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Why Do People Believe In UFOs? Why Do People Believe in UFOs? Ray Villard, Discovery News I'm bemused that we are smart enough to land an automobile size payload on another planet, but still live in a culture where a significant percentage of people want to believe in implausible if not impossible things. The reality is that intelligence has nothing to do with believing in "weird things." A recent National Geographic Society poll reported that 36 percent of Americans -- about 80 million people -- believe UFOs exist, only 17 percent do not, and the rest of the people are undecided. The survey did not specifically equate UFOs with flying saucers or little green men, however. (If there are any Martians, the pyrotechnics show of the Mars Science Lab's descent and landing earlier this week has made them all UFO believers overnight.) The percentage of UFO followers agrees biological and astronomical data to support their SETI searches as an unscientific experiment with other surveys taken over the years. A 2001 biblical-based belief in an 8,000 year-old that border on theology. We imagine aliens that Gallup Poll showed that belief in haunted universe. are intellectually made in our image: they are as houses, ghosts, and demonic possession slightly This "confirmation bias" is in real curious as we are, they build lasers or radio exceeded belief in UFOs. science as well. The classic example is the 1903 telescopes like we do, and they are similarly It's pretty unlikely a ghost will make a discovery of "N-rays" a completely new form of motivated to devote time and resources simply grand appearance on CNN, or we'll see an radiation announced by Prosper-René Blondlot. to letting us know that they exist among the exorcism release the devil. But the discovery of At the time, dozens of other scientists stars. This is hypothesis on top of hypothesis. aliens via a SETI signal might conceivably confirmed the existence of N-rays in their own Also, people simply love to believe in happen someday. laboratories. But further tests showed that N- weird things just because it's fun. (As an Fortunately, we'll be prepared because rays don't exist at all. example, simply listen to the audio track of the the NGS survey shows that 77 percent of How could so many scientists be wrong? UFO sighting posted on the YouTube video Americans believe there are signs that aliens They deceived themselves into thinking they shown above.) The staid, rational world have already visited Earth. No doubt this is were seeing something with their instruments described in physics, astronomy or biology 101 anchored in mystical themes that benevolent that in fact was not there. This came on the heels classes is a bore to most undergraduates. aliens came by and helped out early civilization of Wilhelm Rontgen's discovery of X-rays and This is exacerbated by the fact that on huge public works projects, such as the Paul Ulrich Villard’s discovery of gamma rays students traditionally are taught what to think building of the Egyptian pyramids. in the early 1900s. Apparently there was a but not how to think, concludes Richard Walker Only 13 percent of 1,114 respondents predisposition to expecting that other invisible and colleagues in a 2001 survey of 211 college said they would be afraid of aliens harming forms of radiation must permeate the universe. students. One of the true/false questions was, them. Apparently sci-fi films such as Likewise, any two people can see a blob "The government is hiding evidence of alien "Independence Day" and "Signs" haven't made of light in the sky, one thinking it is the planet visitors at Area 51." Walker's conclusion: much of an impact. Nor has astrophysicist Venus and the other person predisposed to science knowledge is not an inoculation against Stephen Hawking's warnings of ray-gun interpreting it as a space vehicle under alien accepting pseudoscientific gobbledygook. wielding aliens. control. Yes, airline pilots, and law enforcement What's more, fun ideas sell. Simply go A public relations challenge for NASA office seen strange things in the heavens too. to you neighborhood bookstore. Pseudoscience and the U.S. military is that 80 percent in the But this is outside of their sphere of expertise -- topics from astrology to parapsychology fill a NGS survey feel that the government is hiding especially when it comes to astronomical lot more shelves than hard-core science books. information about UFOs. This percentage of phenomena seen under unusual conditions. Thankfully, today's science renaissance government distrust is consistent with a 2009 Collectively, UFO stories are a sci-fi of traveling to other planets and tearing apart CBS News poll that found that 77 percent of the inspired projection of how we think space subatomic matter is demonstrating population believes that the government visitors would look and behave. Despite over 60 achievements once dismissed as impossible. [] covered-up the truth behind the 1963 John F. years of "sightings," the purported scientific Kennedy assassination. On the flip side, belief evidence is largely anecdotal and that the Apollo moon landings were a uncorroborated. The Mars Science Lab landing government hoax dropped from 11 percent to 6 left more physical evidence strewn on the Red percent over the past decade. Planet than thousands of alleged flying saucers reported over the decades. It's Fun to Believe in Weird Things I'd say that UFO beliefs are fueled by a "secular theology" where people look for Contrary to conventional wisdom, people of all greater meaning to the universe and our levels of education like to believe in "weird relationship with it. The theme is that the aliens things," says Michael Shermer of the Skeptical flying the UFOs pay attention to us, worry Inquirer. Shermer wrote that people tend to seek about our misdeeds (as evident in alleged or interpret evidence favorable to existing sighting of UFOs hanging around nuclear power beliefs and ignore or misinterpret evidence plants) and want to help raise us to a higher unfavorable to those beliefs. level of existence. This is simply a post- This is no more obvious than in the industrial age version of ages old stores of writings of "creationist scientists" who either visitation by angels, demons, and other reject or grossly misinterpret geological, imaginary spirits. A few of my colleagues dismiss the