The court of public opinion is a really shitty court to apply to potentially criminal damage that occurred well outside the area of interest and knowledge for 99.99% of said public. The standards are shit, the outcomes are shit (bad idea when the ramifications are huge).

It clearly worked very poorly in the case of the recent "Russian drone interference" panic, many of which turned out to not even be drones, never mind Russian ones. https://www.dronewatch.eu/61-european-drone-sightings-analys...

Or the "UFOs" over Pennsylvania.