A Third of Earthlings Believe in UFOs, Would Befriend Aliens - USATODAY.com
Aliens often compete with superheroes, vampires and zombies to top hit movie lists — but more than a third of Americans say UFOs are not a fantasy.
That’s the word from a new National Geographic Channel study finding that 80 million Americans are certain UFOs exist and that one in 10 believe they’ve spotted one.
“We wanted the pulse on people’s opinions,” says Brad Dancer, senior vice president of research and digital media for National Geographic. “We wanted to get a sense of how Americans view UFOs, what people believe and how mainstream pop culture may or may not be playing into their opinions on it.”
The results are in: Seventeen percent of Americans don’t believe UFOs exist, 36% think they do, and 48% aren’t sure.
About 79% of those surveyed think the government has kept information about UFOs a secret from the public, and 55% believe there are real-life Men in Black-style agents who threaten people who spot UFOs.
Although 81% of Americans think aliens could possess superpowers like time travel and mind-reading, most expect extraterrestrials to be rather friendly and wouldn’t mind a minor alien invasion.