Passenger jet–UFO in near miss.

No reason at all to disbelieve this story. The pilot saw something moving at high speed directly toward his A320. It appeared to be a cigar shaped metallic object. Not likely to be a drone or, at an altitude of 34,000 feet, a balloon. This was yet another UFO near miss, and given how slowly the report filtered out to the public, and how wary pilots are of making such reports at all, you have to wonder how many just go unreported, and if any have resulted in crashes.