Half-remembered posit from essay+story by David Brin:
   Are aliens the new fae? If you look at the ubiquitous "Gray" archetype that one generally takes to represent the concept of the extraterrestrial, it certainly has the slender-to-the-point-of-emaciated body, the slight stature, the strange tilted eyes, &c. But to go a little bit deeper, are they the new monster-as-representation-of-unknown? That is, as the rule of thumb of fearing that which one does not understand is applied, and combined with science generally discounting many effects that rule might have, what if those little gray dudes are just the newest thing that is just beyond the firelight? Are they what we just might have seen out in the dark forest beyond the light that our embers of technology and modern society give off, coming to abduct us and cause capricious mischief?