WMiT: An Introduction to Fairies

Some UFO reports have high credibility because they involve multiple "expert" witnesses, that is, pilots trained in accurate observation, or law enforcement officers, and have recorded and documented interactions with radio, radar, and military airborne electronic intelligence systems. And some of these high-credibility cases have been analyzed discovering excellent internal self-consistency of the calculated UFO flight directions, velocities, and so on. And some UFO cases have left well-attested ground traces of the craft's landings. And lastly, some few UFOs have left highly evidential photographs and video evidence of their physical reality. The cumulative weight of this evidence clearly points to the conclusion that at least some small percentage of UFO sightings are of somebody else's hardware.

And along the same lines in principle there are many ghost and apparition sightings with high credibility.

In both cases the great majority of sightings don't have this degree of credibility or plausibility, but the point is, some do and they can't reasonably be dismissed. Does this pattern fit the fairy accounts?

As per the Vallee quote in my post above, I would say there is more continuity from "fairies" to UFOs. For example the Miracle of the Sun I posted was witnessed by thousands. The original description of the "Virgin Mary" seems quite fairy-like:

The Lady was said to be a little over one meter tall and fourteen to fifteen years of age. She did not look like the images of the Blessed Virgin known in the devotional iconography of the local churches. She was enveloped in a kind of light that was more beautiful than the sun and very bright. Her dress, which appears to have hugged her body somewhat, covered her from the neck to the feet and emitted a similar white light. Some descriptions have her wearing a robe or cape extending to her knees, something on her head (it is not at all clear what), and a chain with a golden ball attached to it at about the level of her waist. She had black eyes and looked serious. Her mouth did not move when she spoke. She did not use her feet when she moved. Rather, she glided or floated.

Kripal, Jeffrey J.. Authors of the Impossible (pp. 276-277). University of Chicago Press. Kindle Edition.

There's also the 1961 case of the farmer from Wisconsin that seems to blend fairies and aliens:

At 11:00 AM on April 18, 1961, Joe Simonton was sitting in his rural Eagle River home enjoying a late breakfast when he heard a commotion outside. When he investigated he witnessed a flying saucer “brighter than chrome” hovering above his house. The craft eventually landed in his backyard. The saucer opened up. Sitting inside were three mute aliens which Joe described as “Italian looking.”

Joe was given a large container, and somehow discerned that these strange creatures wanted water. When he returned with the liquid, one of the aliens was cooking pancakes on a flame-less cooking appliance. The creatures gave Joe the pancakes, saluted him, and flew away south, into legend.

These are off the top of my head though I recall more...I'll look through Vallee's Passport to Magonia for more examples, along with some of the weird associations of owls [and] UFOs....