You make good points, and I've been thinking about this. But using aliens as a pretense to expand power doesn't make sense to me because the US government already does whatever it wants. It will lie, cheat, steal, and hide all the illegal, immoral, and corrupt activity all around the world and has for almost a century now. We have so many off the books black programs that are buried so deep that we will always have plausible deniability. I think most that live in the US recognize the power our government wields at will. There is no denying that. And it's understandable why many countries around the world don't like us for that very reason. To me if anything, they would want to avoid a widespread panic and all the social, and ideological ramifications of admitting to aliens existing.
For people that study science or have an idea of how large the universe is, there is zero question whether or not alien life exists. Just pull up the Hubble Deep Field photos and understand that every galaxy there has billions of stars, and that represents the size of a dime in the night sky if you were to hold it out with your arm extended. Most cannot even fathom how large the known universe is. The question isn't whether alien civilizations exist, its have they come to earth and if so why? That's the focus. And the government cannot answer that. If we don't understand the technology we're seeing or why they're here, why would the government admit to their existence? That is what is so surprising about this entire situation. The US government after 70 years of denying their existence and calling it taboo, is admitting to having programs for years that have been studying these UAPs and are admitting we still have no clue what they are.
The navy pilots and sailors that have leaked these videos aren't intelligence officers. They dont work for the pentagon or at Langley. They are out in the field and understand this aerial technology better than most. The key incident to me is the tic-tac signing off the coast of San Diego by David Fravor, his co-pilot, as well as the 2nd plane and the two pilots in it. That is 4 people, 4 sets of eyes that all saw the same thing and talked about how it accelerated and disappeared from plain sight. Very ironic how this craft was also hovering just above the surface of the ocean when our two planes came up on it. The FLIR video from this encounter does not show any drastic movement you're right, but what motivation would decorated USAF officers have for lying about this? This isn't some person in New Mexico with foil on their head, or some random person in an internet forum claiming they saw a UFO. This is as legit a source can get IMO, from people who understand flight better than 99% of anyone on earth.
I get the skepticism and its the right move to question things and not believe everything you hear. But when I saw the new Navy vid this week that was declassified and released, and it showed the lateral movements it was making followed by it submerging into the ocean - that was extremely valuable video evidence IMO. You can see the motion its making. If you really, really look at it, and study how its moving. Watch it in slow motion multiple times, watch the micro-accelerations and decelerations, how it rapidly speeds up and stops on a dime. That is not normal. Planes and drones don't move like that. And you can clearly see the ocean swells in the bottom of the frame. So this is a thermal image from a Naval ship on the ocean, if it dropped down to the surface of the water where did it go? To me this is the best video evidence I've seen yet. Is it definitive? No it's not but very very compelling.