There are only two possibilities.
In pseudoscience there are always two possibilities: the desired outcome, and a silly, straw-man caricature of everything else.
{1... (the caricature straw-man)
There are a lot of people who are suffering from stress or mental disorder and this is how many manifest it.
Or there are a lot of people leading ordinary human lives accompanied by the customary attendant difficulties and limitations. Pseudoscientist arguments beg the question that life should be free of any such hardship or uncertainty, or of fear and injury, or of outlying but ordinary effects.
There will always be charletons and oppertunist who prey on the weak, not a good argument for either skeptic or believer.
That depends on how the argument is deployed and supported. The fact that emotional and financial predation does occur means we need to eliminate or substantiate it where the facts of the case seem consistent with it. Often the proponent wants little more than attention; it would be harsh to categorize that under predation.
Alleged purity of motive is not by itself grounds to eliminate ulteriority.
{2... (the desired outcome)
Or the fantastic with only ancedotal evidence for support.
Or not only just anecdotal evidence, but also supposition to account for counterindicatory evidence. Such as...
1. They can control our perceptions and memory...
2. They ... play into the abductees belief systems.
3. Prevent physical evicence of presence...
4. Posture and display allowing only ancedotal evidence...
It doesn't take much thought to recognize when someone is wishfully defining the desired speculative phenomenon exactly to excuse why the evidence doesn't point toward it, and even why the desired phenomenon even exhibits properties that malevolently explain otherwise ordinary skepticism.
Every fringe theory I have encountered (and I have encountered very many) has the element that that criticizes the mainstream either for its inappropriate maintenance of hegemony, its concealment of truth, or its inexcusable inaction. Portraying the designated authority as somehow ill-intentioned seems to be the primary goal.
Every fringe theory supposes some manner of omnipotence that enables wholesale manipulation of the evidence to make the actions of the evil agent invisible. "NASA knows about Planet X but pressures the world's astronomers to keep it quiet." "Big Oil spends lots of money to discredit free-energy theories." "The government knows UFOs are alien spaceships, but lets the aliens do their thing because the aliens share technology." And on and on.
All of that spells an exercise to support a predetermined conclusion, not a search for where the evidence points.
Why would confusion and hiding in plain sight suit their purpose?
They are farming us.
Circular. There is no evidence of a "they," hence there is no evidence of "their purpose." Therefore by subversion of support, there is no motive that requires an explanation. That whole line of reasoning simply presupposes the existence of alien abductors.
Exact product and purpose is not clear...
Hence a purpose is established by pure conjecture, guided only by what is necessary to fit the alien-abductor hypothesis to the observations -- whatever those observations might be. There is never any exercise to see whether any such purpose or motive actually exists. Citing as such evidence the good fit with the observation closes the circular logic.
Face the truth folks. If their intent and purpose were really honerable...
Face the truth: there is no evidence that any such entity exists or pursues any such purpose.
Do any of these actions sound like someone with honerable intent?
No evidence of a "someone." The line of reasoning here is a converted conditional: if beings existed and engaged in such behavior, then such behavior from them would be consistent with malevolence. That is not, however, evidence of any actual malevolence because the motive depends on the existence of something to exhibit it.
Abductophiles consider the problem of the factual observations (whether reported quantitatively, categorically, or anecdotally) combined with the preconceived impression that an extrinsic cause (usually a fairly specific one) is responsible. Thus their lines of reasoning address the combination, and are thus predictably conjectural and unparsimonious.
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