Little people sightings map
Reports of small humanoid figures -- called little people, gnomes or leprechauns by the people who reported them. Many of these traditions are old and regional, and some accounts are retellings rather than first-hand sightings; the case page says which.
Other names in the sources: Little man, Gnome, Leprechaun.
We map claims, not creatures. A case is what some source says someone saw or heard, with the link to that source. It is not proof that anything was there, and a retelling counts once, not as a second sighting.
By the numbers
136 cases on the map, 60 of them first-hand (the witness telling it). A case may stand on several documents; copies and reprints are not confirmations.
Best-documented cases
Ranked by independent sources first, then documents, then first-hand accounts. This says how well a claim is documented, not whether it is true.
Little People · Miñi Miñi, Puerto Rico · 1991
A woman screamed that she had seen strange little men with huge heads and eyes passing by parked cars.
Little People · Rowley Regis, England · 1979
Mrs. [name] reports three small, winged humanoid beings with glowing lights and silvery-green tunics floated into her home, interacted with her, and drank water before leaving.
Little People · County Antrim, Northern Ireland / Tuaisceart Éireann
The narrator reports that a mysterious entity broke their phone while camping in a dell at Giant's Causeway and later found strange flower petals in their home.
Little People
The narrator and their cousin observed a small, naked, mud-covered humanoid crouching in the grass before it sprinted away at an unnatural speed.
Little People · 1999
The narrator and their friend [name] saw a group of clothed little people less than a foot tall in the woods before they dispersed.
Little People · Loveland Park, Ohio · 1955
Witness reports that [name]'s neighbor saw a diminutive little man covered in twigs and foliage standing motionless near her back porch.
Further reading
- On the Track of Unknown Animals, Bernard Heuvelmans (1959)
The founding work of cryptozoology.
Borrow on Internet Archive - Cryptozoology A to Z, Loren Coleman and Jerome Clark (1999)
Encyclopedia of reported creatures.
Borrow on Internet Archive - Abominable Science!, Daniel Loxton and Donald Prothero (2013)
Skeptical history of the Yeti, Nessie and others.
Borrow on Internet Archive - In Search of Prehistoric Survivors, Karl Shuker (1995)
Borrow on Internet Archive
Books we have not reproduced: borrow them free at archive.org. Listing a book is not an endorsement of its claims.