If you ask people what UFOccupants look like, some will invariably answer, “Little green men.” A look at UFO reports, though, shows that many different kinds of UFOccupants have been sighted over the years. Although most reports don't describe little green men, such creatures have been observed. UFOlogist Jenny Randles, in her book The Pennine UFO Mystery, relates the story of two strange green beings that were reportedly seen in 1912 by two children on the Isle of Muck in the Scottish Hebrides.
The children were accosted on the beach by two small “people” dressed in green. 
These creatures spoke both English and Gaelic, and according to the children cast a spell on them. They asked the children many questions about their life and their family and then pointed to a small, strange-looking craft floating offshore, which held another small being and a dog. The two green creatures asked the children to board the boat, but before they could do so, their sister arrived and saw them staring out to sea. The sister did not see the boat or the beings. As she approached, the two youngsters seemed to wake up from a dreamlike state. Only then did they display any fear about what had happened to them and realize the mystery surrounding their encounter.
So little green men have been reported occasionally. Other creatures, though, are much more common. These are the next step in learning about UFOs. There are at least four usual kinds of UFOccupants, and there are many differences within a given type. Do these reports mean that UFOccupants actually exist? Did people imagine them? Or have we been visited by creatures from other planets? You'll have to decide for yourself.
UFOccupant Type 1: The Small Humanoid
Many people have seen UFOccupants that they describe as dwarflike or small. These small humanoids are reportedly three or four feet tall and have round heads (which might be helmets) and long arms that reach to or below the knees. They are usually seen wearing metallic space suits or coveralls. People who have met them say that they appear to be scientists, here to study mankind. They are not known for their friendliness.
UFOlogist Richard Hall interviewed a doctor who claimed to have examined the corpses of dwarflike UFOccupants who crashed on Earth. Doctor X stated that the cadavers he examined had openings rather than ears, lacked any teeth, had no internal organs and no blood (only a colorless liquid), and were covered with tan or gray skin.
One incident involving small humanoids took place in Newark Valley, New York, on April 24, 1964. At ten o'clock that morning, farmer Gary Wilcox was working in a field near his house. The field was on a hill, and at the top, half-hidden behind some trees, was an old refrigerator. Gary saw something shining as he looked toward the ridge of the hill. He assumed that it was the refrigerator reflecting the sun — until he realized that the shining object was closer to him than the refrigerator. Curious, he drove his tractor up the hill, all the while watching the shining light.
As he approached it, he saw that the object was bigger than a car and somewhat oval. At first he thought it might be part of an airplane, but an inspection revealed that it wasn't. It had no seams or rivets and was made from a strange material that seemed to be a combination of metal and canvas.
Two men, wearing seamless white overalls and having no facial features, emerged from under the egg-shaped object. Each held a square tray filled with alfalfa, roots, soil, and leaves. Gary was certain that someone was playing a practical joke on him, but he soon changed his mind.
“Don't be alarmed,” one of the men said. “We have spoken to people before.”
What Gary noticed immediately was that the voice seemed to come from around the man rather than from within him.
“We are from what you know as the planet Mars," the man continued. Then he told Gary that they came to Earth every two years.
“People should not be sent into space,” the man warned. He said that two astronauts, John Glenn and Virgil Grissom, and two Russian cosmonauts would die within a year, because they had traveled in space.
“Do not mention our visit,” the other man said. With that, they returned to their ship.
Gary heard the craft make a noise like a car engine idling. As the noise diminished, the ship took off silently to the north.
Most people might not have reacted so calmly, but Gary merely drove home, called his mother, and told her about the encounter. Then he milked the cows and finished his chores. By the end of the next week, word had spread, and a police investigation was carried out on May 1, 1964. Gary was even tested by a psychiatrist to determine whether he had been suffering from any hallucinations that day. The doctor concluded that Gary was a truthful person.
Perhaps most surprising was the creature's prophecy. Although it was not fulfilled precisely, Virgil Grissom, along with two other astronauts, died in a fire on an Apollo rocket on January 27, 1967. What's more, on April 23, 1967, a Russian cosmonaut was killed when his re-entry parachutes failed to open. Was the prophecy related to these two events? No one can ever know for sure.
Another case took place on the morning of January 4, 1979, in Rowley Regis, England. According to UFOlogist Jenny Randles, Jean Hingley had just said goodbye to her husband when she noticed a bright light in her garden. Then she heard a strange sound: Zee, zee, zee.
As she looked up, she saw three strange beings fly into her living room. They fit the description of the dwarf humanoid exactly: three and a half feet tall, with white, waxen faces, thin mouths, and no eyebrows.
