Because the little town was originally settled by folks of predominantly Irish stock, it was decided by the powers-that-be that the “Goblins” would be called “little green men” despite the fact that they were really silverish-blue in coloration, Glenda Sutton Morris, daughter of eyewitness Lucky Sutton, told me. (Get it? Irish? Green?) That’s part of the origin of the term “little green men.” (It had also been used in fiction a few years prior.) At the least it helped make the term so commonplace. Now you know.
Ms. Morris told me that she and her siblings found out about the incident as children not because their parents chose to tell them the story, but as a result of people coming to their house, seeking out the witnesses to ask questions. That was the first the children had ever heard of it. Her father, Glenda told me, was reluctant to talk about it at all, as were all the witnesses. It bears mentioning that none of the witnesses ever profited from the incident. “In a lot of ways,” she said, “it ruined their lives.”
I don’t know what the witnesses actually saw that night. Having met Glenda and spoken with her at length, I am firmly convinced that it was not a hoax. Those folks saw something. I do not believe any of them had been drinking. And I do not believe it was a case of them misidentifying a couple of owls. I believe they saw just what they claimed to have seen. And I don’t have the slightest clue what that really was.