[somekyle2]

If they brought in some trustworthy skeptical folks with some tools and enough background to know what compelling nothing looks like, and they came out saying, "Oh man. oh wow. I'm trying to come up with another explanation, but it really seems like they have it." I'd start taking it seriously. "Guy who seems trustworthy said it's real and he saw the proof" is so very normal, for aliens, ghosts, various religious phenomena. "Someone was convinced" isn't compelling to me. "The specific trustworthy non-believers who were given access to the evidence were convinced" would shake me. That moves it from "might be a delusion or hoax" to "if it's a hoax/fraud, it's a very good one".

Although, "specific physical / recorded evidence made publicly available for study" would be even better if the evidence is strong. Once you're at "if it's a hoax/fraud, the perpetrator has advanced science we don't" it's a world-changing thing; maybe it's not an alien, but whatever it is it's amazing.

[teawrecks]

Nothing remotely close to that will ever happen, because the people who care about this don't care. In the same way that you want extraordinary evidence to back up these extraordinary claims, they are prepared to disregard any and all evidence to the contrary in order to continue believing all of those same claims.

If you haven't, I recommend watching the YT minidoc "In Search of a Flat Earth" by Folding Ideas. It's not about the aliens, it's not about the earth being flat, it's about the conspiracy and who is behind it. If you dig deep enough, it's always rooted in some racist or antisemitic world view.

[boringuser2]

Really great post, really terrible conclusion.