Putney, UK. Early 20th century. A family had a house with a garden in Putney.  The boy of the house came running one day saying that he thought that there was a small man like a grunting pig in the house. This was a fat gnome looking very cross. When the mother went in the gnome wasn’t there. A few days later she heard the same sound, but did not see the creature. A week or so later, she was putting out the light when the sound occurred again, and she saw the gnome awkwardly trying to climb up the window blind, slip and fall in a plump. The gnome then glared at the mother who began to laugh. The gnome then just disappeared. Sometime later still the daughter of the house thought that she saw the gnome sitting on the bedpost in a circle of light. It was described as having a long cloak and a white beard. 

A small earthen mound is decorated as an “elf house” near Strandakirkja in southern Iceland. An Icelandic group called the Hrauvinir claims that ancient elves of Iceland would be disturbed by the construction of a proposed highway. Photo by Christian Bickel/Wikipedia

You may have heard the word “elf” mentioned a lot this holiday season, whether in reference to Santa’s helpers or characters from the latest installment of “The Hobbit” movie franchise.

But in Iceland, where elves are part of the national folklore, the word “elf” has a more serious connotation. An Icelandic group called the Hrauvinir, or “Friends of the Lava,” have joined with environmentalists to seek an injunction from the country’s Supreme Court against a building project by the Icelandic Road and Coastal Commission which was green-lit in September.

The government agency is trying to build a new highway from the Alftanes peninsula (where a property owned by the President of Iceland is located) to Gardabaer, a suburb of the capital city of Reykjavik.

In addition to arguments about the environmental impact of such a project, the Hrauvinir also claim that the road work will disturb the “Huldufolk” — or “hidden folk” — the ancient elves of Iceland.

The group also claims the area the new highway would run through is of particular importance because it contains an elf church.

A 2007 survey by the University of Iceland found that while only 8 percent of the population believe in elves, 54 percent would not actually deny their existence.

The belief in elves is widespread enough and the objections to road work projects that might disturb ancient elf habitats so frequent, that the Icelandic Road and Coastal Commission has written a boilerplate, standard reply for any press inquiries on the subject, saying it will not answer questions on whether its “employees do or do not believe in elves and ‘hidden people’ because opinion differs greatly on this and it tends to be a rather personal matter.”

In an interview with the Associated Press, Terry Gunnell, a folklore professor at the University of Iceland who ran the 2007 survey, said that the stories of elves and otherworldly beings is part-and-parcel with landscape and natural forces of Iceland.

“This is a land where your house can be destroyed by something you can’t see (earthquakes), where the wind can knock you off your feet, where the smell of sulfur from your taps tells you there is invisible fire not far below your feet, where the northern lights make the sky the biggest television screen in the world, and where hot springs and glaciers ‘talk,'” Gunnell said.

“In short, everyone is aware that the land is alive, and one can say that the stories of hidden people and the need to work carefully with them reflects an understanding that the land demands respect.”

Andri Snaer Magnason, an Icelandic environmentalist also interviewed by the AP, said that while some people might think the elf controversy is “a bit annoying,” rationality is relative.

“I got married in a church with a god just as invisible as the elves,” she said. “So what might seem irrational is actually quite common [with Icelanders].”

Jean Michel Roux’s film Investigation into the Invisible World documents spirit people, trolls, ghosts, faeries, and ETs in the Icelandic countryside. Ordinary people see them on a quotidian basis. During interviews, children and their teachers point out sites where they have observed extradimensional beings. Even police constables gesture matter-of-factly to rocks where invisible folk congregate. Roads have been redirected to skirt their habitats, and villages are situated so as not to interfere with their movements. Outsiders may smirk and denigrate, but the locals have been trained from a young age to read the landscape in higher planes.

The crude data arrays are to the left. The majority of these characters are "smalls" [1 1/2--4 1/2 feet tall]. They are the "Little People" we expect. About a quarter of these are "tinies". They are almost the only critters said to be winged. "Tinkerbells", if you will. They come almost entirely from the internet site "Fairy Encounters", which seems to attract mostly young girls who want to see fairies. I waded through a very large number of these claims some time ago, and weeded out a couple dozen which were reported by adults and seemed to have some redeeming characteristics. There were very few normal sized creatures in this list, and just one, I believe, extremely large one. Perhaps the folkloric big entities are all masquerading as Bigfoot or Nessy-like creatures. Normal-sized humanoids may be shunted off into the "apparitions" category and not make the Faerie listings. There were a few fairyish things which had no entity seen but included for other reasons. [fairy music, etc.] 

