Two in Three Americans Think There is Intelligent Life on Other Planets

Article by Fred Backus                                                 May 13, 2021                                                    (cbsnews.com)

• On March 23-28, 2021, SSRS of Glen Mills, PA conducted telephone survey of 1,009 adults nationwide on behalf of CBS News. The survey revealed that 66% of Americans believe that there is intelligent life on other planets. This is a 10% increase since the last CBS poll taken in 2017. A poll taken in 2010 showed that fewer than half of Americans believed in extraterrestrial civilizations.

• Of those who believe in sentient extraterrestrial life, 33% think human contact with beings from another world will occur during their lifetime. 10% of Americans believe that already have been or are currently in contact. 24% think such contact will be made within the next hundred years. 36% think it will happen further into the future, and 6% think that there is intelligent life on other planets, but we will never make contact with them.

• 51% of Americans think UFOs might sometimes be the result of alien spacecraft visiting Earth. This rises to 71% among those who believe intelligent life on other planets exists. And most Americans think that whatever UFOs are, the U.S. government knows more than it’s telling the general public. Only the most gullible 20% think the government has told everything it knows about UFOs.

Most Americans think we’re not alone in the cosmos — a belief that has grown over the past few years. Most of those who hold this opinion also think we will make contact with intelligent extraterrestrial life within the next hundred years. And, on the topic of UFOs, most think the U.S. government knows more than it is telling the general public.

Sixty-six percent of Americans now believe that there is intelligent life on other planets — an increase of 10 percentage points since the last time CBS News asked this question in 2017. As recently as 2010, fewer than half of Americans believed this was so.

Moreover, a third of those who believe in sentient extraterrestrial life think human contact with beings from another world will occur during their lifetime (including 10% of Americans who volunteer that we already have). Another 24% think such contact will be made within the next hundred years. Thirty-six percent think it won’t happen until further into the future, while 6% think that while there is intelligent life on other planets, we will never have contact with it.

Though few Americans say they believe aliens have contacted us already, many more at least entertain the possibility. Fifty-one percent of Americans think UFOs — or Unidentified Flying Objects — might sometimes be the result of alien spacecrafts visiting Earth. This rises to 71% among those who believe intelligent life on other planets exists.

And most Americans think that whatever UFOs are, the U.S. government knows more than it’s telling the general public. Just 20% think the government has told everything it knows about UFOs.

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