It doesn't take much time or research into the UFO phenomena to realize that there are easily as many people trying to discredit the possibility of extraterrestrial visitors as there are those who try to prove its existence. Skeptics have always been with us and that is not entirely a bad thing. At their best, an educated and informed skeptic helps keep legitimate research from being overwhelmed by the more hysterical or emotional elements. It is necessary to look long and hard at what is being reported and shown to help determine the relative validity of any given report.
This is especially needed with what sometimes appears to be an army of hoaxers who attempt to misinform and ridicule those who have actual experiences with the unknown. The state of computer graphics has advanced to the point that a clever and talented craftsman can construct digital images that are virtually indistinguishable from an actual photograph. This makes it much harder to quickly accept a digital photograph as real without it having first been subjected to qualified scrutiny to search for any evidence of duplicity. It is almost ironic that in order to try and gain proof of a high technology, the low-tech Polaroid has less chance of being used in a successful hoax than any of a vast array of equipment that could give us greater detail and better imagery of these unknown things that fly through our skies.
Yet, for all the advantages a serious skeptic can bring to the UFO investigations, so many of them seem to become mere ridiculers of anything outside a narrow worldview. So many attack any seriously presented report or evidence presented regardless of the facts that can be gleaned from them. Even when serious scientists devote their time and skills to analyzing evidence presented as coming from a UFO, these non-scientists will so often shout down logic. It is as though the louder they ridicule, the more likely people will accept their unstudied opinion as facts, even when it is in direct conflict with discovered knowledge.
An example can be found in one of the major UFO research reports available. While the summarizing conclusion to the Condon Report was slanted to try and discredit the UFO phenomena, many of the facts revealed in the pages of the report itself were anything but discrediting. The skeptics, for the most part, seem to laud the "conclusion" while ignoring the many instances that were clearly not explainable by normally occurring causes and events.
It is necessary for the interested individual to become their own skeptic and research the UFO phenomena with as open a mind as they can. Check on both the sources of the reports and the sources of those "explaining" what the sighting was. No matter how much you wish to believe, it is necessary to develop the mindset that a sighting or report is plausibly explainable. It is also necessary for those who disbelieve to keep in mind that humans are not the possessors of all knowledge and that there could well be unknown, and even extraterrestrial, things in this universe. Only through an objective investigation can the truth of this phenomenon be uncovered and undeniable knowledge is found as to whether we are alone in the universe or not.