This constituted a ten minute run to get back to where their car was. There are plenty of reasons to discard things like this, but the reporter didn't make himself sound too flattering in his tale, and the spatial slip is reminiscent of the Irish concept of the "Stray Sod".7). A woman told of constantly finding that things were "going missing" and then reappearing later exactly where they should have been and where she had looked for them [thoroughly] . She attributed this to fairy-tricksters of some kind [never saw them] and finally began to just say "Come on you guys this isn't funny anymore!" and the item would pop up soon thereafter. "Fairy" or not, this phenomenon is all over the literature [usually buried under Poltergeist phenomena] and I have a sister who is burdened with these same sorts of temporary diversions.8). 

 Then time/action seemed to slow down and small half-inch diameter balls of light of different colors began manifesting. She was able to concentrate on one which was quite nearby. It was a tiny winged creature fluttering so rapidly that you could not resolve exactly its appearance, and whose motions gave it the more distant impression of being a ball-of-light. She felt that this went on for perhaps twenty seconds, but the rate of time made it seem much longer.13). A young man was walking his girl in a "romantic" forest setting. They heard a strange language-like cry, and suddenly were no longer on their forest path. The environment was wrong, now featuring water-sounds burbling on rocks. They turned and were confronted by a beautiful normal-sized girl all dressed in green. She then turned into a green ball-of-light and flew off. They had to walk a ways to get back to the path leading to their house. 14). Four people in a temporary house [a camper] were outside watching a meteor shower, when two retired to bed. The other two, mother and daughter, stayed up with the family dog. The dog began barking at the back gate. Mother and daughter turned to see a large ball of white light about 20 feet from the gate. It disappeared while they ran in to wake up the father. They interpreted this as a fairy lightball.15). 

Two boys and their dog were in the woods camping. The dog ran off. One boy followed. He heard beautiful music and looked to see two-inch tall men and women with wings doing the singing and partying. Shortly thereafter his friend arrived and watched too. Then after ten minutes of this, the dog came romping out of the woods barking. The fairies immediately disappeared. The next morning the friend described everything he had seen, but said that it happened in his dream.16). Two young women [sisters] were home alone baking cookies. As they looked out their window, a small man looking like a "leprechaun" but not dressed in green, floated up over their neighbor's fence riding on what looked like a motorcycle. 

It raced across their yard and floated up over the next fence and away.17). A young man and woman were driving in a scenic hilly area. They saw a large ball of white light, which disappeared into the woods. They got out and looked for it in vain. All they heard was some giggling. They continued their drive and there again was the light; this time in the middle of the road. He couldn't stop and went right over it. They stopped and jumped out. Looking under their truck, there was the ball of light making giggling noises. Apparently it then went safely away, as the young woman expressed her relief that the playful fairy/lightball was unharmed.18). A young man at a time just prior to Halloween, had heard some tiny playful giggling in his garden which he couldn't locate. Then just on or right after Halloween, he and a friend saw two bluish glittering winged figures. They were nearly transparent as if made of gas. These two experiences tripped off memories of him having a childhood "imaginary playmate" whom he hadn't remembered in years. The imaginary playmate had been a fairy.19). A girl was in her bedroom on a full Moon night staring out the window. 

Into the yard came a fuzzy figure made of light. It was a woman in a silvery long gown with bright golden hair and a crown. She was winged with glittering diaphanous silver. She stopped, looked at the Moon, turned into a ball of silvery light, and disappeared. The woman, in her thirties when she reported this, stated that she didn't know whether to call her encounter as being with a fairy, a ghost, or an angel.20). A young person [sex not determinable from the report] was unable to sleep one night, and had an odd urging to get up and go outside. Once there, the urge continued and the witness was almost put to the ground without willing it. Immediately, Alice-in-Wonderland-like, the grass seemed growing tall all around [as the person shrunk]. A large group of fairy personages came talking and smiling and circling about. They then suddenly scattered away [the person had a blade of grass laid over one hand completely covering it]. Increasing to normal size, the witness wondered if it was just a dream. In that hand was grasped a small blade of grass. Once back in the bedroom, the brother said that he had watched it all from the window.

