Let me paraphrase myself ... what I am trying to say is ... I wasn't prepared for an alien slant in the film ... just imagine if you go and watch "American Beauty" or "Million Dollar Baby" or "The Sea Inside" or "Les Choristes" and suddenly, you see aliens emerging in 1 or 2 segments for whatever plot or reason ... this was how I felt when I watched Mysterious Skin ... a bit weird

Anyway, fact or fiction has always been controversial ... that is what makes life so interesting ... it is like watching Chinese martial arts film ... some Westerners will simply dismiss it as fantasy and impossible (many do classify it under the genre FANTASY ... e.g., the notion of "inner strength" or "qi", or the notion of "flying" in the air, or the notion of "darting" on water (like the dragonfly), etc ... yet many Chinese do believe in them ... 

Let me cite an example, in Crouching Tiger and Hidden Dragon, when the characters started "running up the wall", many audience laugh ... yet in Tom Yum Goong, the Thai (Tony Jaa) managed to "run up the glass wall" without wires or CGI ... 

By the way, I am not against an alien take ... see what I wrote above again ... (I repaste them now in color)

In other words, this is what I feel/suggest: if we look at movies in the drama or sci-fi genre, there are many that are filmed that touches the audience (as opposed to them "disbelieving" or even "ridiculing" the protagonist). 

I do NOT mind the director keeping the "alien belief" of the protagonist, but the obsession can be dealt with in a way most successful films did it (i.e., for a moment, we actually "believe" in the existence of aliens!) ... so that the entire movie can maintain a consistent style as well as a consistent mood ... 

In essence, I was just trying to say if it has depicted aliens succesfully like the way E.T. did, I would have preferred it.