The small balls of light, orbs, foo fighters, etc. seem to offer the possibility of life forms or drones. But so many reports over decades are also very indicative of artifcial craft with lights, beams, structural design, landing gear, hatches etc.. These suggest occupants, have occupants witnessed near them, or are drones. Either way they leave evidence and are definitely technological objects reported by witnesses.
However, if all you have is first hand witness testimony then all you have is a story requiring confirmation. This is not consensus reality, as the number of witnesses amount to a small part of the population, with similar frameworks but wildly different details. So I don't discount these anomalous reports, but they really can only be used to help fill in some of the shadowy voids that make up the UFO phenomenon.
The stories and details of witness reports are so weirdly diverse that they suggest either a vast collection of visitors coming to get those galactically popular "I visited earth and all I got was this lousy t-shirt" trinket, or our reports are somehow skewed, perhaps not factually accurate. In these cases there are no straight lines to draw, just smudges of guesses.
This difference between stories and consensus reality remains significant if the implications we draw and theorise about the phenomenon are to have any valuable bedrock for future knowledge acquisition. Accepting all stories, which can amount to fringe perspectives, is what has slowed progress in understanding the phenomenon and getting mainstream society to value exploring it as far as I can tell.
Drawing acceptable lines of demarcation always assists in legitimizing consensus reality.
