True Believers, Whistleblowers, Skeptics and Conmen

True Believers, Whistleblowers, Skeptics, and Conmen.

By Steve Douglass 

If you hang around UFO / UAP conversations long enough, you realize it’s not one debate. It’s a bunch of completely different personality types trapped in the same group chat, all convinced they’re the sane one.

You’ve got the whistleblowers first. These are usually serious-looking former military or intelligence people who testify under oath and say things like “non-human biologics” without blinking. They clearly believe something wild is being hidden, and honestly, they look like they’ve aged ten years just from knowing about it. The problem is they can never actually show anything. Everything is classified, compartmentalized, or “I can’t discuss that in an open setting.” So you’re left thinking either this is the biggest secret in human history… or the most stressful trust-me-bro situation ever created.

Then there are the true believers, who are already way past the question of whether UFOs are real. To them it’s settled science. Aliens, interdimensionals, time travelers, consciousness entities — maybe all of the above. They’re not waiting for disclosure; they think it already happened and everyone else just missed the memo. Every blurry video fits perfectly into a massive cosmic pattern, and any doubt is either fear, denial, or government brainwashing. Their confidence is honestly impressive, even when it’s completely unearned.

On the opposite end you’ve got the skeptics, who show up like the human embodiment of an eye roll. They’re here to tell you that the mysterious glowing orb is actually a balloon, a drone, Venus, a camera artifact, or your brain doing what brains famously do: lying. They’re very good at this, and to be fair, they’re right a lot. The downside is that some of them seem personally offended by the idea that anything might remain unexplained for more than five minutes. Mystery makes them itchy.

Somewhere in the middle are the researchers, who are just trying to survive. These are the people digging through radar data, filing FOIA requests, and repeatedly explaining that “unknown” doesn’t automatically mean “aliens.” They talk slowly, cautiously, and with a visible sense of exhaustion. No one listens to them because they’re not exciting enough for believers and not dismissive enough for skeptics, which is tragic because they’re usually the closest thing to correct.

Hovering over all of this like a fog are the influencers and grifters. These folks are always about to reveal something huge, just not yet. There’s always a source, always a tease, always a reason you need to watch the next episode or buy the next ticket. They don’t necessarily lie; they just stretch ambiguity like it’s an art form. The mystery can never end, because the mystery pays the bills.

And then there are the normal people, who briefly notice a headline, think “huh, that’s weird,” and then immediately go back to their lives. They would love one clear, undeniable piece of evidence, but they are absolutely not watching a three-hour podcast to get it. Emotionally, they are the healthiest people in the room.

The reason the whole thing feels so stuck is that everyone is arguing from a different definition of “proof.” Whistleblowers lean on testimony, believers lean on patterns, skeptics lean on probability, researchers lean on data, and influencers lean on vibes. So every conversation turns into everyone talking past each other while insisting the other side is either naive, dishonest, or terrified of the truth.

The funniest part is that almost everyone agrees on one thing: something strange is going on. They just completely disagree on what that something is, how confident we should be, and whether posting at 3 a.m. counts as serious investigation.

Until someone drops clear, public, unambiguous evidence, the UFO conversation is probably going to stay exactly like this: loud, funny, frustrating, and way more revealing about human psychology than whatever’s actually flying around up there.

The truth may be out there - but you won't find it on the Internet. 

-Steve Douglass