My mom used to keep an old photo she took back in '65 or '67 (she said she was a little girl at the time but took the picture so I assume around 10-ish). It was a photo of my grandmothers back yard and clear as day there was a classic disc shaped craft.

The story she told about it was that it came in over Tampa bay and got really close to the water, she said the water was churning under it like it was boiling and there were tons of dead fish floating on the water after it passed. My grandfather was an arial photographer at the time and had a darkroom at home and they had copies drying when the government showed up to talk to residents. They confiscated all the negatives and pictures save the one she had with her to show her friend, and gave the explanation that swamp gas had killed the fish and was the reason for the churning water.

I don't know how I feel about it, but having lost my mother 25+ years ago and the look in her eyes when she talked about it, I'll keep on believing it was real.

That shit is wild. I once saw a moving light in the night sky, which I assumed was an airplane, make an abrupt right angle turn and speed off. Not very dramatic, but it certainly qualifies as UAP.

And if they had that amount of intelligence, why the fuck would they come near us

However, the odds of them being able to build a spaceship that can travel faster than light, are in line with ghosts and bigfoot existing.

And how the hell does that make sense if they've had a billion year head start?

Eh I don't think that is true. Our current understanding of physics is such that it is impossible to move faster than light, but there are a lot of holes in our understanding of the universe.

Even so, with 1 gravity of acceleration a pilot can visit the stars in a human lifetime.