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human
CMV: Aliens are not the most likely explanation for UFO sightings

Since the USAF declassified a bunch of UFO reports and admitted that unidentified aerial phenomena are a real thing that the government knows about and tracks, I have listened to a veritable buttload of podcasts and read a bevy of articles on the subject. The thing that is so frustrating to me about most of these is that they all assume that aliens visiting earth are the most likely explanation for these phenomena and take it as a given.

Using Occam's Razor, I believe that this is by far the least likely scenario based on what we know. Here are all the things that would have to happen for this to be true.

1. There is another intelligent species of being somewhere in the universe: Based on various projections using variations on the Drake equation, the chances of this are either likely or zero, which means we have no idea.
2. That species has technology beyond our wildest imaginations: Total speculation, and the Fermi Paradox and Great Filter theories have a lot to say about how likely this may be.
3. Someone is actually able to find us out of all the planets in the universe, which is about as likely as accidentally finding a specific grain of sand out of all the grains of sand on earth.
4. Once they do locate us, they are able to travel here and it is either trivially easy for them to do so, OR they REALLY need or want something that is here so that it is worth the massive amounts of energy it would likely require, or both: this is related to point #2 and is pure speculation
5. Once they are here there seems to me only two options -- a) they wish to remain concealed or to hide their presence in some way, or b) they do not care about concealing their presence
   1. If A: In order to travel here at all, it would have to be trivially easy or very worth their time. If it is trivially easy, *then concealing themselves would also be trivial to them*. We would have literally NO CHANCE of detecting them if they wished to remain undetected.
   2. If B: We would see them everywhere, all the time, OR it would be incredibly obvious that they are here. We wouldn't just be seeing some flashing lights or zooming dots on the horizon. There would be no question about what is happening if this were the case, ESPECIALLY if they came all this way because they really needed something here. Also, the idea that any terrestrial government could POSSIBLY "cover-up" the existence of beings that have the technology to travel at faster than light speeds is absolutely laughable.

Every time I hear these discussions or read these articles, this is all I can think about. The odds that all of these things have happened/are happening and that aliens are the most likely explanation for videos of weird objects is *infinitesimal*. I don't think people realize how many incredibly unlikely things would have to happen for this to be possible at all.

On the other hand, we DO know that the human mind is incredibly unreliable and fallible and that people have been making up stories about what they see and experience since the beginning of human existence. We know so much more about cognitive bias, memory, selective attention, etc. than ever before.

The far more likely explanation is that humans are tricking themselves into believing that what they are seeing is unexplainable. The explanation that it is aliens visiting earth is far, far, far, less likely given what would have to have happened, all of which are incredibly unlikely in and of themselves.

So what am I missing here? I would love to break this open and get out of this very narrow view that I have, I am just having so much trouble seeing anything besides this. Please, change my view, even just a little.

EDIT: This definitely got bigger than I imagined it would and I am having trouble keeping up with replies so I will put a few things here.

1. I am not saying that all UAF videos are fake or wrong readings, etc. I am sorry if I have done so, I did not mean to make it seem that I believe that. I am saying that this is a distinct possibility, and one that is more likely in many cases (perhaps not all) than IT'S ALIENS. The military has detected things they don't know how to explain -- that is why we are having this conversation in the first place. I concede this clearly and up front. Sorry for the confusion.
2. I am not a statistician or a mathematician. I am using deduction and logic to formulate a hypothesis using the informational available to me. If you have the numbers on the probability of certain things that I have wrong, please provide them to me. Clearly I need to be educated.
3. I still haven't heard anything that convinces me that ALIENS is the most likely explanation for UAF activity. I admit that I have been wrong about how likely some thing may or may not be, but the evidence simply doesn't exist, and human error still feels like the most likely explanation as history, prudence, and many debunkings show. I also believe that my train of logic holds firm here. The chain of things that we take for granted that would have to occur for ALIENS to be the explanation requires a lot of things we don't understand or cannot suppose one or the other and/or are very unlikely.

EDIT 2: DELTA UPDATE

My view on Point #3 is changing, mostly in that most people agree it is not as difficult to locate potentially-inhabited planets as I thought. IF TRUE, it is logical that if there were an alien species with the technology capable of finding and reaching us, that they would have had ample time to send a ship or ships even without FTL or other theoretical (or impossible) technologies. 

I am happy to have some of my information updated and to be engaged in a good discussion. That said, I still think it is far less likely that UAFs are alien activity than any other mundane explanation.
gpt
>  There is another intelligent species of being somewhere in the universe: Based on various projections using variations on the Drake equation, the chances of this are either likely or zero, which means we have no idea.

This is just false. When Drakes equation was first developed people would consistently get numbers between 5 and millions. If anything, as we've gotten a better view of what some of the variables are, such as number of stars with planets, we should be more optimistic considering the results have been rather optimistic.

> That species has technology beyond our wildest imaginations: Total speculation, and the Fermi Paradox and Great Filter theories have a lot to say about how likely this may be

You can't really speculate about alien technology because it's literally talking about yet to be discovered technology. Today's science fiction is tomorrow's "well of course". Speculating things as unlikely in this case is just as bad as speculating that things are likely. 

> Someone is actually able to find us out of all the planets in the universe, which is about as likely as accidentally finding a specific grain of sand out of all the grains of sand on earth

This is also literally false. We have this technology now to view planets and stars in amazing detail. And if the James Webb actually gets put up we will not only be able to scan a huge catalog of star, but also their planets atmospheres. We will likely be able to make fairly educated guesses on life around exoplanets this decade. Maybe as soon as 2022. 

> Once they do locate us, they are able to travel here and it is either trivially easy for them to do so, OR they REALLY need or want something that is here so that it is worth the massive amounts of energy it would likely require, or both: this is related to point #2 and is pure speculation

Both assumptions are pure speculation. 

> If B: We would see them everywhere, all the time, OR it would be incredibly obvious that they are here. We wouldn't just be seeing some flashing lights or zooming dots on the horizon. There would be no question about what is happening if this were the case, ESPECIALLY if they came all this way because they really needed something here. Also, the idea that any terrestrial government could POSSIBLY "cover-up" the existence of beings that have the technology to travel at faster than light speeds is absolutely laughable.

Equal speculation on your part that this is binary.