RE the Tic Tac incidents. I've seen/heard it quoted that the object descended either 80k or 50k feet in a second. Either way, we not only don't have propulsion that can accelerate and decelerate something of that size that quickly, we don't have materials we can make structures out of that could withstand the forces of being accelerated at those rates. Furthermore, an object of that size moving through the atmosphere at the necessary speeds would be very dramatic. Let's just say it would get warm. Really warm. And loud. Presumably, the aliens make their shit out of the same periodic table we do, so to me, this implies that if the reports of the movement are close to reality, this is not a physical, mechanical object.
I'd find it much easier to believe that the observations are a result of some sort of constructed/transmitted decoy signal. I don't know what that technology would look like, but I find its existence far more plausible.