All this reminds me rather horribly of all the nutcases who were trotted out and treated honourably for once by the media when the wreck of the Titanic was (re)discovered. The absurd theories about how it was going to be refloated abounded but no matter how laughable they were all taken seriously by mainstream tv programs & the press.
One of the differences being of course that the Titanic actually was there, just no-one could get to it.............