Americans are broadly skeptical about each of eight paranormal phenomena tested in a recent Gallup poll. Nearly half of U.S. adults, 48%, believe in psychic or spiritual healing. Slightly fewer, 39%, express a belief in ghosts, while between 24% and 29% say they believe in six other supernatural phenomena, including telepathy, communication with the dead, clairvoyance, astrology, reincarnation and witches.
New YouGov polling finds that most Americans believe aliens exist, and many think that aliens have paid a visit to Earth in recent years. Americans are more likely to believe alien encounters would have a negative effect on human civilization than to think it would have a positive effect, and many believe that aliens would bring new diseases and unintentional harm or outright hostility to people if we were to encounter them.
one in ten Americans report that they have seen an unidentified flying object (UFO), unchanged over time. Four times as many Americans (42%) believe in UFOs. When it comes to other unexplainable phenomena, about three in ten (28%) report that, at some point, they have woken up from sleep with a sense of a strange presence in the room, and one in four (25%) have seen or believed themselves to have been in the presence of a ghost. Beyond that experience, two in five (39%) believe in ghosts.
Close to half of all Americans think that the U.S. government is hiding information about the existence of unidentified flying objects, an exclusive NewsNation/Decision Desk HQ poll found.