“By 1952, intelligence assessments ruled out domestic or foreign origins for UFOs, convincing several high-ranking officials that the objects were “interplanetary” craft.”
This statement ignores one other possibility, that the “aliens” are our future earthling descendants who have mastered time travel.
Think time travel is impossible but aliens in some distant constellation could easily zip around the universe? Earth is the only known place with intelligent beings. Why assume other civilizations (of which we have zero evidence) do exist and are superior to ours?
Now that I'm older, I would take issue with the idea that human beings are intelligent. As a species, we have invented and built some interesting things and created some beautiful art and literature, but we are not at all intelligent. Quite the contrary.
Human beings are not an attractive species (myself included).
It also ignores the possibility that these "aliens" are from other dimensions. They may not even be physical beings (even though they seem to be able to become "physical" in our world).
Some folks who are deep into the weeds of this subject have been saying that consciousness itself is going to be redefined as we try to understand what we are dealing with here. I don't think anyone understands what the hell that means.;-)
One of the messages abductees have gotten over the years (assuming these people are not just victims of some kind of mass hypnosis) is that these "aliens" created us. Others have concluded that these "aliens" are tricksters and liars, so their message that they are our creators may be merely a ploy to destroy our existing concept of God/religion.