Steven Spielberg, researching UFOs and alien encounters while writing CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, learned of the Kelly-Hopkinsville incident, as it came to be called, and became inspired. He came up with the idea of doing a movie based on the incident, a family under siege from nasty little aliens. One of the children involved, in his movie, would befriend one of the aliens; this latter would be a “good” alien not like his brothers. This movie was to be titled NIGHT SKIES. Spielberg never made that movie. Instead he cannibalized portions of his story for two other movies. The kid befriending the cute little alien became a little movie called E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL. The family under siege became the Freeling family in POLTERGEIST.
The Hopkinsville Goblins weren’t finished with Spielberg, though. He went on to oversee a film you might have heard of, called GREMLINS, featuring a “good” (and adorable) monster (a little monster, and cuddly, to be sure) not like his nastier brothers. And the Gremlins themselves, the nasty ones, look an awful lot like the eyewitness descriptions of the Kelly-Hopkinsville creatures. No accident there.
