First Encounter with a Grey?

[jkoci]

When was the first documented encounter with a grey alien? Betty and Barney Hill?

 

[Trajanus]

When was the first documented encounter with a grey alien? Betty and Barney Hill?

It must've been earlier. There were humanoid reports since the late forties.

 

[jkoci]

I did a search and there is a Wikipedia entry that refers to a description of something like them in an H.G. Wells article.

Wikimedia Error

"The British science fiction writer, H.G. Wells, in the article "Man of the Year Million" in 1893, describes humanity transformed into a race of gray-skinned beings, stunted and with big heads. In his book "The First Men in the Moon" in 1901, Selenites, or natives of the moon are described as having gray skin, big heads, large black eyes and wasp stings."

 

[Trajanus]

But the thread is about actual or reported sightings not fiction.

 

[jkoci]

But the thread is about actual or reported sightings not fiction.

True. I put the quote out just to show that the "image" of a being that is similar to a grey was out there in the culture. I'm not saying it has anything to do with any documented encounters. Just an interesting side note as far as I'm concerned. I'm still wondering if there are any documented encounters of before 1961 when the Hills had their incident. I suppose Roswell would be close.

 

[jkoci]

Found this on You Tube. Not much pre Roswell in it though.

 

[CapnG]

Depending on whether or not you count it (or believe in such things) Alistair Crowley was reportedly in contact with an alien intelligenece which he described as short, greyish with a large head, small nose, slit mouth and black eyes. The eyes however were disproportionaly SMALL. Also no one else ever witnessed this being. That was way back in the early 20th century.

 

[DanielBrenton]

Depending on whether or not you count it (or believe in such things) Alistair Crowley was reportedly in contact with an alien intelligence which he described as short, greyish with a large head, small nose, slit mouth and black eyes.

CapnG, I was thinking of that one, too.

The closest thing in the ballpark I can think of few years prior to the Hills is the little "goblin" things from the Kelly-Hopkinsville encounter.

If memory serves, this was the first use by the media of the expression "Little Green Men," though the creatures were actually silver-ish in color.

 

[Jonah]

Not sure if this counts, but I do think it an important case as far as documentation of a sort. It predates all modern stories of UAP sightings/Abduction accounts and yet you'll find most of the what is commonly described today in this account. It is probably also the first account to associate the term "Watchers" with UAP's and what can only be described as Abduction. It includes presentations of infants described as "not of this world", describes the pricking of the skin with a "needle" (pre-hypodermic use), unwanted sexual advancement of a "ghost", transportation to the "scene of another world" and also includse a 1640's multiple witness account that is very, very similar to Kelly-Hopkinsville.

I've yet to finish it up but will get to it soon.

Case Study- Jane Leade (1624-1704)

It does not mention or describe in great detail, the entities Leade was engaged by, but neither do many others, including Betty and Barney. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if H.G. Wells hadn't picked up on rumors of such descriptions and used them as inspiration for some of his writings

 

[conor]

Depending on whether or not you count it (or believe in such things) Alistair Crowley was reportedly in contact with an alien intelligenece which he described as short, greyish with a large head, small nose, slit mouth and black eyes. The eyes however were disproportionaly SMALL. Also no one else ever witnessed this being. That was way back in the early 20th century.

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/cienciareal/cienciareal07.htm

More about the alisteir crowly grey alien connection (if there is one...). Make of it what you will.

This scared the shit out of me (I don't know why) when I read it last night at 2 in the morning ....

 

[Trajanus]

If memory serves, this was the first use by the media of the expression "Little Green Men," though the creatures were actually silver-ish in color.

IIRC in the movie Roswell, the actor playing Brazel used that term. But I don't know if Brazel did in real life i.e. in '47, 8 years before Kelly.

 

[Kieran]

I not sure, but was the first hint of the grey in modern ufology occur in 1947 or did that come later through research into the case? Small beings have always been seen through the centuries described entirely different to what we have now.. that is the puzzling part was the Grey the same being our ancestors saw but they put their own spin on what they where seeing.

 

[Trajanus]

I not sure, but was the first hint of the grey in modern ufology occur in 1947 or did that come later through research into the case?

The latter; there wasn't any publicity about it back then.

 

[jkoci]

Small beings have always been seen through the centuries described entirely different to what we have now.. that is the puzzling part was the Grey the same being our ancestors saw but they put their own spin on what they where seeing.

Maybe. That was in the back of my mind when I made the original post. They have a pretty distinctive appearance and you would think that if they were around earlier someone would have noted it.

 

[thefoundryman]

I did a search and there is a Wikipedia entry that refers to a description of something like them in an H.G. Wells article.

Wikimedia Error

"The British science fiction writer, H.G. Wells, in the article "Man of the Year Million" in 1893, describes humanity transformed into a race of gray-skinned beings, stunted and with big heads. In his book "The First Men in the Moon" in 1901, Selenites, or natives of the moon are described as having gray skin, big heads, large black eyes and wasp stings."

What an interesting chart this is,
found on that wiki page:

Percentage of Abduction Reports Featuring Greys by Country[1]
Country Grey Reports Other Types
Australia 50% 50%
Canada 90% 10% Western Europe 48% 52%
Great Britain 12% 88%
USA 43% 57%
Brazil 67% 33%

 

[Gene Steinberg]

There's a cultural aspect to all this, don't you think? That would explain the disparity in descriptions. If they are all simply aliens landing, you'd think there would be a more consistent result.

 

[CapnG]

There's a cultural aspect to all this, don't you think? That would explain the disparity in descriptions. If they are all simply aliens landing, you'd think there would be a more consistent result.

Only if they're the same aliens every time. Suppose we go the Star Trek federation route for a second, wouldn't you be more likely to send a team of humans to a temperate region, Vulcans to an arid region and Benzites to a swampy region simply because they are better adapted to those environments? Same parent organization but three totally different species.

 

[DanielBrenton]

There's a cultural aspect to all this, don't you think? That would explain the disparity in descriptions. If they are all simply aliens landing, you'd think there would be a more consistent result.

I'm with you, Gene. The culture of the experiencer seems to color this. Whatever the mechanism is for this, it does seem as if the phenomenon "exploits" or otherwise plays to the culture context of the experiencer. This is one of the reasons I feel ETH isn't the answer. You could (or I could ... I think I have something an imagination) cook up no end of rationales that would make ETH "work," but it seems clear to me that the phenomenon is linked to us pretty closely in ways that one would not reasonably expect a space-faring society that arose in another star system would be.

 

[thefoundryman]

There's a cultural aspect to all this, don't you think? That would explain the disparity in descriptions. If they are all simply aliens landing, you'd think there would be a more consistent result.

Agreed, Gene, the subjectivity of these events is well demonstrated in this chart. Cultural conditioning is seemingly influencing the event recollections, and types of beings 'seen'.

 

[Kieran]

It weird because if you look at certain cultures in the past and the descriptions, and i will take a look at my own culture here, there was a hint of comedy there.. the leprechaun dressed funny loved gold and hid it under the rainbow and lived under the ground and sometimes took people from their homes. I find the whole story around this as mad, but who knows if their was truth to something here surrounded in the madness of the story.As for the Grey it started off in America, so either they only arrived in last hundred years or the Grey has been here longer and cultures viewed this type of being differently to how it is seen today.