If somone is coming out and saying "that's a load of shit" from the getgo, especially on a new topic, I'd be questioning if they are a skeptic.
This is an excellent point. I've been an avid UFO enthusiast my whole life, and one of the things which made it easier for me to dismiss skeptics and skepticism was seeing people who fancied themselves to be skeptics making smug proclamations about cases they didn't understand, or in many cases, "debunking" what they imagined a claim to be, instead of the actual claim.
I think a good example would be the TV news show that interviews a bunch of people describing a close encounter with something that looks like a manufactured object and behaves like an aircraft, and then they go to some skeptical astronomer for an alternate take on the matter, and he says the witnesses were all looking at Venus.
This seems quite lazy to me, because it's hard to imagine circumstances that would enable Venus to look and act like an unknown flying machine.
It wasn't until I began to encounter and listen to skeptics who weren't so lazy, and who took the time to understand the claims being made, and who were able to bite their tongues and be a little bit patient with me, that the world of skepticism began to intrigue me and draw me in.
