Legitimacy? Attained or a Pipe Dream?

Greetings. The UFO topic has struggled mightily to attain a level of legitimacy in the eyes of the general public, not to mention the scientific community. Has any progress been made to alleviate the situation?

Back in the 1950's, 1960's, and 1970's the so-called contactees were quite popular. Their tales of being invited onboard flying saucers, traveling to Mars, Venus, and other planets, and meeting well-endowed blonde-haired females made for good fodder. Their place was secure in the spotlight, but they never provided any evidence to support their laughable and admittedly embarrassing claims. For a while, George Adamski and his peers held a place in the UFO subculture, but as time moved forward, their collective fame began to wane, or did it? 

Nowadays we have Demi Lovato and Tom DeLonge to carry the flag of nonsensical content, among others too numerous to name in a single blog posting. They are alive and well. Their voices have not been silenced, in fact, they have gained some standing in the UFO subculture. With so much of the UFO subculture's foundation firmly "grounded" in the entertainment industry, people like Ms. Lovato and Mr. DeLonge have made substantial headway gaining an level of fame and notoriety along with quite a bit of undeserved credibility. With the backing of producers eager to provide content to a public desiring anything and everything UFO related, the ease with which the public can be misled or misinformed is truly disconcerting. 

In decades past, the contactees' ability to influence the public and the UFO subculture was limited to a certain extent, but with the advent of the Internet and social media, the situation has completely changed, and not in a positive way. When George Adamski, Daniel Fry, Truman Bethurum, Orfeo Angelucci, and others were in the limelight, they were only able to reach a certain percentage of the general population, usually people who attended one of their events, or saw one of them interviewed on network television. Today, with so many platforms providing content for public consumption, the potential avenues of influence and for the spreading of nonsensical, misleading excrement is too troubling to consider, but it should be.

The situation has not improved since the days of the contactees, in fact, it has become substantially worse. For every Jack Brewer, there is a Christina Gomez. For every David Marler, there is a Tom DeLonge. For every John Greenewald, there is a Linda Moulton Howe. For every Kevin Randle, there is a Steven Greer. Do you sense a pattern? Its a troubling pattern to say the least. The UFO subculture is never going to make any headway towards answers to the UFO problem, not because of any societal shortcomings, but because we keep embracing nonsensical crap, as if its gold. Such crap is fool's gold.

Thank you for your time and consideration.