Other stories about little people

Daniel heard an interesting story from his "Uncle Willy." Willy was a young man in his thirties at the time. He was riding his horse along one of the many natural springs in the area when he stopped to light a cigarette and rest for a moment. Standing by the water, he heard a strange "scratching sound," and, curious if it could be an animal, he looked into the grass along the small stream.

Parting the blades of grass, he gazed upon two strange little figures, no bigger than his fist! One emerged from the water, while the other sat on the stream's edge. The sitting creature appeared to be scratching something in its hands.

When Willy realized that what he was seeing was real, his consciousness drew the consciousness of those little people, who froze in place.

As Willy pushed his way through the grass toward them to get a better view, one of the figures fell onto its side and into the water, disappearing, even though the small stream was no more than an inch or two deep. The other figure was fashioning a small leather bag from which it pulled out several old spearheads, among them a tool that made the scraping sound Willy heard. It was a small stone knife, and there were also crayfish tongs, which the creature was trying to open when Willy arrived.

Paul from South Africa shared an equally strange story. The experience took place in 1986 in Durban, South Africa, at the Mangrove Wetlands Nature Reserve, around 6 p.m. On that day, Paul recalls, he and five friends were hiking along the main trail through the wetlands.

"We had been walking for about ten minutes when the marsh revealed a clearing with rock formations resembling a small natural amphitheater," Paul says. "Around this amphitheater were lit fire lamps. Right in front of me was a small figure, just over three feet tall. The little man was looking straight at me and pointing at me, surprised."At this point, Paul was joined by a group of friends. "We looked around and saw small people sitting on illuminated rock formations and others interacting with each other," Paul continues. "The light and the forms we saw were made of a fleeting light, clearly less intense than what we are used to. I estimated the number of these small people at between 20 and 30. We were shocked and terrified by the phenomenon we witnessed."

For his friends, the experience lasted only about 10 seconds, but it seemed to unfold in slow motion. "We turned around and ran as fast as we could back to our car," Paul says. "Once we got there, we tried to make sense of what we were seeing. We went back to that spot and saw nothing but bushland. No lights, no small people, no rock formations, just bushland."

How can we evaluate these stories? Were they tales? Hallucinations? Or were they real—"real" in a way that challenges our current understanding of the world?