Given this year’s UFO flap (see the “UFOs Hit the News” special section in our September/October 2021 issue), it is hardly surprising that the latest Gallup Poll shows belief that UFOs involve alien spacecraft from other planets is up markedly from 2019. Nevertheless, half of Americans remain skeptical.
News media throughout the spring and early summer reported a stream of stories promoted by UFO enthusiasts about Navy videos supposedly indicating unusual phenomena. Even though there are many possible natural explanations for the images (as described by CSI Fellow Mick West), their efforts managed to get the Pentagon to issue a report in June. All this generated still more media interest.
The eventual nine-page report, “Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena,” issued June 25 by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, said the various incidents likely fall into five categories: “airborne clutter, natural atmospheric phenomena, U.S. government or U.S. industry development programs, foreign adversary systems, and a catchall ‘other’ bin.” It made no mention of aliens, extraterrestrials, or even “UFOs” (preferring the term UAP).
But it is clear a certain segment of the American population prefers to jump to the conclusion that something temporarily unidentified in the sky—even when the image quality is poor or out of focus—is evidence of aliens.
The new Gallup Poll, based on a telephone poll of 1,007 adults conducted July 6–21 and issued August 20, asked this question: “Which comes closer to your view—some UFOs have been alien spacecraft visiting earth from other planets or galaxies, (or) all UFO sightings can be explained by human activity on Earth or natural phenomenon [sic]?”
In 2019, a similar Gallup Poll found that 33 percent answered that some have been alien spacecraft; in the 2021 poll, that number increased to 41 percent. Those who answered that all could be explained by human activity and natural phenomena dropped from 60 percent to 50 percent. Perhaps it is still comforting that, as Gallup therefore notes, “Half of Americans continue to presume there is an Earth-based explanation for all such sightings.”
The poll notes that the new survey comes shortly after a “period when UFOs have received significant coverage in mainstream news publication.” The same was true in August 2019, just after the first U.S. Navy videos were leaked. Skeptics have noted that much of that coverage, then and now, has been uncritical and credulous.
A few other points Gallup offered:
Belief that the answer is aliens rose among college graduates (37 percent in the new poll, 27 percent in 2019), men (44 percent now, 34 percent in 2019), and middle-age adults (45 percent vs. 32 percent in 2019). Adults fifty-five years and older are more likely than younger adults to be skeptical. Women’s belief rose only from 34 percent to 38 percent. There were no significant differences from the national average in the views of white and non-white adults as well as Republicans and Democrats.