You can't bring in a guy who claims he has credentials and just accept he has the credentials he says. And even if he does have those credentials, that doesn't mean he's not lying. And even if he's sincere, that doesn't mean he's not mistaken. Even if he's right, there is no way for you to tell he is. Why is this so difficult to comprehend?

When someone makes an outrageous claim, the only way we can tell if it is legitimate is if he tells us how we can reproduce his observation. Testimony alone is not enough, witnesses can be mistaken and they can lie. Science is not the law: you are guilty until proven innocent.

If I see something that goes against the accepted orthodoxy, it is up to me to prove the validity of the observation. My critics do not have to prove I'm wrong. If I claim to see something very strange that no one is likely to accept, it is up to me to tell everyone else exactly what they have to do to see it too. It doesn't matter what my credentials or qualifications are, or how many witnesses I have (unless they can be cross-examined, etc), it simply doesn't matter. I have to be able to say "go to this place at this time and this is what you'll see". If you don't have that you have nothing.

And if I go out tonight and see what is clearly an alien spacecraft, no one is under any obligation to believe me, no matter how qualified an observer I am, or how many witnesses accompanied me, or how many photographs I take. Now if I tell you "go to this place at such-and-such a latitude and longitude and look for yourself to verify my claim", then I might be worth taken seriously.

And when all these breathless anomalists keep on harping on the same type of x-files phenomena, over and over again, and using the same cover story (CIA coverups, etc) to deflect criticism, and pass themselves off as "serious researchers" who only seem to appear in their own books, can you really blame those people who actually tear their guts out trying to prove things by the book for rolling their eyes and laughing in your face?

I'm sure a lot of strange things happen that are observed by lonely witnesses that just happen to be true. But that's not my point. What I'm saying is that I have no way of knowing that they're true.