UFO Aliens. Folkloric Fairies. Non-terrestrials all, but who is who?? As I plough through my various files, I find a very strong thread of technological flying machines extending from WW2 to 1952, and then a big interruption of this technological "sanity" in 1954. There then begins a "dance" [in the files] between the far-in-advance technologicals and the relatively simpler but strikingly whacky folklorics. Is this "dance" a dance between two very unlike groups of entities?

UFO Aliens. Folkloric Fairies. Non-terrestrials all, but who is who?? As I plough through my various files, I find a very strong thread of technological flying machines extending from WW2 to 1952, and then a big interruption of this technological "sanity" in 1954. There then begins a "dance" [in the files] between the far-in-advance technologicals and the relatively simpler but strikingly whacky folklorics. Is this "dance" a dance between two very unlike groups of entities? Or is it a dance staged separately by each for us? Or are the dancers the same beings wearing different masks? I have not earned the evidentiary right to answer such questions. I will just say that my files are polluted with these matters, and it is my belief that it is a cross pollution between two ontologically different groups. That is just the feeling that I have. Call it intuition only, or call it intuition buttressed by a very long career studying the UFO and military intelligence documents and seeing therein a consistent technological phenomenon making, for me, perfectly good sense as advanced physical technology. I have no convincing proofs. But I can do one small service: show you a bit more of my Little People files and some of the "polluted middle", and let your own intuitions go to work. One last thing: my studies and my files tell me that a large number of these sorts of encounters are true.

In my opinion one of the best places to begin the oversight of this pollution is in Kelly/Hopkinsville, KY in 1955. All of you already know this "UFO" case. It, on almost any criterion, is a great case. It has multiple witnesses, several investigators [including the military], and good character bona fides on at least most of the family by the local sheriff and other town members. Something very strange happened that evening. But what?

Somehow, not exactly known, Ledwith's very positive views of the veridical nature of the family testimony made it to CSI-NY and two of our finest-ever UFO researchers, Isabel Davis and Ted Bloecher. Isabel and Ted collected all the data associated with the incident and several others in what seemed to be a mini-creature flap going on. Exactly how long after the information collected by the military and Ledwith Isabel and Ted got involved, I don't know, but it was they who put together the bigger picture. This is published in the well-known but rare-to-own monograph called, I believe, Close Encounter at Kelly and Others in 1955, by the Center for UFO Studies in the 70s.

As was said, although the family literally felt the physicality of the experience, no such physical evidence persisted. The whole thing smacks not only of the Uncanny but also the paranormal. These were country people who don't miss shooting things at close range. These are outdoors people who would laugh at your face [if you were lucky] if you suggested that they couldn't recognize an owl [certain "intellectual" clowns have recently suggested that this was nothing mo0re than owls protecting nests --- note the "unusual" owl crawling on all fours behavior in one of the drawings --- these sorts of people are societal criminals deliberately confusing the search for truth with their hung-up garbage].

Throughout her life, the central female figure in the Sutton family was engaged in reflection about that night by prominent townspeople. The sheriff said that there always came that time in those reflections where she would just go silent with a look of awe on her face. The Kelly-Hopkinsville event happened, whatever it was. My belief is that it was not "biological"; that is not part of the evolution of lifeforms of the Universe of physical laws. Why? Even setting aside for the moment the apparent unhittability by rifleshot, and the floating slowly about the landscape, the form of the creatures is "unlikely".

