That might be true for the public media, but from my vantage point this has been a fairly steady phenomenon. In the 1970s while working in Huntsville at the George C. Marshall Spaceflight Center, I heard frequent mention of it. After moving to Atlanta in 1975 I heard stories from retired fighter pilots. In the 1980s I worked for a company that made and installed equipment in airports, there I heard stories from pilots, tug rats, and apron traffic controllers. Also in the early 1980s I had a few FAA tower flight controllers tell me stories ... like something passing by a known SR-71 like it was standing still. They all told me that they would lose their jobs in they reported it.
Yeah, I was basically speaking about the general public hearing this...
I’m not at all surprised...I believe there is probably much higher intelligence than ours out there, but I think the biggest reason it is being discussed publicly so much now is for distraction...
Here’s another way I look at this...
If these life forms are intelligent enough to get here from as far away as outside our solar system, then they are probably intelligent enough to remain hidden from us unless they want to be seen or are seen because of a mistake they made...