My cousin (with whom I am very close) had a similar experience that I posted about years ago. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32969092

I have repeated it many times on this site but here’s the reality of human experience: if the rate of fraudulent labs is even as high as 10% you should expect that any viewpoint that it’s widespread would be drowned out by views that it’s not real.

Also, the phenomenon you observed where people are champions till the rubber meets the road is more common than one thinks.