I can't help but think of some of the eyewitness accounts I've heard of the Nimitz incident and what people like Corbell have been saying as of late. Films and shows being made, lots of experts with serious looks scratching their learned chins, physicists and eyewitnesses off on whale hunting excursions. Well, that last makes perfect sense knowing what we now know about George and Gracie, but that's another story. The whole thing makes for an interesting stew, an excellent study of human behavior. Unfortunately not the best experience for ufology.
Thing is, I believe ET does whizz through occasionally it's just that so many are so predisposed to Belief it isn't surprising that the '_____' - whoever that may be, intelligence, military, private contractors (some mixture in my estimation) consider it a useful tool in the box for their own purposes. I suspect that's what Elizondo and Mellon are here for saying the things they have been saying.
Rather than argue about whether this case or that case - or photo - is 'real' or not there is something else I have been thinking about. It's often said that ET has an interest in us because we've detonated thermonuclear weapons, harnessed the energy of the stars. Maybe they really have stopped by and fiddled with the knobs on the missiles, so to speak, from time to time. But what if - and this does seem to be where many researchers wind up - the dividing line for First Contact has more to do with consciousness than anything else?
This is where the nuts & bolts vs more-to-it-than-that argument develops and it's not my intent to fire that back up. Pure speculation at this point. But you can look at something and say 'there's more to it than that'. The argument goes both ways - if we've had as many 'unknown technological devices' visiting as has been claimed just since WW2 that we would have had more well documented incidents of all sorts, not just arguing over pop culture crash stories.