General population: I do agree with you. They'd be looking at the next shiney new celebrity scandal or whatever.

I'm not sure I even believe that. I mean look how much generative AI is dominating the conversation, despite being garbage. I think aliens would have a similar ability to dominate conversation, even for the general public.

Shit I'm just a regular dude but I'd be absolutely enthralled with the notion of aliens.

Absolutely, but the general populace has so much information thrown at them all day, every day, I really do think most people would just move on from it, because our brains just can't handle everything all at once. Unless there's some specific reason to think about it, we'd move on to the things that impact us more directly.

It reminds me of that thing they do on Jimmy Kimmel, where they ask people about fake news stories, and the people invent answers. It's funny and all, but they do that because it's considered embarrassing not to know about the whatever the fuck insane thing the news just threw at us, while also there being so much of it that it's impossible to remember everything. Plus, we're super suggestable creatures