not!, Ripley’s is now the owner of a thick, two-inch tuft of hair clipped postmortem from the head of President Abraham Lincoln.
This historic item was purchased Saturday, September 12, 2o20, at auction for more than $81,000. The buyer has been reported as anonymous… until now.
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Now, Ripley’s is no stranger to presidential hair. Within our collection, we also have locks from leaders like George Washington and Ronald Reagan, plus the King of Rock himself, Elvis Presley. We even own two pieces of jewelry featuring log cabins crafted out of Abraham Lincoln’s hair.
So, if we already have some of Lincoln’s locks, why purchase these?
What Makes These Tresses Special?
First, we know exactly when they were cut: April 15, 1865—the day after Lincoln was assassinated. They were taken during a postmortem examination and given to Dr. Lyman Beecher Todd, First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln’s cousin and friend to the President. With nowhere else to safely keep the lock of hair, Dr. Todd wrapped it in a telegram in his pocket.
“The provenance of this piece is what is extremely important to us. If it is in Ripley’s collection, you can guarantee it is authentic—although it may be hard to believe, that’s what makes it a Believe It or Not!,” said Kurtis Moellmann, Ripley’s Exhibit Coordinator. “In the coming weeks, we hope to uncover and share this acquisition’s story more.”
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The recently acquired exhibit arrived at Ripley’s Warehouse on September 17, 2020.
The telegram itself has survived all these years and is yet another fascinating feature of this exhibit. It was an official War Department message sent to Dr. Todd the night of the President’s death.
There is a conspiracy theory around Lincoln’s death which states that the telegram system was down the night of the tragedy, which allowed Booth to escape. However, this telegram sent to Dr. Todd at 11 p.m. that night debunks that myth.
With a pencil, Dr. Todd wrote “Hair of A. Lincoln” on the telegram, placed the blood-stained locks within, and folded it into his pocket for safekeeping.
Additional Provenance
Accompanying the lock and telegram is a letter from Dr. Todd’s son detailing the story of the hair and telegram. Since that fateful night, it has remained in the family until it was passed on to famed Lincolniana collector, William H. Townsend 80 years after President Lincoln’s death.
Soon, 155 years after Abraham Lincoln’s death, Ripley’s fans will be able to view this amazingly preserved piece of history for themselves. In the meantime, history buffs and fans of the unusual alike can virtually peruse our Warehouse via the Ripley’s Rarities video series.
Source: A Historic Acquisition Joins Ripley’s Collection: President Lincoln’s Hair
Inside The Ring With Muhammad Ali
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
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It’s no hidden feat that Muhammad Ali tops the charts as one of the world’s most renowned and talented boxers. Over the course of two decades, he has won 56 fights and lost only five. He also spouted one of the most iconic quotes in the history of sports, “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” And while much is known about the boxing legend, there are some things that may surprise you. From what ignited his interest in fighting to his debut in a Broadway musical, let’s enter the ring with one of the most unbelievable athletes in history.
A stolen bicycle spurred him to try boxing.
Muhammad Ali, who was born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr., grew up in Louisville, Kentucky. His mother was a housekeeper, while his father earned a living painting signs and billboards. In October 1954, when he was 12 years old, someone stole Clay’s red and white Schwinn bicycle. He reported the theft to the local police, specifically an officer named Joe E. Martin.
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Cassius Clay and Joe E. Martin
Clay was so angry about the incident that he swore to “whup” whoever took his bike. And while those were fighting words, Clay had no actual experience fighting at all. Officer Martin, who also happened to be a boxing trainer, suggested that Clay learn how to properly box before he confronted the thief.
Clay watched some amateur boxing bouts on television and soon after decided to take Martin up on his offer. He won his first bout (in a split decision) a few weeks later. Clay, who later changed his name to Muhammad Ali, eventually worked with a man named Fred Stoner, whom he credited with teaching him his style of boxing.
Muhammad Ali tossed his first Olympic gold medal into a river.
In 1960, the USA boxing team selected Ali for the Rome Olympics. The 18-year-old boxer was afraid to fly, but his trainer, Joe Martin, convinced him to go after reasoning that the only way to become a heavyweight champion was to take part in the Olympics. Ali competed in the light heavyweight division and emerged victorious over the more experienced Zigzy Pietrzykowski, landing a gold medal in the process.
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Boxing light-heavyweight podium 1960 Olympics: Giulio Saraudi (Left), Tony Madigan, Cassius Clay, Zbigniew Pietrzykowski
Ali wrote about the incident 15 years later in his biography, but some question whether this incident actually occurred. Even Ali once said, “I never knew what I done with that medal.”
