Why Americans Think That Alien Crafts Have Visited Earth

The earliest sightings go back as far as to Egyptian times, and some before that. Many people of various ethnicities and religions have claimed to see UFOs. There are many things that most people don’t know about UFOs, such as the most famous abduction case, UFO conspiracies, types of UFOs, and statistics about UFOs

There are many alien abduction cases, but none more convincing than the Betty and Barney Hill Case. On September 19, 1961 Betty and Barney Hill saw a bright object that resembled a star, hurderling through the sky. The object turned and headed straight towards Barney and Betty’s car. It hovered about 80-100 feet above them. Barney rushed out of the car, as the UFO hovered over the car, and gave Barney a shock (“The UFO Phenomenon” 79). In the UFO, he could see portholes, and 5-11 human like figures. They were wearing shiny black uniforms, and billed caps. Betty could hear her husband yelling, “I don’t believe it ! I don’t believe it ! This is ridiculous !” Barney dashed back into the car and started driving home. Their truck made a series of unexplainable beeps and boops from the trunk. They made it back home without any incidents. When Barney and Betty got home, they both had no memory of the last 2 hours between the time of the sighting and the time they got home. Betty began to have terrifying nightmares about their UFO experience. They decided to go see Physiatrist Dr. Benjamin Simon to use hypnotic regression to uncover the mystery surrounding the missing time, and the UFO encounter. They both had similar, frightening stories under hypnotic regression. Barney remembers being forced up a ramp to an alien craft and rushed into an examination room. “I could feel them examining me with their hands. . . . They looked at my back, and I could feel them touching my skin . . ., as if they were counting my spinal column . . . and then I was turned over, and again I was looked at. My mouth was opened, and I could feel 2 fingers pulling it back. Then I heard as if more men came in, and I could feel them rustling around on the left side of the table I was laying on. Something scratched very lightly, like a stick against my left arm. And these men left.” “Then my shoes were put back on, and I stepped down. I think I felt very good because I knew it was over . . . . I went down [the ramp] and opened my eyes and kept walking. I saw my car . . . and Betty was coming down the road, and she came around and opened the door.” Betty told a similar story. “I go into this room, and some of the men come into the room with this man who speaks English. They stay a minute-I don’t know who they are; I guess maybe they’re the crew . . . and another man comes in. I haven’t seen him before. I think he’s a doctor. They bring the machine over . . . it’s something like a microscope, only a microscope with a big lens. I had an idea they were taking a picture of my skin. Then they took something like a letter opener- only it wasn’t- and they scraped my arm here. . . there was something like that, they scraped, and they put this that came off on plastic.” Betty said she asked the apparent leader where his ship had come from, and he showed her a star map, Then she was escorted down the ramp. During hypnosis, Betty drew out the star map, that the alien leader showed her. Dr. Simon concluded that the abduction part of the Hills’ story was nothing more than a fantasy, absorbed by Barney from Betty’s nightmares. In the late 1960s, an amatuer astronomer Majorie Fish created a scale model of the stars within a 33 light year radius, she discovered that Betty’s map corresponded closely to a view of our sun and neighboring stars from a few light years away beyond the Zeta Reticuli system, several astronomers verified the accuracy of Fishes work. A large number of the stars were unknown to earthlings until 1969, 8 years after the experience, and about 7+1/2 years after she drew the map (“The UFO Phenomenon” 82).

There are many UFO conspiracy theories, but here are some of the most famous ones. UFO conspiracy theories argue that various governments are hiding evidence of UFOs. Such conspiracy theories argue that governments, most notably the United States Government, are cooperating and or communicating with UFOs, even though they deny it. Some of these theories state that the governments are allowing alien abduction. In Phoenix, Arizona on July 7, 1947, William Rhodes photographed a very strange object over the skies of Phoenix The photos appeared in many newspapers. An Army Air Force intelligence officer and an FBI agent interviewed Rhodes on August 29 and persuaded him to give up the pictures, which he ended up doing the next day. He was told he would not be getting them back, but still tried, unsuccessfully, to retrieve them later. The photos were analyzed and appeared in some classified Air Force UFO intelligence reports. On January 22, 1958, when NICAP director Donald Keyhoe went on CBS television, his comments on UFOs were pre-censored by the Air Force. During the show, Keyhoe tried to stray from the censored script to 'reveal something that has never been disclosed before,' CBS cut the sound, stating Keyhoe was about to violate 'predetermined security standards' and about to say something he wasn't 'authorized to release.' Conspiracy theorists state that what Keyhoe was about to reveal were four publicly unknown military studies concluding UFOs were interplanetary. John Callahan, former Division Chief of the Accidents and Investigations Branch of the FAA, Washington D.C., said that following the Japan Air Lines flight 1628 incident that involved a giant UFO over Alaska, recorded by air and ground radar, the FAA organized an investigation. Callahan held a briefing a few days later for President Reagan's Scientific Study Group, the FBI, and CIA. After the briefing, one of the CIA agents told everybody they 'were never there and this never happened,' stating that they were afraid of public panic. According to one theory related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the CIA killed Kennedy in order to stop him from exposing sensitive information to the Soviet Union about a secret program to reverse-engineer alien technology (“ UFO conspiracy theory”). Sacsayhuamán, a fortress outside the old Inca capital of Cusco, the interlocking fortress walls are made of rocks that weigh as much as 360 tons each, and which were carried more than 20 miles before being lifted and fit into place with laser-like precision. Some people think that they had help from UFOs.

