Alien Grays

The 'Grey aliens' — also spelled Grays — are a distinctive extraterrestrial archetype widely reported in both the UFO/contactee literature and in high-dose psychedelic experiences (particularly DMT). The visual signature is unusually consistent across otherwise-unrelated reporters: small (typically 3–4 feet tall), thin, grey-skinned humanoids with disproportionately large heads, oversized black almond-shaped eyes with no visible whites or pupils, small slit-mouths, and diminished or vestigial noses, ears, and other facial features.

The modern Grey imagery emerged into wide public consciousness primarily through two cases: the 1961 Betty and Barney Hill abduction account (which is often cited as the first widely-publicised 'alien abduction' report) and the 1987 book Communion by Whitley Strieber, whose cover image of a Grey face fixed the visual archetype in the popular imagination. Similar figures had appeared in older folklore under other names — fairies, elves, night visitors — leading some folklorists (Jacques Vallée most influentially) to argue that the Greys are the modern industrial-era expression of a much older and cross-cultural phenomenon.

Alongside the UFO-abduction literature, Greys are among the most-reported entity types in DMT experience. Rick Strassman's DMT research participants described Grey-type figures with unusual frequency; the DMT-Nexus and PsychonautWiki communities catalogue them as one of the recurrent 'alien' entity classes distinct from Machine Elves, Insectoids, and Mantis Beings. Reported encounters typically involve wordless telepathic communication, a specific quality of detached-but-not-unkind scientific interest on the entity's part, and (often) the presentation or 'examination' of aspects of the visitor's inner life that the visitor themselves had not been fully aware of.

Whether the Greys are a genuine extraterrestrial phenomenon, an autonomous complex of the collective psyche in the specific form the industrial era finds compelling, a shared psychonaut hallucinatory archetype, or (as some interpretations suggest) a modern face on a much older visitor-tradition, remains — as with much of the codex — an open question.

Sources:
Wikipedia — Grey alien
Wikipedia — Alien abduction