All in all, things ended up all right. He received a replacement medal during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics where he also lit the Olympic Flame.
Muhammad Ali’s prison sentence postponed his career.
One year after the United States entered the Vietnam War, Ali was drafted. But, after refusing to serve, he was arrested and sentenced to five years in prison. In addition, he was fined $10,000 for dodging the draft. While he made an appeal and didn’t serve the time behind bars, the New York State Athletic Commission subsequently revoked his boxing license and took away his title.
Ali’s actions greatly affected his boxing career and led to a three-year ban in the sport. From 1967 to 1970, he wasn’t allowed to fight. He appealed the decision and was finally allowed to get back in the ring in October 1970. Initially, the public was appalled by Ali’s stance. However, not long afterward, many Americans started opposing the war and thinking along the same lines.
During his time off, Ali’s supporters grew. He spoke publicly and traveled to various colleges to voice his anti-war stance. The New York State Supreme Court reinstated his license in 1970, and in 1971, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned his conviction in a unanimous decision.
Muhammad Ali starred in the Broadway musical, “Buck White.”
During his time away from boxing Ali focused his energies on a totally different career: acting and singing! He appeared in the 1969 Broadway production “Buck White,” in New York City. Ali was friends with actor-producer Ron Rich and often spent time with the cast backstage. When he showed off his singing ability, producer Zev Buffman was quite impressed and decided to put Ali in the show and turn it into a musical.
“I was amazed at his ability to carry a tune—his voice was as attention-grabbing as his charm as a fighter,” Bufman told the New York Times in 2019. He added, “The [last] preview was the most astonishing theatrical event I ever lived through. Ali was brilliant. Forget Harry Belafonte. Forget anyone who ever did ‘Porgy and Bess.’ I have never seen anyone or anything like it, the way he captured the stage with a charisma that got people on their feet for five straight minutes.”
Unfortunately, the show didn’t resonate with audiences, and it shut down just four days after its debut. It’s unclear why it failed, but it’s an interesting footnote to Ali’s career.
The famous “Rumble in the Jungle” fight took place at 4 a.m., and Ali was paid $5 million.
One of Ali’s most famous fights was nicknamed “The Rumble in the Jungle.” His opponent, George Foreman, was considered one of the sport’s hardest hitters. The legendary bout took place on October 30, 1974, in Kinshasa, Zaire.
At the time, Foreman, 25, was undefeated and known for being quite intimidating. Meanwhile, Ali wasn’t quite as fast as he was when he was in his 20s. Still, he was raring to go at age 32. And, of course, it helped that he was being paid $5 million from Zaire’s president, Mobutu Sese Seko. In order to accommodate an American audience, the bout started before the sun rose in Africa.
Ali was so psyched for the event, he told reporters beforehand, “I’ve done something new for this fight. I done wrestled with an alligator, I done tussled with a whale; handcuffed lightning, thrown thunder in jail; only last week, I murdered a rock, injured a stone, hospitalized a brick; I’m so mean I make medicine sick.”
Ali beat Foreman with a knock-out in the eighth round and reclaimed his heavyweight title.
Muhammad Ali saved a man’s life.
Walter Cronkite compared Ali to a superhero on January 20, 1981, after the boxer saved a man who tried to take his own life. Police spent hours trying to talk the man down from the ninth floor of a building in Los Angeles, but it was Ali who ended up preventing a tragedy. At first, law enforcement officials refused Ali’s help, but the boxer was just a mile away and went to the scene after his public relations manager made the suggestion.
The military veteran threatened to jump because he was “no good,” yet, somehow, Ali managed to talk him down. The boxer leaned out of an adjacent window to speak to the man in a conversation that lasted about 20 minutes.
Ali proceeded to accompany the man to the police station, followed by the Veterans Administration Hospital. Ali told the media: “I’m going to go home with him to meet his mother and father. They called him a nobody, so I’m going home with him. I’ll walk the streets with him and they’ll see he’s big. Every day I’m going to visit him in the hospital. I told him I’d stay close to him.”
An art book celebrating Ali’s life weighs 75 pounds and originally cost $7,500 to purchase.
In 2003, German art publisher Taschen released 10,000 copies of the book “GOAT: A Tribute to Muhammad Ali.” The book contains 3,000 images and 600,000 words. It also weighs 75 pounds, and the first 1,000 signed copies went on sale for $7,500.