The Great Pyramid in Cairo, Egypt, is made of millions of very accuratley placed stones weighing no less than 4000 lbs each. Even with today’s cranes and other construction equipment and technology, building a pyramid as big as The Great Pyramid, would be a daunting challenge. Also there’s the astronomical composition of the pyramids, which is said to align with the stars in Orion’s belt. As well, alien theorists often point to the fact that these three pyramids are in a lot better quality than others built hundreds of years later.

Easter Island, littered with figures carved from stone, called moai, nearly 900 human figures are showered along the island. The figures average 13 feet tall, and weigh 28,000 lbs each. They seem to have been chiseled from the soft volcanic tuff found in the Rano Raraku quarry. There, more than 400 statues are still in different states of completion, with some finished figures awaiting transportation. The reasons for carving the moai are mysterious, though they were probably sculpted for religious reasons.(“7 Ancient Sites Some People Think Were Built by Aliens”).

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There are different types of UFO that people have seen, here are some of the more recognizable ones. Unidentified atmospheric phenomena (UAPs) are UFOs that are produced by natural causes. Rather than being physical entities, some UFOs are basically weird lights, called 'earth lights' by UFOlogists. These UAPs include earthquake lights (lights that appear before, during, and after earthquakes) and will-o'-the-wisps (fiery lights seen in marshy areas). One somewhat common UAP has been identified as ball lightning. This phenomenon occurs very rarely, but it has been reported often enough that it now has a name. It looks like a round, bright red-orange or blue ball and usually happens when thunderstorms are in the area, though not always. In the air it may move quite fiercely, but when approaching the ground it travels more slowly. It may explode, although it usually just disappears without a sound. Whatever it does, ball lightning is dangerous. Real unidentified flying objects are sometimes called TRUFOs (True UFOs). These cannot be explained as UAPs. They are what an everyday person would think of when they hear the term 'UFO': These are the saucers, and the flying disks. TRUFOs are the actual physical objects that people report. (“Three Types of UFO”).

It’s amazing how many people believe in, or have seen UFOs.

“Skeptics frequently seek to portray UFO believers as fringe personalities and occultists who are unable to accept modern society.” (“The UFO Phenomenon”). “A 1987 Gallup poll showed that 49% of Americans are aware of UFOs, 30% thought they were imaginary, and 21% were unsure.” The 68%33% of U.S. adults believe that some UFO sightings over the years have in fact been alien spacecraft visiting Earth from other planets or galaxies. The majority, 60%, are skeptical, saying that all UFO sightings can be explained by human activity or natural phenomenon, while another 7% are unsure. 16% of Americans say they have personally witnessed something they thought was a UFO while the vast majority (84%) have not.

The amount of people today who believe the government is keeping information about UFOs away from the public is comparable to the 71% found in 1996. Both times, the results were similar among all main demographic groups, including by age, education and party identification. Even as most Americans are skeptical that aliens have visited Earth, the majority (56%) believe that those who spot UFOs are seeing something real, not just imagining it. This is up from 47% in 1996, possibly reflecting public awareness of military testing and the proliferation of drones which people may think can be mistaken for UFOs. Separate from possible space landings on Earth, about half of Americans, 49% think that people somewhat like ourselves exist elsewhere in the universe. Even more, 75%, believe that some form of life exists on other planets. Forty percent of residents of the West believe some UFOs can be attributed to alien visitors. This compares with 32% of residents in the East and South and 27% in the Midwest. Westerners are also a bit more likely than those in other regions to say they have personally seen a UFO: 20% in the West vs. 12% in the East and 15%-16% elsewhere. Americans with no religious affiliation are more likely to put stock in UFOs, with 40% saying some have been alien visitors (“Americans Skeptical of UFOs, but Say Government Knows More.”).

People have been trying to learn about UFOs for a long time, but are still no further than we were 20 years ago, at least that’s what the government tells us. Some of the things that we do know about are: the most famous abduction case, UFO conspiracies, types of UFOs, and statistics about UFOs. I hope in the future we will learn much more about UFOs.