Spend five minutes in the UAP community, and you’ll notice something strange. No, not saucers or shimmering lights over cornfields. I mean the endless tug-of-war between two forces that are slowly strangling the credibility out of the conversation: artificial intelligence and confirmation bias.
One pumps out fakes faster than you can say “Roswell.” The other convinces people that every blurry dot in the sky is proof of extraterrestrial visitation. And together, they’ve become the Bonnie and Clyde of bad ufology—wrecking the field while the rest of us just want to know what’s actually going on up there.
Table of Contents
Desert Orbs and the Need to Believe
Picture this: three glowing orbs floating above the desert. They hang in place like streetlights, perfectly spaced, before sliding into a tidy triangle. The kind of thing that makes you pause mid-scroll and whisper, Okay, that’s weird.
Now here’s where things go off the rails. Instead of stopping to consider possibilities—experimental aircraft, camera trickery, or yes, maybe something truly unknown—many leap straight to the conclusion: “Reverse-engineered alien craft, proven at last!”
That’s confirmation bias in action. The need to see what we want to see. It’s satisfying in the moment, but it’s also poison. Because once everything is treated as evidence, nothing is.
Objects That Swim Through Air and Sea
Then there’s that thermal video from Puerto Rico—one of the more compelling pieces of UAP footage out there. An object darts across the frame, plunges into the ocean without slowing down, and reemerges as if water is no obstacle at all. Then, as if physics weren’t insulted enough, it splits into two and vanishes.
In a sane world, this would spark a rigorous debate: what technology could do this? Could it be misinterpreted radar data? A drone swarm? Or is this one of those rare cases where “we don’t know” really means we don’t know?
Instead, too often it’s taken as slam-dunk evidence of extraterrestrial craft, full stop. No questions asked. Confirmation bias again. It’s comforting to believe we’re staring at disclosure in real time, but it also turns a genuinely fascinating anomaly into just another “proof” tossed on the ever-growing pile.
A Giant Saucer That Never Was
And then there’s the AI problem. Remember that “leaked Russian UFO footage from the 1970s” that went viral? Helicopters circling a massive saucer, grainy footage that felt like Cold War gold? People debated it like it was the Zapruder film of ufology.
Except it wasn’t. It was AI-generated content from a TikTok creator experimenting with prompts. Convincing enough to trick thousands, but fake from start to finish.
This is what AI brings to the table: a nonstop buffet of realistic-looking hoaxes. And for skeptics, that’s all the excuse they need to dismiss everything. Why engage with thermal footage or military sightings when it’s easier to say, “It’s probably just AI”?
The V-Shaped Craft Over Los Angeles
Even recent sightings aren’t immune. Late this summer, witnesses reported a massive V-shaped craft gliding over Los Angeles, its lights flickering like it was pulsing with energy. The description matched reports going back decades—Phoenix Lights, Hudson Valley, take your pick.
But without multiple angles, radar corroboration, or independent witnesses, it’s just another clip in the endless carousel. Some see it and think, “Finally, undeniable proof.” Others shrug and assume it’s drones. Once again, confirmation bias on one side, dismissiveness on the other, and no one actually moves the needle.
AI vs. Bias: Who Wears the Bigger Villain Cape?
So, which is worse? Let’s stack them up.
AI floods the landscape with noise. It makes deception easy, cheap, and scalable. Every real sighting now competes with an army of synthetic lookalikes.
Confirmation bias, meanwhile, is a self-inflicted wound. It takes potentially interesting evidence and smothers it in premature certainty. It’s why every shaky light becomes “proof,” and why skeptics have no trouble rolling their eyes at the entire field.
One destroys credibility from the outside. The other rots it from the inside. Together, they’re a perfect storm of nonsense.
Our Take
Honestly? Asking which is worse misses the point. They both are.
AI sucks. Confirmation bias sucks. And they can suck together at the same time.
If we ever want serious progress in the UAP discussion, the community has to get better at filtering both. Question the footage. Demand corroboration. And for the love of all things interstellar, stop declaring every triangle of lights in the sky to be proof of an alien Uber service.
Until then, we’ll keep drowning in deepfakes and hot takes—while the truth, whatever it is, slips further out of reach.