But the reason I first journeyed from UFO believer to UFO skeptic is different (I only later appreciated with representativeness heuristic and the role of statistics and other factors). In my younger days I wanted to see solid evidence of aliens, and scoured the available literature and evidence looking for the best. I was perpetually disappointed. Belief simply became unsustainable in the face of endless crappy and disappointing evidence. Anything juicy was eventually revealed to be a hoax, or clearly identified as a known terrestrial phenomenon. Eventually my doubt was crystalized by something Carl Sagan said in a Cosmos episode – that even after decades of searching, there isn’t one piece of unambiguous evidence.

Looking back, and after years of skeptically analyzing countless paranormal and fringe claims, I see a definite telling pattern to such evidence. Alleged evidence of such things is also in that perfect gray zone, enough to be tantalizing but never enough to positively identify what is being viewed. Why are all the UAP videos blurry and indistinct? Because the ones that are in focus are identified – and they are mundane, or at least not alien. In other words, they are unidentified not because they are alien, but because they are blurry. Blurry evidence may be enough to spark interest, and even sustain it for a while, but eventually you get tired of it. Eventually you realize that Sasquatch is Blobsquatch – the phenomenon is the blurry photos, not what is allegedly in the photos.