The windshield pitting epidemic was a case of collective delusion, where heightened awareness, media influence, and misattributed environmental factors led people to notice and misinterpret existing, ordinary damage as a mysterious phenomenon.
A delusion would imply that people were claiming their windshields were pitted and they weren't... but I'm sure they were.
Similarily, these days people hear about drones in the sky. They look up, see lights, and think the lights they see are drones. Their interpretation of the lights is coloured by media reports. Even if the lights were there last year! And some lights may absolutely be of drones too! Much like pitting was a real occurrence.
The pitting story reminds us that just because there are more reports, doesn't mean there is more of the thing. Because people's perception is selective. And that can lead into delusion.