I have traveled a very similar course, when I was young there was a huge number of paper back books that claimed all sorts of nonsense. I read them ravenously.
UFOs have not lost their wonder for me completely but I approach is much more cautiously than i did. I know the US Airforce has operated a disinformation campaign almost from the very first but it's difficult to tell if the disinformation was for national security or a cover up of something alien.
The sighting I posted has some interesting aspects but it also raises some questions, The first one that comes to mind is do baptist ministers give last rites? Twice told tales and death bed confessions are both interesting and suggestive but they are not proof of anything. I'd like to see the original picture of the dead alien but that seems unlikely.
To me part of the interest lies in figuring out what really happened, I have recently come to understand one of my favorite "unexplained" sightings, the Socorro sighting was a hoax, a kite of all things, specifically targeted toward the man who reported the sighting. In many ways I was relieved to find this out, besides being glad i wasn't wrong any more it shines a new light on other sightings and their veracity..