These things, if biological, are not water creatures and are sizable. They look sort of like they should be like mammals or something which would have a chance for a large brain and intelligence, and if they are to be guessed as UFOnauts must be quite brainy. But their heads are absurdly gigantic in proportion to their bodies. This next thought doesn't HAVE to be true, but if it is not someone needs to do some real thinking as to why not: Those heads could never come through a birth canal of anything remotely shaped like the creatures drawn. Could the females be wildly different in shape than the males? If so, there is nothing on Earth remotely comparable in terms of divergent sexual morphism in large animals. Could the things be birdish and come from eggs? Eggs have real structural size limits and so the heads would have to be small and do a tremendous amount of growing while "outside" exposed to natural threat. Growing and remaking skulls to accommodate growing brains would take a very great risk-taking time using soft malleable skulls. Anything's possible, I suppose, but these things REALLY don't look like normal evolutionary biology to me. The only hope I'd believe would be that they were artificially grown. If so, why bother with the out-sized ears if you had that technology? Nothing about these critters says anything but "bogan" "bauchan" "trickster" to me.

And the Bogans were out those nights elsewhere. Isabel and Ted found several other cases, none of which sound UFOlogical, scattered both near and far in the US, on and around that night. The drawings above are from some persons driving near the Georgia border [I think this one was] and passing a group of "gnomes" standing as if mock-working on something on the road. It has also been suggested that these were owls. Large owls. Large owls manifesting very un-owl-like behavior like not budging as a car passes close by. Yeh, Owls... that's the ticket.

G). 1905, Perm, Russia. While visiting a cathedral, a young man [12] was walking in a dark corridor, when confronted by a red light of fiery color. This "aureole" was uncanny in that it radiated no heat and just hung there. Inside the lightform, a black 3-4' creature jumped around and stuck out its tongue at the boy. It had large owlish eyes reflecting red, a small beaked nose, large pointed ears, and a huge mouth. The boy, showing courage created by his belief that this must be someone tricking him, rushed at the lightform only to see it keep its distance from him. When he reached a position that he could see that no such trick was possible, he began shaking [and, presumably, ran away.] [Letter to Dr. Hynek].

H). 1942, Prouvy, France. A woman came into her garden and found herself face-to-face with three dwarves. they were c.4' tall, bearded, with large round heads. Their eyes were large and luminous yellow. They were dressed in metallic shiny monk-like cowled clothes. They were absolutely motionless. She ran to call her husband, but they disappeared. [HUMCAT, from an unpublished Ms.]

I). 1925, La Mancha, Spain. A man was confronted by a dwarf. The being was c.4' tall and wore all-green clothing. It held a blowpipe-like thing in its hands. It was standing atop a vertically-oriented disk, which was rolling along the ground like a wheel. It passed soundlessly six feet away. [Ballester-Olmos' Spanish Close Encounters catalog].

J). 1956, Derry, NH. A man was out in the country gathering Xmas greens, when he saw a 2' tall dwarf colored green. It had a large-domed head, floppy ears, and a face and skin with folds like at fat bloodhound dog. Its eyes were snake-like. Both arms and legs were stumpy. After watching a few minutes, the witness decided to move forward. The dwarf then broke into a scream and charged. The witness beat it out of there. [HUMCAT; Letter to Walt Webb].

K). 1973, Springfield, IL. This is a tale from the Timmerman files. This is an elderly lady who was walking her dog outside her house and getting an object she needed, when she saw a slow-moving light in the sky. Shortly, a little man [<4'] just appeared floating in the air beside her. He had on a black coverall with a pointed hood. His face was ghastly pale. His feet seemed pointed. He smirked at her. Unnerved, she decided to brazen it out and kept walking as if he wasn't there. Shortly he just vanished. [Interview by John Timmerman, CUFOS].

L). 1920, Nontron, France. A bunch of young people returning from a dance, when near a small woods, noticed a lighted area in the sky. That area was a group of beings of small stature moving through the air producing musical sounds. The scene was pleasing to view and not frightening. You could see the beings' legs move about and fiery colored balls move along with them. [HUMCAT from an unpublished Ms.].

M). 1914, Caerphilly, Wales. Two children were going home on the side of a mountain when they encountered a large but localized white mist. At the edge of the mist were two small entities [apparently child-sized or a little smaller] who were white all over. These beings had, comically, very tall chef-like hats, and, much less comically, piercing eyes. They advanced on the children who ran. [HUMCAT from an unpublished report to Contact UK].

