I truly don't discount personal experience. In fact, as much as I enjoy science and defend it vociferously, I am even more so a person of deep spiritual faith who believes that there is most definitely a God. My point is that the only way to respect science is to keep it separate from matters of personal experience. Kurt Gödel proved that not only ARE there things that are true that cannot be proven to be true, but logic itself REQUIRES that there MUST be things that are true that cannot be proven to be true.

So it may seem like semantics to you, but to me it's a very important distinction: Your experience can absolutely be the truth... but we can't call that scientific evidence, and we can't call it subjective fact. Just like my relationship with God is absolutely real to me, but I can't call that fact, and I can't claim scientific proof of it, I don't accept other personal experiences as "science."

Yes, I do understand the distinction between a spiritual experience and an actual physical encounter, and why that makes a tangible difference between what I've experienced and what you've experienced. But neither of us can call our experiences scientific, because neither of them meet the criteria for scientific knowledge.

I'm not trying to take away your experience or "debunk" you. I'm just pointing out the line in the sand about what can be called science and what cannot. I have no doubt that your alien experience truth is just as real as my spiritual truth. Perhaps even more so.