German newspaper Der Spiegel referred to it as “the most megalomaniacal book in the history of civilization, the biggest, heaviest, most radiant thing ever printed.” Is it? You’d have to see it to decide. Some versions of the book, such as the Champ’s Edition, cost a little more—around $10,500. However, these deluxe books are sold with a sculpture by Jeff Koons and are signed by both the artist and Ali, himself. Today, you can get the original book at a deep discount of $6,000 from the publisher.
By Noelle Talmon, contributor for Ripleys.com
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September 16, 2020
65 Years Later, Kelly Residents Still Battle UFO Stigma
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
EDITORS NOTE: This article is a point-of-view story written by Ripley’s contributor and Believe It or Notcast host, Ryan Clark. From vampires in New Orleans to Skunk Apes in South Florida, Ryan has seen it all on his many Notcast adventures.
KELLY, Ky. — The children were frenzied. The adults wide-eyed. One man had a heart rate of 140 beats per minute. And when they all finally made it to the police station, they had quite a story to tell.
It’s become the stuff of legend around these parts.
Shaken, the group of five adults and seven children claimed they’d gotten into a four-hour shootout that evening with some kind of strange creatures—small beings with large eyes—that had suddenly appeared on their 28-acre farm, located on the outskirts of this small, extremely rural Kentucky town.
“They were scared,” says Glenda Sutton Morris, daughter of eyewitness Lucky Sutton, one of the men who told the story. “And these weren’t men who got scared.”
No, these were honest people—relatives and neighbors say. People who only feared God, went to church, and tried to make better lives for their children. They were good, country folks who did not seek publicity or fame.
And they certainly did not want to become known as the Kentucky family who fought a group of aliens. Yet, that is indeed what they became—and the stigma has lasted 65 years, passed down from generation to generation.
***
The event occurred on the night of August 21, 1955.
It was a warm evening, and according to police reports, the group of 12 alleged that they’d engaged in a gunfight with about 12-15 small beings—dark figures who came up to their doors and peered in their windows. No less than 16 local authorities responded to the farm, including four military police from the nearby Army base in Fort Campbell, Kentucky.
The farmhouse was simple: three rooms, unpainted. It lacked running water.
It did not, however, lack evidence. When the officials arrived they didn’t find aliens, but they did find bullet holes in walls and windows. And it was obvious there were many participants in a gunfight.
Those in the house included: Glennie Lankford and her children Lonnie, Charlton, and Mary; two other sons from a previous marriage—Elmer “Lucky” Sutton and J.C. Sutton and their wives, Vera and Alene; Alene’s brother O.P. Baker; and Billy Ray Taylor and his wife, June.
The Taylors, Lucky, and Vera Sutton were just visiting that night; they were carnival workers who needed a place to stay. The accounts given to police say that around 7 p.m., Billy Ray was fetching water from a backyard well when he saw a silver object in the sky, “real bright, with an exhaust all colors of the rainbow.”
He said he watched it land in the distance, which scared him, so he ran back to tell the others.
No one believed him. That is, until an hour later when the family dog wouldn’t stop barking. Lucky and Billy went out the back door and immediately saw something glowing in the distance. Then they saw a small figure, which they later described as having an oversized head, long arms to the ground, and talons.
The eyes glowed, and the body looked like it was wearing something made of silver metal.
Horrified, their first inclination was to shoot. They grabbed a .22 and a 20-gauge shotgun and fired—apparently to no avail, as they said, the little being just “flipped” and scampered away. They then saw others appear at the windows, and they tried to shoot those too, but all that was achieved were shattered windows. Taylor then stepped outside to investigate, and witnesses said they saw a clawed hand reach down from the roof to touch his hair. They pulled him back into the house while Lucky shot at the creature.
This went on for hours, they said. By 11 p.m. they’d had enough, and the entire group ran for their vehicles and drove to the police station in nearby Hopkinsville.
The authorities came to investigate. They found no creatures at the house—however, there was evidence of a shootout, and they noted it in their report.
But this was not the end of the sightings. The family said they saw the creatures again later that morning. And it is a story that would stay with them for the rest of their lives.
***
Growing up in Kentucky, I’ve heard stories about the Kelly alien incident since I was a kid. And being naturally interested in weird and paranormal stories, I’ve always wanted to visit the area and investigate for myself.
In 2020, I was able to just that. Of course, the problem with investigating a story that’s 65 years old is that there’s not much left to see—no physical evidence, anyway. A lot of the people have passed on. Soon, there will only be memories.
