I believe in UFOs in that I believe that the universe is both large and strange enough that such things could happen, or at least that there are explanations to things that we perceive beyond the explanations currently available.
I have thoughts. UFOs are linked to the conspiracy-minded because UFOs have always been disinformation. More than that, we started seeing UFOs about the time we stopped seeing angels - I optioned a script about this, and the book I was repped for was on the same subject. Extraterrestrial life will not look like cattle mutilations and sensor glitches. It will look like readily observable phenomena with no easy natural explanation. The core problem with UFOs in popular culture is that "they're hiding" for reasons that only make sense to conspiracy theorists.