I was really surprised to discover that many UFO encounters are somehow connected with New-Agey mumbo jumbo spirituality.

I find this kinda interesting because I never read about any contactee who alllegedly contacted secularist aliens who believe that there's no god or afterlife. I know that many contact stories are just made up and abduction accounts can be the results of DMT imbalance in your brain. So why not some atheist/godless alien encounters?

The vast majority of UFO sightings are totally secular. It is the witnesses themselves, that often choose to see it as something different.

Agreed.

You need to seperate alien and UFO encounters from the really wacko Rael/alien channellers/Von Daniken new age crowd. I'm sure plenty of rationalists have seen things or experienced something like alien abduction but they're not going to run out and buy a UFO nut book on it, they'll probably go buy one on recognizing heavenly bodies or sleep paralysis.