Until you encounter a vehicle that is clearly way outside the realm of common human experience, you have no reason to label such things as 'real' in the same way that you label other daily phenomena. I am sure there are real plans to fake 'ufos' for a variety of reasons, yes - however, as far as I am aware what I experienced was not faked by humans... though, I remain open to that possibility.
If it was faked then at the very least it involved numerous technologies that are way beyond what we see in the public domain.
The second lightship I enountered was thankfully well documented by a team in Mexico where it was also seen.. This documentary includes images of it that were analysed by NASA and found to be real