Suddenly Jean found herself floating toward them. “I had my hand on the door,” she said later, “but my feet didn't touch the floor.” She floated into the living room, where the creatures were inspecting the Christmas tree.
You will not be harmed, she was told. The creatures didn't use any words, but seemed to communicate with her telepathically.
“Where are you from?” she asked.
We come from the sky, she was told. We come down here to talk to people, but they don't seem to be interested.
For some reason, Jean thought she would show them how to light a cigarette. As she struck a match, the creatures fled to the garden, where their oval UFO was sitting. They floated into the craft, and it departed.
Afterward Jean noticed that the electric clock had stopped and that all of her cassette tapes had become magnetized. She felt sick and complained of sore eyes for a week. No one else reported seeing the UFO or the creatures, but a team of local police did discover an indentation where an oval craft might have landed in her garden. The indentation was perfectly preserved in a covering of light snow, and photographs of the landing site were taken by a local UFO group. This was the only proof Jean had that her UFO experience was real.
UFOccupant Type 2: Humanlike Beings
Other people have seen more normal-sized UFOccupants, often reported to be six feet tall or more. These beings have been described as coming in colors ranging from white to brown; on rare occasions green skin has been reported, though this may be due to a green uniform that gave a green cast to the creature's skin. The beings' eyes have been described as dark, large, and deep-set, although others have said the eyes were pink or blue and catlike. Many have pale blond hair and are called beautiful in a strange way. These beings are friendly, and people who have an encounter with them usually feel quite positive about it.
One such encounter took place near Frodsham, England, on January 27, 1978, about 5:45 P.M. The day was cold and the sky had grown dark. Four teenage boys decided to do some illegal hunting of pheasant on private property.
They were near the River Weaver, in an area known as the Devil's Garden. As they waited in the under growth to snare a pheasant, they saw something following the surface of the river, approaching and then passing them. It was ball-shaped, silvery, and about twenty feet above the water, and it made a slight humming sound.
Because of recent reports of a Russian satellite that had crashed in Canada, the boys' first thought was that they were seeing some kind of satellite. Whatever it was, they knew they were observing something quite strange.
The silver sphere had a flashing light on each side, near the top. What appeared to be a row of windows circled it near the middle, emitting a purplish light that was hard to look at.
When the object landed in some nearby bushes, the four hunters became frightened — not so much by the object as by the possibility of being contaminated by radioactivity from a satellite. Then they saw a figure, which looked human and was wearing a silver jumpsuit and helmet. Attached to the top of the helmet was a blinding purple light similar to a miner's lantern.
The young men watched as this creature surveyed the scene and gazed at some cows in an adjacent field. The cows seemed to be entranced by the silvery ball. The figure stepped behind the ball, out of sight of the four boys, and returned seconds later with a companion, similarly dressed. The two figures carried a large cage made of light metal. They walked toward one of the cows and, using the cagelike contraption, appeared to measure it.
By now the hunters were terrified. They feared they might be next on the list if the beings caught sight of them. They turned and ran, not looking back until they were a mile or so downriver. You won't be surprised to learn that they could not see anything more of the mysterious silver sphere or its occupants.
Why should we believe this strange close encounter? First, the young men were engaged in an illegal activity. It's unlikely that they would volunteer information that put them in danger of arrest unless they truly believed that they had seen something quite remarkable. Second, they sought no publicity for themselves. They would not allow investigators to report their names and did not seek any monetary gain from their adventure. Third, all four testified to the story. Finally, at least three other sightings or encounters with a similar craft were reported in that same area during January 1978.
Another encounter with humanlike aliens, described by UFOlogist Willy Smith, occurred in Isla de Lobos, Uruguay, on October 28, 1972. Isla de Lobos is a small island, important only for its lighthouse, which is operated by the Uruguayan navy. Five men are stationed on the island to attend to the electric generators. On that night, they had finished dinner and played a few games of cards when Corporal Fuentes noticed that it was time to inspect the generators. It was just after ten o'clock and completely dark. As Fuentes approached the lighthouse, he noticed an object with bright lights on the terrace beside it. His first thought was that he was seeing an automobile, but that was impossible; the only people on the island were the five naval officers. He was so concerned that he returned to the officers' building for a pistol.
As Corporal Fuentes headed toward the lighthouse again, he observed the lights carefully. They were yellow, white, and violet, and they lit up the area so well that he could see a figure standing next to the object.
Then two more figures descended from the UFO. Fuentes judged them to be five to six feet tall. He could not make out what they were wearing, but he noticed that they seemed to walk in slow motion.
