Unless anyone can produce any real evidence of "manipulation" (which I have yet to see) having any effect on the market, these claims of manipulation must be considered to be fantasy.
People are very susceptible to confirmation bias. They see what they want to believe and tend to ignore evidence to the contrary. Read about
"street light interference" and be amazed.
... Of course, I have no hard proof, but it seems much more likely to me that it is happening rather than that it is not.
No proof --> fantasy.
That is not a good way of thinking. You are acting like this is some sort of legal case where traders are "innocent until proven guilty." The problem is that this is not a legal case. For instance, if a person gets hired at a store and the customer service reviews of the store happen to go down in the weeks following this, it is reasonable to conclude that the new employee is to blame in some part. Sure, there is no hard proof of this, but you cannot consider the possibility a "fantasy". In fact, it would be ignorant to do so. The same goes with traders and market movements.