N). 1974, Chingford, UK. Two men, one a BUFORA UFO researcher, watched through binoculars a "woman", almost as a silhouette, with long blond hair, a long black dress, and a featureless face. This figure never moved. Then a second like figure was seen moving among trees. The first figure then vanished. The second did likewise shortly. The first then reappeared 150' away standing motionless. It then vanished again.

Less than an hour later, the witnesses again saw two figures dressed this time all in white. One was again motionless while the other darted about in quick movements. These movements were not biological but gliding/floating type. At this time they were distracted by a lighted object rising up over the trees. It seemed lens-shaped with central white light, blue light revolving about its edge, and two other lights blinking. It passed directly overhead making a throbbing or thrumming sound. [HUMCAT; from a personal report to Allen Hynek].

O). 1922, nr Estoraoa River, Portugal. A young man was walking and crossing a bridge. He spotted a 6+' tall figure dressed in a monk's habit but having no facial features. The figure passed to within about 6' of the witness giving him a "sense of strangeness". This is related to the next incident.

P). 1976, nr Estoraoa, Portugal. Many years later, the brother of that witness and his wife had their own encounter. While walking they were approached at a distance by a 6+' tall figure, appearing slightly transparent and gliding more than walking. It was dressed in a one piece long garment, dark-colored which reached the ground. Their dog cowered and slunk away. No noise was discernible as it passed. [HUMCAT, from Joaquim Fernandes].

Q). 1936, Kazakhstan. A teenage girl was going home in the snow. Ahead in the air a dark object was approaching. It was a man-like figure, normal height, dressed entirely in black, and seen only in profile. It had on a helmet and a napsack, and held its arms tightly to its sides. Then it suddenly changed to come directly at her. Now she saw that it had no features, only a black surface. It emitted a rumbling sound. The girl panicked and ran. Turning to look, the thing had vanished. [HUMCAT; from Rubtsov in FSR].

R). 1968, Ulfshale, Denmark. A lady went outside at night and noticed a light shining through the hedge. It was some "thing" gliding over the near hillside. It looked like the silhouette of a powerfully chested man in a dark monk's robe and cowl. The object itself was dark with a shining aura around it. She crept out further and saw three more of these things passing over a brook. They seemed identical except that the lead "thing" had a dark red aura. She estimated the things as 9' in height. [SUFOI Reporter].

S). 1952 or 53, Rouge Valley, OR. A family was driving along when three weird objects glided in front of their car. They braked to a stop and watched as the things crossed the road, slowly heading into the trees. They were 3 to 4 feet tall, completely white, and featureless. The bodies were egg-shaped, with neck extending and rounding off to no head. They looked most like the strange comic creations called "shmoos" by Al Capp in Li'l Abner. [this is, admittedly, putting the mind well into the twilight zone]. [HUMCAT; letter in a magazine].

T). Lastly, for this set: 1948, Yuste Monastery, Caceres, Spain. A sheepherder had to seek shelter for the night in a distant cabin, due to the sudden arising of a bad storm. He heard voices outside and opened the door. There was a short "man". The herder invited him in and the person walked by without speaking. The herder took a closer look and saw that the visitor had goat-like hooves instead of human feet. Screaming in panic, he caused the [Pan-like?] creature to run from the cabin. Shortly, he thought that there was a fireball which rose into the sky. [Ballester-Olmos catalog of Spanish close encounter cases].

These cases are interesting enough to hope that the FIS files have not been lost/destroyed. 

Fortean Times in 1993 published a handful+ of cases which originally came from the British Weekly John o'Londons of readers' letters collected in 1936. This date seems suspiciously similar to the beginnings of the FIS, so maybe there was a bit of an upsurge of interest in fairy encounters around then. [I can be well off on that, as I haven't the FIS origin date at all clear]. We can safely label all the following as "1936 0r earlier 20th century":

3). Cornwall/Devon border: Witness saw a small man dressed in black "strutting about". Shortly he shape-shifted into something like a black, long, furry "roll". Minutes later she came upon two more roundly shaped pixies who were apparently operating a two-man saw...but it was invisible. She stumbled on stones in the path and the beings vanished. Inspecting the site, she noticed that one of the two pixies must have been either airily lightweight or suspended in the air, as there was nothing but a gorse bush under it.