Fuentes was perhaps one hundred feet away when the three beings noticed him. They stood on the terrace, six feet above him, and stared. Frightened, Fuentes attempted to shoot, but he could not raise his arm. He could only watch as the beings entered their vehicle, which lifted straight up, humming slightly. Then it tipped a little and a fireball burst from under it. The craft shot off silently to the southeast.
None of the other men on the island believed Fuentes's story. However, he was sent to see a higher-ranking officer, who listened to his story and brought two American Embassy personnel to interview him. Why people from the American Embassy would want to interview the corporal is puzzling, especially since the American government has gone to great lengths to discount the possibil ity of UFOs. He was also interviewed by a UFO organization, which concluded that he was telling the truth.
UFOccupant Type 3: Robots or Machines
Although sightings involving mechanical creatures are less common than other kinds, they are the most unusual encounters recorded. Almost no two accounts of robots and machines are similar. Each case appears unique and special.
One example occurred in Livingston, Scotland, on November 9, 1979. Bob Taylor was patrolling a forest area near the main highway between Glasgow and Edinburgh. His job that evening was to look for stray animals. Bob parked his van and got out to check the area on foot. Accompanying him on his rounds was his dog, Katie, a red setter.
Everything seemed normal until Bob walked into a small clearing and saw a dome-shaped object. It was twenty feet wide, metallic, and had a row of antennas ringing its circular base. Suddenly portions of the object began to fade away, becoming transparent. Bob could actually see through them to the forest background. Then the encounter turned ominous.
Two gray balls emerged from the object. About as large as basketballs, these spheres had sharp spikes, perhaps six inches long. The two balls resembled landmines or giant maces, and they behaved like robots.
The balls rolled toward Bob, and before he could even think about moving, they were beside him. He felt a tug on his legs. At the same time he became aware of a terrible, gaseous odor. Then he passed out.
After what he took to be a few minutes, he regained consciousness. He was lying in mud with Katie by his side, but the object and the gray spheres were gone. Bob tried to stand, but his legs wobbled. At that point he began to realize that he had been hurt in some way. He was very thirsty and had a severe headache. His van had a two-way radio, but he was unable to call for help. He also found it difficult to drive; eventually he left his van in a ditch and walked a mile and a half home.
There, as he removed his muddy clothes, he noticed that his pants, which were made of the heavy cloth commonly used in police uniforms, had been torn on both hips. The tears seemed to suggest that the spheres had used their spikes to tug him toward the domed object. If this was true, the spheres had been quite gentle, since there was only a small scratch mark on his skin.
Many questions about his encounter remain. Were the gray spheres responsible for Bob's injuries? Had they dragged him to the domed object? Was the object a UFO? Did the site produce any evidence that a UFO had existed?
Seven police officers examined the forest clearing. Between the time that Bob reported the encounter and the time of the investigation, though, there had been a heavy snow, so the investigators slowly removed the snow.
What did they find? First, a set of triangular indentations that looked as if they had been made by the legs of some machine. This might be where the domed object rested on its landing gear. They also discovered two small tracks of gouged earth where Bob had been pulled headfirst toward the object. Perhaps something had interrupted the attempt, because it seemed that he had been pulled only partway. Finally, they found perhaps twenty or thirty holes, which matched Bob's description of the spheres' spikes.
UFOlogists can only assume that Bob stumbled across a UFO. His description of the site corresponded to the evidence that the investigators found. But beyond that, nothing proved his encounter except his insistence that what had happened had been real. Were the gray balls really robots? Why were they interested in Bob Taylor? If they were responsible for dragging him, why did they stop? And who, or what, was inside the domed object? Bob's boss, Malcolm Drummond, who inspected the alleged landing site, commented: “Bob is not a man to make something up. If he said he was attacked by some creatures, then there must have been something there."
An even more frightening encounter occurred on Jan uary 27, 1977, near Prospect, Kentucky. A nineteen-year-old boy named Lee Parrish had been visiting his girlfriend that night. When he left her house about 1:00 A.M., he knew he had a seven-minute ride home in his Jeep. As he drove west on Highway 239, he saw an object hovering above the tree line, perhaps a few hundred feet from the road and one hundred feet in the air. The object was rectangular and its blazing red color was hard to look at. Still, no matter how he tried, Lee couldn't stop staring.
Within fifteen seconds, the Jeep's radio stopped working. By then the Jeep was directly underneath the ob ject. Lee said later that he wasn't even driving his Jeep, that it managed to stay on the road without his control. Suddenly the UFO sped away to the northwest like a jet without sound.
