In 2013, AEI Research Assistant Andrew Rugg and I released an AEI Public Opinion Study of the surveys on conspiracy theories. Belief in UFOs or aliens visiting Earthy doesn’t imply a conspiracy theory. But a belief in government cover-ups may. What did our report show?

When the Roper Organization began asking people in 1977 whether they believed in “unidentified flying objects from somewhere else in the universe,” 29 percent of Americans said they did. Roper asked the question occasionally through 1999 and consistently found that around 20 percent said they did. A roughly similar proportion in polls taken around that time believed that UFOs landed in the United States at Roswell. The 1997 Air Force Report on what some call “the Roswell incident” piqued the pollsters’ interest so they once again asked Americans about the subject. A quarter in a Roper poll around that time said they were following news reports about UFOs closely and another 36 percent casually.

A question that was used several times by various polling organizations between 1990 and 2000 asks Americans whether UFOs were something real or just people’s imaginations. The “something real” response ranged from 43 to 61 percent. In a Gallup question from 1996, 45 percent said UFOs have visited Earth in some form.

But when asked whether the US government was covering up the evidence, 71 percent told Gallup in 1996 that the federal government knew more about UFOs than they were telling us. Another question from a Scripps Howard/Ohio University found that 48 percent thought the US Air Force was very or somewhat likely to be “withholding proof of intelligent life from other planets.”

In a 1997 Yankelovich/CNN/Time poll, 8 percent said they had seen a UFO or anything they believed was a spacecraft from another planet, and another 17 percent said someone they knew had. Two percent in another question said someone they knew had been abducted by aliens.

The federal government issued a preliminary report in June 2021 on evidence of unidentified aerial phenomena, and once again the pollsters returned to the subject. The report reinforced the pattern we saw in the earlier questions. Twelve percent told Pew Research Center interviewers that they had read or heard a lot about the government releasing the report and another 66 percent had heard a little. In an Ipsos question from 2021, 39 percent said they believed in UFOs, 35 percent said they didn’t, and 26 percent were agnostic. In another Ipsos question, 10 percent said they had seen a UFO, roughly similar to earlier polls. In a 2021 CBS News poll, 73 percent said the US government knew more about UFOs than it was telling the public, a response similar to the Gallup results from 1996.

A question that will probably be repeated in the weeks to come is one asked by the Pew Research Center in 2022. Forty-five percent said the government was doing a good job in dealing with reports of UFOs sightings, while 49 percent said it was doing a bad job.

Without identical questions asked over time, it is impossible to say whether belief in UFOs is increasing, but it is safe to say that a lot of Americans believe in them and think the federal government is covering up their existence. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby’s comment this week—“I don’t think the American people need to worry about aliens with respect to these craft [the balloons]”—is unlikely to reassure these people. It’s clear Americans want to know more about UFOs and the four high-flying objects that the government shot down.

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