According to John Rhodes, people have reported interacting with half-human and half-reptile beings in various parts of the world since the dawn of mankind. While most of these ancestral memories or mythologies are symbols of ancient religious self-identification, a few appear to be relating actual encounters, similar to those reported in the modern UFO culture.

While most reptiles are wild and shy away from humans, reptoids have exhibited a marked degree of intelligence and an intense curiosity of the humans they encounter. These are the most mysterious of all.

Because so few people are aware that the majority of life on and in Earth has yet to be encountered by mankind, when something unusual and intelligent like a reptoid is encountered, they are misidentified as ET's or "aliens."

Some of these elusive animal-beings have been encountered by accident, some of the intelligent ones appear to be encountering humans on purpose, in the middle of the night or in disguise by day for various undeterminable reasons.