I don’t get this “freaked me out” attitude/emotion on many of the posts on this thread.
I saw something, found it interesting, told everyone I could. . .never scared me, freaked me out, nothing. Just aroused my curiosity.
Seeing something totally out of your experience will sometimes do that.
Back in the '70s I worked at Camp Pendleton and was walking over to the PXs garden section when I happened to look up. It was one of those typical California days with not a cloud in sight and the bluest of skies.
Right smack in the middle was this coal-black object that looked like an "H" lying on it side, with the upper bar a bit shorter. It just hung there, motionless, looking like someone had drawn that object in the sky with India ink.
The hair on the back of my neck started to raise as I had a major WTF moment - TOTALLY motionless and ALIEN. In a few seconds it started to change color and went a bright silver. It was one of those twin-tailed Beechcraft airplanes the military had that carried a small radar dome on top - hence the shorter bar on that horizontal "H". I must have caught sight of it just as it made a wide sweeping banking turn, giving that illusion of motionless, and a trick of light turned it black.
That moment gave me some idea of what people experience when they see a UFO, and from that point on, always sympathized with them in their moment of uncertainty or fear.
I doubt that many of those posting were really 'freaked out' by their sightings.
It's a kind of political correctness in this community. You're not supposed to believe in this stuff, or even attempt to have a rational conversation about such things on FR. Doesn't matter whether you've seen it with your own eyes or not.