The town of Kelly is really not much more than a wide spot in the road. Positioned in the far western part of the state, it sits about an hour northwest of Nashville, Tennessee. It’s also just a few minutes from the larger city of Hopkinsville, which recently became famous for its reputation as the best viewing spot for the country’s last total solar eclipse.
In Kelly, there are residential homes and farms. There’s a church. And there’s a huge park, complete with a playground and a giant UFO in the middle of it. This is the site of the annual “Little Green Men Days” festival.
After decades of being doubted, ridiculed, and scoffed at, the residents here have decided to embrace their alien past. Ten years ago they started the festival. Proceeds raised from the sales of food, souvenirs, and entertainment go toward the upkeep of the park, which is one of the nicest you’ll ever see.
“We have fun with it,” Glenda says. “I dress up and we have people come from all over. It helps us keep this park going, and it’s nice for everyone. We thought If people were going to laugh at us, we might as well be in on the joke.”
But the 38-foot-wide UFO is the only real indicator than anything ever happened here—or allegedly happened.
Then, Glenda helped me find 78-year-old Bill Thomas, who was there the night it all happened. The three of us met on a warm summer afternoon in the Kelly park, and he had a very interesting story to tell.
***
Bill Thomas was 14 in 1955, and he worked at a truck stop diner about a mile and a half south of Kelly, Kentucky. On the evening of August 21, he rode his bicycle to his cousin’s home in town to help him fix a wagon wheel. That farm was just down the road from Glennie Lankford’s farmhouse, known as the Sutton Place.
As the sky grew dark—and it would grow very dark, Bill said, coincidentally, due to an eclipse—Bill saw something strange in the moonless night.
“Something went over us when we was working on that wagon,” Bill tells me as we sit on a bench in the Kelly park. “I just looked up and there it was. And after it went by, a light lit up, like the whole sky.”
Bill thought it was a meteorite or a shooting star. But it had an odd purplish-blue color and seemed to leave a smoke trail behind it, like a craft of some sort.
“This went by, and it made a funny noise,” Bill says. “Like a hiss, Zzzzzzzz. I don’t know how fast it was going. But, now that I’ve flown airplanes, I know a bit more about how fast. As a little more of an educated guess, I would say it was doing a little better than 700 mph.”
The pair expected to hear the explosion of something hitting the Earth. But that didn’t happen.
“We didn’t think that much more about it,” he says. “It was getting late.”
Bill set out from his cousin’s house to visit his girlfriend’s place, about 200 yards away. He flipped on the small light on his bicycle to better see in the dark, and when he arrived, the two sat on the porch and talked. That’s when they started to hear gunshots and yelling at the Sutton Place.
“We didn’t know what was going on up there,” he says. “We didn’t know if they were fightin’ or what. I could hear they were using two or three different-sized guns. Then you’d hear someone yell, ‘I got him!’ and someone else say, ‘He got up and floated away!’ Of course, we didn’t know what they meant at the time.”
One of the bullets got so close that it whizzed by their heads and hit Bill’s girlfriend’s house. Bill decided then to head home as fast as he could.
“I had a friend up at the Sutton Place—Lucky Sutton—and after I got home, I was wondering if he was okay,” he says. “I got to looking down the road, and then I saw the sheriff’s car go by, with police, two helicopters, and the military from Fort Campbell all came by, heading that way.”
Word passed quickly in the area. Something had happened at the Sutton Place.
And Bill was wondering what the glowing object was he’d seen earlier in the evening.
Was it all connected?
***
The next morning, Lucky came to the diner to see Bill.
“We’d talk about everything in the world,” Bill says. “So when I saw him I asked him what happened last night.”
“I wished I’d never said nothing,” Lucky told him. “People think we’re drunks.”
And Lucky told him the story. The creatures. The shootout. He told him everything. And when he did, he got scared all over again—goosebumps sprung out on his arms and tears filled his eyes.
“Sure enough, these little creatures were there,” Lucky told him. “They were 3 to 4 feet tall, the color of silverish-blue. They had big, almond-shaped eyes, long ears, and arms. And when you shot one it would knock them down, but then they’d get back up and float off. I don’t know what it was, but we told the police and they think we’re a bunch of damn idiots—or liars. I wish I hadn’t said nothing. But it happened. And I don’t think I’ve ever been scared that bad in my whole life.”
He said the police told them they’d probably gotten ahold of some bad whiskey.
The funny thing was, Lucky didn’t drink. Not then.
A few days later, Bill went out to the Sutton Place. He says he saw the evidence. There were burn marks in the field where Billy Ray said something landed. There were holes in the roof and door. The windows were shot out. And there were peculiar scratches near the windows and on the front of the house.
