The recent UFO phenomena have certainly added some urgency to the issue. But we should distinguish between empirical questions of whether this or that farfetched scenario is plausible or testable, and the philosophical question I mean to focus on here, about the constant temptation to reach for such transcendent scenarios.

The point is that they're generally not testable, just as the ant couldn't hope to understand what it means for a human to help it with a twig. But precisely because these scenarios are beyond our ability to assess, they're unfalsifiable so they can achieve the status of myth or of "conspiracy theories" which operate like religious dogmas.