When Lee arrived home, his mother was still up. “What's wrong with your eyes?" she asked.
Lee glanced in a mirror and saw that his eyes were badly bloodshot. He was also aware for the first time that they stung. Then he noticed that it was 1:45 A.M. His seven-minute trip home had taken forty-five minutes.
He told his mother about his encounter. She in turn called a local UFO group. She could tell that something very real had happened to her son, but neither she nor Lee had any idea exactly how terrifying an experience Lee had really had with the fire-colored UFO.
The next day Don Elkins and Carla Rueckert interviewed Lee about his experience and arranged for him to be hypnotized to determine what had happened dur ing the forty-five-minute ride home. Where had all the time gone? Had he passed out? Or had something else happened?
Here is what Lee told them under hypnosis:
When the UFO hovered above Lee's Jeep, he became quite frightened. In his trance, he kept repeating, “It's not moving, it's not moving.” The UFO had caught the Jeep and pulled it into the air, using a powerful force field. Then Lee felt something in his eyes. When his eyesight cleared, he was no longer in his Jeep but in a round, immaculately white room. He had no idea how he had arrived there, but he knew he had not left the Jeep by way of the door.
In the room were three objects. To his left was a large black slab that had a small rounded area on top, so that it looked like a three-dimensional silhouette of a man. This black object had a mechanical arm. To his right was a red object the color and shape of an old-fashioned Coca-Cola vending machine. It too had an armlike extension. Directly in front of him was a large white rectangular object, perhaps six feet high, with a square wedge positioned like a head. Although none of the three objects resembled a robot, let alone a life form, Lee was certain that they were living. He was also certain that the white robot was the leader.
The black robot's arm moved toward Lee and touched his back. The red robot's arm touched him on his right shoulder and above his right ear. The touch of both robots hurt. Then the three robots disappeared, leaving Lee alone in the white luminous room. Suddenly he found himself back in his Jeep, driving home. Within five seconds of the UFO's disappearance, the Jeep radio began to work again.
Elkins and Rueckert drew no conclusions about this episode; they merely let Lee tell his story. What adds credibility to his account is the fact that the electrical system on the Jeep malfunctioned the day after his encounter with the UFO and required extensive work.
UFOccupant Type 4: Animals or Monsters
This is perhaps the strangest category of UFOccupants and, fortunately, the least likely to be seen. One animal/ monster, reported frequently in one Ohio Valley area in 1966 and 1967, was Mothman. Like a combination of Superman and a hawk, this creature was featherless but winged and reportedly could fly as fast as a speeding car without flapping its wings.
Other UFO monsters have been reported as well. One appeared in Flatwoods, West Virginia, on September 12, 1952. A group of children were playing outside at sunset when they saw what they thought was a meteor landing on a hill nearby. The children decided to investigate the strange light. They saw a large ball, which one boy described as “as big as a house.” One of the children heard a throbbing sound, while another heard hissing. Another boy in the group saw a pair of eyes gleaming in the shadows. He shined his flashlight toward the eyes to scare the animal away. Just as he did, all the children saw a giant creature, over ten feet tall, with a blood-red face and glowing orange-green eyes. They watched in silence as the creature began to float slowly toward them. Before it reached them, they ran back down the hill, screaming for help.
The next day the editor of the local paper scouted the hill for signs of a UFO landing. He found a number of marks on the ground and a large round area of flattened grass. He also noted a strong, pungent smell. As with so many purported UFO landings, nothing else was turned up.
Finally, strange beings are sometimes observed after a person has witnessed a UFO encounter. Because these beings are usually dressed in black, they are called the Men in Black, or MIBs. They have been seen most often in the United States. Supposedly, they travel in groups of three in large black automobiles. They say that they are FBI or CIA agents, military personnel, or telephone workers. Whoever or whatever they are, their aim has been to silence anyone who reports UFO encounters, mostly by intimidating the person. Since there have been relatively few encounters with MIBs, many UFOlogists now believe that such reports were either hoaxes or the illusions of people who became frightened after seeing a UFO.
Copyright © James M. Deem. Taken from How to Catch a Flying Saucer (Houghton Mifflin, 1991). All rights reserved.
Other UFO Stories by James M Deem
A UFO in Montvale, NJ? Three Types of UFO
CloEncse ounters of the First, Second, and Third Kind Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind
The What's What of UFOs: The Five Most Common Shapes The Who's Who of UFOs: What Their Occupants Look Like
UFO Missions: What UFOs Have Been Seen Doing Tips for Having a Close Encounter