There was no doubt in Bill’s mind: his friend was telling the truth.
***
“These folks were God-fearing, honest, hard-working people,” Bill says. “They would not have shot up their own house.”
A few days after the incident, Grandma Lankford moved out. She feared whatever showed up that night may come back. “Well,” she told her family, “It could have been some kind of Martians. But, what if they were in trouble and had to land? I wish we’d have helped them.”
About eight months later, Bill said his family sold the diner, and they moved to another town. He lost touch with Lucky but kept up with him through mutual friends.
What he heard wasn’t good. Lucky, a man who’d been a responsible worker his entire life, spiraled out of control. He started drinking, and it became more and more difficult for him to keep a job.
“I was really heartbroken to find out he started drinking,” Bill says. “But I think back to what he said. He wished he’d never said anything. People thought he was a liar, and that means something here. That he would lie to me wasn’t even part of the equation. We loved each other.”
After the incident, the lives of all of those involved were changed forever. People started showing up at the farmhouse, stealing things out of the yard. Media kept knocking on the door, asking questions. It was in one of these media stories that the family was misquoted, and some reporters published that they’d seen “little green men,” when actually, the family had reported seeing “little grey men.” But the ‘little’ and ‘green’ descriptors stuck, and they became synonymous with aliens forevermore.
It was also because of the media that the children, including Glenda, found out about the story—20 years later.
“Our parents never told us about it,” she says. “We heard about it when people came to the house asking about it. People from New York came down and interviewed Dad, and after they left, they started telling all us kids the story. Then we all started getting made fun of in school because of it.”
Skeptics said the family made it all up, or they’d just been mistaken in what they saw. Most said the creatures were probably great horned owls, and they assumed that the family—who must have all been drunk—just got spooked and started shooting up the place. But just like Lucky, everyone involved seemed to be cursed after they explained what they saw.
They did not benefit. In fact, they seemed to suffer from the trauma of the incident.
“They all made fun of them,” Glenda says. “They said they were drunk on moonshine. They said it was owls. But the family knew what they saw, and it terrified them. Something happened that night.
“I got made fun of in school about it,” she continues. “I never wanted to be a part of it. People say it’s a joke but I know it’s the truth. That night destroyed each and every one of them’s lives. They all started drinking. They couldn’t hold a job. Their lives were just shot.”
***
Bill Thomas has been struggling with this story for nearly his entire life. He wished he’d gone up to the farmhouse that night, right when he’d heard the gunshots. He wishes he could’ve helped his friend.
“I don’t like people that cheat and steal,” he says. “I’ve been a Mason for 47 years now. You treat people right, always, and you hope they treat you the same. I feel like I may have been able to help if I’d gone up there that night. But it was a dangerous situation. Maybe I could have at least seen what he’d seen.”
Lucky Sutton passed away at age 62. “They said it was alcohol that ate his liver up,” Glenda says.
But through it all, through all the struggles of their lives, the group never swayed on the details of the incident—not on what happened, or what the creatures looked like.
Over the years, the children have made peace with their strange history, and some have even embraced it. Glenda’s sister, Geraldine, has written two books about it, and they can both be found on Amazon. And now, of course, the small town has their festival, where thousands of people come by to eat, drink, dance, and take pictures with the “Kelly aliens”—which is really Glenda dressed up in her alien costume.
“Since this festival started, we’ve had more and more people come up to us to tell us the strange things that have happened to them,” Glenda says. “Before, nobody wanted to speak about anything. But now they’re starting to speak out.”
Bill and Glenda don’t fully trust too many people with their stories, they tell me. They’ve been burned before, and they’re especially mistrustful of those folks from New York. I feel lucky they agreed to meet with me here in the park.
Glenda Sutton Morris (left) and Bill Thomas
“Those reporters have done what all the others have,” Bill says. “They make us look like idiots. But here, we’re honest folks. We tell the truth.”
“I don’t care anymore if you don’t believe us,” Glenda says. “We know what happened. We know the effect it had on their lives. It was something they couldn’t understand and couldn’t deal with. There was something that happened that night. It was out of this world. It was unexplainable.
“We know it was real.”
With that, Glenda walks back to the house, just a few yards away. She says she’ll be back in a minute.
She wants to show us her alien costume, so she goes to change.
By Ryan Clark, contributor for Ripleys.com and host of Ripley’s Believe It or Notcast
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Source: 65 Years Later, Kelly Residents Still Battle UFO Stigma
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