Yeah, this whole discussion is so moronic.
Navy: "Our pilots see things they can't clearly identify."
Everybody else: "Oh my god, the Navy just confirmed that aliens are zipping around in our skies constantly!"
We now have more people with more cameras than ever in human history. If there were aliens zipping around our skies, and they were inept enough that Navy pilots can see them all the time, we'd have pictures. We'd *know* that they're here.
I'm not so sure. Yes, we have more cameras than ever before, but do you see the images from those cameras? For the most part, no, you don't. We only see what is elevated by the media, or goes "viral" on social media. And even then, we only see the images or video. What does it depict? We can all see the evidence but disagree on its meaning. We didn't know about this until the Navy decided to tell us. Otherwise we would have no knowledge of it, even though it exists.
Some of these Navy pilots have seen things like balls of light, with no wings or IR exhaust signature, doing things that are way beyond our understanding of state-of-the-art technology. One described what he saw as a cube encased in a sphere, as it came close to his plane. That is quite odd and does not conform to our knowledge of flying machines that we can build. Could these be secret, experimental aircraft? Yes, of course they could. However, why the runners of such secret programs would be having their craft come so close to conventional airplanes is a mystery. You'd think they would want to keep them secret, and have minimal or no contact with those not involved with the program, even if they belonged to the Russians or Chinese. Yet these pilots report having hundreds of such encounters.
I don't think we would know if these craft are actually extraterrestrial. First because such notions are generally dismissed out of hand. You can't find something that you have already decided does not exist. You will always come up with some other explanation. Second, because how would you determine that definitively? Secret programs could have developed technology that is beyond public understanding. And their existence would not be acknowledged. We just don't have enough information to discern what is advanced secret technology and what is extraterrestrial.
I don't know what these UFO's are any more than you do. But it is foolish, at this point, to think that life does not exist elsewhere in the galaxy. If some species were able to travel here, and overcome the problems presented by the interaction of speed, space and time, we would have no idea what their craft might look like. I'm not saying these UFO's are aliens. But to dismiss the notion out of hand seems foolish. We simply don't know, and likely won't.