For that matter, what privileges "other countries' aerospace R&D assets being used in an intelligence-gathering capacity" (when those R&D assets at the very least bend what is possible in aviation) or "aliens" or "von neumann probes" or whatever over "inexplicable information is being released in a targeted fashion by some party intent on distracting the public from ongoing news events?"

Usually the null hypothesis (“the reports are made up”) is denied by the fact that these events can be—and are—just as often observed by neutral (but not naive amateur) observers. Often these events are reported by private pilots who were flying in the airspace, or air traffic controllers in civilian airports who see the thing on their radar, or meteorologists examining satellite imagery.

There are also reports that come from government-affiliated persons, but where those affiliations are very distant. Unless you believe that the US government somehow manages to get their shit together way better for UFO propaganda than they do for, say, evidence-sharing in criminal investigations, then I personally find it implausible that entities as distant from one-another as the US Navy, the National Weather Service, and NASA, would all be speaking from the same side of their faces.

(And also, re “distraction”—who exactly does a UFO report distract? There’s never been one that’s made front-page news AFAIK. Local news of a UFO sighting [without any local UFO crackpots to get inured to] might work to distract a very small town from a psy-op going on in the area, but even a moderately large city wouldn’t even notice the news. You’d do much better covering up a psy-op with, say, an amber alert. That usually becomes 24-hour local news coverage!)

Fair enough, this stuff is weird and there are no good explanations available. Until something happens that truly forces me to update my informal priors, though, I still think your middle paragraph is more likely than "a country has access to physics-bending technology" or "aliens."

Not really a distinction. Both would be considered UFOs.

The parent comment said “ET”, which is what I was rebutting.