>>96261869
If an alien showed me a device like pic rel, us being 21st century humans, it would certainly look "magical" but we would recognize that it's probably some advanced tech that would be very difficult or even impossible to grasp the mechanics of. I think that's still way different than if an alien shows you they can transform into a different looking creature, breathe fire, fly without any obvious device or eldritch technology that we can see. A lot of the fantasy depictions we know about magic portrays it as purely coming from some kind of invisible energy source/weave/mana