I’ve never been one to say “UFOs are a joke” except the ones that are jokes or hoaxes. UFOs are Undentifed Flying Objects, of course.
And, of course no one would say “of course they’re real!” if only because so many have been identified, some as fakes, some as weather balloons or whatever.
And it’s not really possible to exclude the possibility that some of them have been, I think the phrase you mean might be more like “OMG space aliens!”
Given the number of stars and planets in the galaxy, and the number of galaxies in the universe, and the amount of time that we think has passed in this universe, and that we’re here flying things and so on, I am sure there are also intelligent creatures somewhere in the universe that are flying things around too. So in that sense, yes there are flying space aliens.
But whether they’ve ever been flying things around here… I don’t know. I don’t know how they’d get here, given the distances, but that might just mean I don’t know how.
But, there are also enough reports from serious professional and military people (e.g. pilots) with nothing to gain, who reported in detail things that seem like they might be some high-tech aliens, and that I don’t know of better explanations other than there was a conspiracy or something.