There is a pretty big misunderstanding in your third point, and the article kind of laid the trap for an uncautious reader to fall into it: room-temperature sup

There is a pretty big misunderstanding in your third point, and the article kind of laid the trap for an uncautious reader to fall into it: room-temperature superconductors, as an idea, are not a new or unusual concept. The breakthroughs from CFS (the MIT fusion spinoff) are in specific production techniques and uses of known superconductor materials that are "high temperature", but not "room temperature". They are (excitingly) industrializing some well-established science. The other 'recent breakthroughs' in room-temperature superconductors are similar to many accomplishments in the past, i.e., they were achieved under extremely high pressures, and do not operate on anything related to the concepts that Pais describes in his navy patents. The Pais patents and these other works are not related; these new 'breakthroughs' do not grant Pais' work any bonus of credulity -- but lots of reporting out there relies on only briefly noting that fact, and hoping that readers may glaze over it and see connections where there are none. edit: furthermore, the relationship between the patents and the videos as a concerted campaign has also been left for readers to make -- it's part of what makes this into some 'overall narrative', and what makes reading about these bits fun, but as I suggested in another comment, this background detail from the article on the patent process, I feel, begins to suggest concretely that the timing of all this UFO-ish stuff is (unfortunately!) just coincidence.