Good evening, here we have Extraordinary Encounters :An Encyclopedia of Extraterrestrials by Jerome Clark...

...Extraordinary encounters have been reported for as long as human beings have been around, and they are richly documented in the world’s folklore and mythology. A full accounting of traditions of otherworldly belief would easily fill many fat volumes. This book, however, is not about traditions but about experiences, or perceived experiences, of otherworldly forces as claimed by a wide range of individuals over the past two centuries (with the rare look farther back if the occasion calls for it). In other words, it is about things that people, many of them living, say happened to them, things far outside mainstream notions about what it is possible to experience, but, at the same time, things that seem deeply real to at least the sincere experients (that is, those persons who have had the experiences). Not everyone, of course, is telling the truth, and when there is reason to be suspicious of the testimony, that consideration is noted.

Mostly, though, I let the stories tell themselves; I have left my own observations and conclusions in this introduction. Though much of the material is outlandish by any definition, I have made a conscious effort to relate it straightforwardly, and I hope readers will take it in the same spirit. No single person on this earth is guiltless of believing something that isn’t so. As I wrote this book, I tried to keep in mind these wise words from scientist and author Henry H. Bauer: “Foolish ideas do not make a fool—if they did, we could all rightly be called fools.”

Most of us believe in at least the hypothetical existence of other-than-human beings, whether we think of them as manifestations of the divine or as advanced extraterrestrials. At the same time most of us do not think of these beings as intelligences we are likely to encounter in quotidian reality. God and the angels are in heaven, spiritual entities who exist as objects of faith. Extraterrestrials, though not gods, “exist” in much the same way, as beings who science fiction writers and scientists such as the late Carl Sagan theorize may be out there somewhere in deep space, though so far away that no direct evidence supports the proposition. When devout individuals report feeling the “presence of God,” they usually describe a subjective state that the nonbeliever does not feel compelled to take literally.

Of course we know there was a time when our ancestors were certain that otherworldly beings of all sorts walked the world. Gods communicate openly with humans. One could summon up their presence or encounter them spontaneously. Fairies and other supernatural entities haunted the landscape as Introduction xi things that existed not just in supernatural belief but in actual experience. We also know that our poor, benighted ancestors knew no better. Superstitious, fearful, deeply credulous, they mistook shadows and dreams for denizens of realms that had no reality beyond the one ignorance and foolishness assigned it.
https://exploringrealhistory.blogspot.com/2021/04/part-1-extraordinary-encountersa-to.html