I was fortunate in choosing a relatively narrow topic from the onset of this project, so I regret to say that the pitch
assignment did nothing to refine the parameters of my investigation. However, I
don’t mean to discount the assignment’s utility. Though I knew what I wanted to
research, articulating and explaining my idea to other people helped me to
understand the direction I’m taking the project, which brings me a step closer
to my final product. It’s been said that you can’t say you understand something
until you can explain it to another person in a single sentence, so I think
that most projects could benefit from a pitching exercise, though not necessarily
to this degree of formality and specificity.
My refined investigation will explore the media sensation
around the Kelly-Hopkinsville encounter, a reported alien/UFO sighting in the
summer of 1955, and how this event influenced UFO culture in North America. My
full transcript is attached below:
One thing I certainly missed in history
class was anything about the alien encounters of the ‘40s and ‘50s. In these
two decades there were literally hundreds of reported alien sightings in the
United States alone. The most famous of these events was the Roswell UFO crash,
but you may not have heard of the Kelly-Hopkinsville encounter, also known as
the Hopkinsville Goblin Case.
The reported events at the Sutton family
farmhouse, a small home outside of Hopkinsville, Kentucky, on the evening of
August 21, 1955, are easy to understand but difficult to believe. The Taylor
family had come to stay with the Sutton family that evening, and at around 7pm,
the Taylor family patriarch went out to fetch water. On the way there, he
allegedly saw a streak of light shoot through the sky and land in a nearby
field, and later he was approached by 10-15 small, human-like creatures. Those
who saw the creatures that night describe them as goblin-like, with huge eyes
and long, clawed arms. The Sutton and Taylor families report being terrorized
by these creatures throughout the night. The figures scampered on the rooftop,
peeked in the farmhouse windows, and one is said to have grabbed a Sutton
family member by the hair.
The events of that evening are
interesting enough on their own to base a podcast around, by my intrigue lays
with something I read on Wikipedia when I was first researching this story. The
article claims that “the encounter has shaped much of the narrative of the UFO
tradition, including flashing lights appearing in rural areas and sightings of
little green men.” (“Kelly-Hopkinsville Encounter”) Inspired by this statement,
in addition to exploring the events of the encounter, I intend to explore the
story’s reception in the media across America. I hope that someone who hears my
podcast will better understand exactly how this story became so widespread that
it singlehandedly crafted a narrative that we all recognize today, whether or
not we have heard of this particular event.
No comments:
Post a Comment