4). Wigan, UK: Several times the witness saw in a field of daisies seven or eight pairs of little people dancing, suspended about three feet off the ground. They were dressed in brown with long pointed caps and pointed feet. They sported impish grins. One fairy was different in that she was dressed in a shiny pink beautiful gown and had an aura of pink about her.

5). Southwest London: Witness and her daughter saw 18" beings [none of these cases state wings for any of the fairies], wearing flimsy gowns, all female. On three occasions the female fairy wore a pink gown. Sightings occurred eight times in the garden near flowering bushes and a small stream. Other times the fairies wore bluish dress.

6). Cookham-Dean, Berkshire, UK: This witness didn't want the grief of being called a nut, so, unlike others she just gave her initials [familiar problem, eh?]. Out picking blueberries [I can't think of a better way to encounter a fairy than in a blueberry patch], the woman was straining with the bush to get at harder to reach berries when the branches suddenly parted and something came out. It was a "lean, brown man, dressed in brown with pointed cap and scraggly beard." The being was solid from waist up, but "transparent" from waist down. As he ran away "like lightning", he entirely disappeared.

7). Hertfordshire: As spectacularly strange as that last was, this one is almost mundane. A man was driving down a rural road with nothing going on. He spotted a roadside tree stump up ahead. Sitting on the stump was a small [18" high] round-face being with a pointed cap which slouched over to one side. Before being able to secure a better look, the being was no longer there.

8). Nottingham: A young girl sat staring at the fireplace in her room. A cobweb had formed across the bars of the grate and on it sat a very small [4-to-6"] elf. It had very large ears and a body which shimmered green. It always had a broad grin on its face. I say "always" because the creature kept reappearing in the same position. The girl would try to approach, but the bogan, I'd call it, would immediately disappear. It was never seen again after the girl brushed away "its" cobweb.

9). Western Wales: This is charming even if it's nuts. An older woman saw out in a field a congregation of the Little Folk. They were all gathered around a little fairy woman who sat on the centered stone. She was giving them news and a protest in Welsh. The fairy woman was warning her kind that the meadow in which they were residing would be no longer livable for them, as the owner had purchased a "chariot which would run without the need for horses". That man shortly bought the first car in the neighborhood. [I always knew that there were deeper reasons why I've hated cars all my life, and now here's one more].

10). Three experiences by a man in our favorite Isle of Arran: a]. Ten fairies playing in the gorse bushes near grazing sheep. The sheep ignored them unless they got too close. b]. Silvery voices alerted him to a troop of fairies scurrying along a path. They seemed vociferously angry about something. c]. There was beautiful music coming from a group of rhododendron bushes. He cautiously snuck up upon a scene of wonderful dancing. The fairies noticed him, unfortunately, and sped away. One small female turned, looked him straight in the eye, and gracefully whisked away like "Pavlova herself".

Not bad. Wonder how many incidents the weekly received and were not printed. 

12). 1952, Dartmoor, Devon: A woman was walking near a stony path on a hillside when she saw a small man, three to four feet tall, who seemed to be regarding her. He appeared old, and was completely dressed in brown, including a flat cap covering brown hair. His smock was tied with a cord [apparently monkish style]. Her son was in the vicinity so she was unafraid and climbed upwards towards him. At a forty yard distance, the little brown man disappeared behind a boulder. Upon inspecting that location, she and her son could not see anyway that he could have vanished.

13). 1961, St. Asaph, North Wales: A man was walking his dog when they encountered a small being three foot tall. The dog growled and was ready to attack if further provoked. The being was dressed wholly in green and had an ugly brown face. It had suddenly appeared when the walker had tapped his walking stick on a metallic roadsign "as if the tapping had summoned it". The creature exuded an air of malevolence. After a moment or two, it simply vanished.

Dafydd said that shortly after she left he observed a meteor flash through the air, and soon after that a hoop of fire descend. Standing on the bottom on the fire hoop were two small beings, each grasping the side of the hoop as if balancing themselves and one another with their other arm. As the hoop touched the Earth, they jumped off and began to draw a circle on the ground [It is not said how this was done, but the circle seems to have been a place of light.] The hoop of fire apparently left back up into the sky at this point.

