Consequences

Social science can be empirical and produce results that are both highly correlated and valid.

Pilots that are cleared to carry, and potentially deploy, sophisticated weapons payloads are considered to be among the most rational, capable and intellectually stable people. Eyewitness testimony from these pilots must be carefully considered.
Further, significant amounts of descriptions of unidentified aerial phenomena from other credible people should not be dismissed. Consider that the stigma around the subject of “UFO’s” is so potentially damaging to these witnesses, yet they still make their claim despite this intense social pressure. Certainly this combination of the sheer amount of credible witnesses despite the socially discouraging stigma indicates that a significant amount of people truly “believe ” that they have seen something that is not easily explained.

Just because a claim seems fanciful does not mean that it is not worthy of investigation.

The first radio broadcast in America occurred in 1906. So, if those early radio waves were powerful enough to escape into the vacuum of space, then those original radio broadcasts would have reached galaxies of ~100 light years away. Could there be intelligent life somewhere between Earth and 100 light years away?