@SirBailey: actually, modern day UFOlogists in the Magonia camp (named after a long-running UFO journal, in turn named after a book) have proposed the Need Hypothesis saying that (to oversimplify) contact with angels, UFO’s, etc. comes out of a deep need to have contact with a higher authority. back in the ‘60’s UFOlogists did not speculate that the public would panic. they did suspect (rightly) that the governments of the world knew more about and had more information on UFO’s then they let on to the public.
UFOlogists pointed out the existence of Area 51, subsequently proven to exist. they also noticed the traingular black wing aircraft in the ‘90’s, which the u.s. government later unveiled to the public as existing. (I saw one in the late ‘90’s while out in the desert. at night, though, so it looked like a big invisible silent thing, visible only as the wing lights. eerie.)
the exopolitics crowd do say what you said in the third paragraph.
lastly, not everyone who believes in UFO’s buys the extraterrestrial hypothesis (or ETH).