We conducted four surveys among researchers regarding the likely existence of basic, complex, and intelligent extraterrestrial life. Our results offer a snapshot of community opinion and reveal a significant degree of consensus that extraterrestrial life is likely to exist. This is a paper at Nature Astronomy. It’s firewalled, but we provide a link for those who have access to nature.com.
This poll on U.S. political matters includes a single question on the UAP topic.: Do you believe government hides UFO information. The image links to the News Nation article, the link to polling data goes to Decision Desk Data.
Results:
44% believe government hides UFO information; 28% disagree
This 2022 YouGov poll finds that skepticism regarding the existence of aliens had declined since the 1990s, when — according to a 1996 poll by Newsweek — only 20% of Americans believed that Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) were more likely to be proof of alien life than to have a natural scientific explanation (32%). Today, 34% of Americans believe UFOs are likely alien ships or life forms, while only 32% say they’re likely to have a scientific explanation.
Have we established the first contact yet? 37% of Americans believe U.S. scientists or officials have made contact with aliens already, and 43% believe we are on the brink of breaking through to our extraterrestrial neighbors. There’s a lot of faith in how the government is handling our potential overlords, too, as 3 in 5 Americans say the government is taking UFOs and aliens just seriously enough.