The well-dressed Little Folk watched as a large number of diminutive men and women appeared out of nowhere and began dancing round and round the circle to beautiful music. By this time Dafydd was totally entranced and the three hours flew by in what seemed to him to be minutes. Then the "meteor" again flashed, and shortly the Hoop descended. It touched the Earth near the circle of light and dancing, the original pair jumped onto it, and rose away. At this the circle of light and the dancing fairies vanished, leaving Dafydd alone in night's darkness. Well ... wow I guess is all you can say. Where does that lead us? The simple mental state would be to forget it and lead a quieter life, but is that "honest"?

6). 1850, Martindale, Sandwick Rigg, UK: A short yet high strangeness incident. A man was walking the country road at night heading for his home. The moonlight gave him plenty of light to see up ahead a troop of Little Folk engaging in their reveries. The witness referred to them as "Dobbies" [so Harry Potter fans can take heart]. He was not put off by this and kept walking closer. Whether it was due to them spotting his approach or not, the dobbies began to climb up a ladder and disappeared into the sky. You can almost feel your cranium begin to pop after these last few incidents. 

9). 1976, near Liberty, NY: A man was out on a bird-watching trip. While walking a woody path, he heard voices up ahead. They sounded as if they were arguing but in a language he couldn't understand. He saw that they were two little men about two feet tall, and dressed in dark green. Each had a beard and a wrinkled cap. One was really yelling at the other vociferously and pointing into the hilly woods. Shortly a third man similarly sized and dressed emerged and they all began arguing and pushing each other about "like the three stooges". Then they walked into the woods and all he could hear were their voices trailing away.

10). mid-1940s, Catskill Mountains, NY: This story's only witness is so young that perhaps it shouldn't be included, but it could be that this is just why it should. Regardless it is entirely too charming to resist. There was a family gathering at a relative's home in the woods of the Catskills. The adults were mainly inside while the children were playing outdoors. While the others did whatever they were doing, Jill, a little girl of 5, became fascinated with the flutterbyes and no one noticed her chasing after them into the woods. Ultimately, the adults checked back in to find that she was lost. Many people searched many hours in vain and dusk was coming, bringing a great deal of despair with it. Then, suddenly, a be-smudged Jill came running happily out of the woods unharmed. What had happened? 

Convinced that he had somehow gotten completely lost, he trudged up the canyon. Then he heard pretty music ahead. Peeking around, he saw four little men sitting on boulders by a waterfall, playing flutes. Another one gathered water from the fall. Our hiker had a camera [which almost never happens] and remembered to use it [which is one in a million]. The water-gatherer returned, the little folk got up, and moved off further up the canyon. Our hiker retreated the way he came with his pictures. Wandering about for around a hour, he suddenly spotted his car. Another tingling then hit him, and turning, the strange environment was gone. The tint of the sky was back to normal, and overcast again. His watch said that thirty minutes had passed, but he felt that it was at least three hours [before getting too excited, note that this is the OPPOSITE of "missing time" folks]. Back home, no one believed a bit of his story. The film came back all pictures perfect, except of course for the ones taken in the "other reality canyon". They were all dusty smudges tinted in a light green.

OK, people, you've just gone further than "Out Proctor" with that one. 

These beings are said to be well-known among the Utes and are called "pawapicts" and also, in English, "water babies". There are also related traditions to this sort of creature involving beautiful women who lure men into the water to their deaths, Celtic "siren" style. 

The final incident above was the only Native American encounter in that 100 cases, but serves to remind us that such encounters abound in those traditions. Also some of the motifs, once you strip off some of the imagery, are surprisingly similar to Celtic world beliefs. The general theme of the trickster is one prominent one. 

And, of course, most mundanely of all this astoundingly non-mundane stuff: what does all this mean for the "muddied middle" of the pile of ET-Air Force-style UFOs and the pile of the magical glen dancing world of brightly clothed Faerie? The illustration above is for a recent case taken place near a Native American settlement in northern Quebec. ET? or Faerie? Let it be a non-humble man who thinks he clearly can decide.