Culture and science
What surveys have found about how many people saw UFOs and what they believe about them. 11 events, newest first.
Select any year above to see what happened that year.
Open Polls and public opinion as a timeline
Media20 Aug 2021
A Gallup poll taken in July 2021, weeks after the ODNI's preliminary UAP assessment, found 41 percent of U.S. adults thought some UFOs were alien spacecraft, up from 33 percent in 2019. Half said all sightings could be explained by human activity or natural phenomena.
Media30 Jun 2021
A Pew Research Center survey of 10,417 U.S. adults found 65% thought intelligent life likely exists elsewhere and 51% said military UFO reports are at least probably evidence of it. About 87% saw UFOs as no threat or a minor threat to national security.
Photo: Pew Research Center, Public domain
Media6 Sep 2019
Gallup reported that 68 percent of U.S. adults believed the government knew more about UFOs than it was saying, close to its 1996 result. Only 33 percent thought some UFO sightings had been alien spacecraft, and 16 percent said they had personally seen something they believed was a UFO.
Media13 Oct 2015
The second Chapman University Survey of American Fears added paranormal beliefs, finding about 20 percent agreed aliens visited Earth in the ancient past and about 18 percent that they have come in modern times. Later waves of the survey tracked the same questions.
Photo: Bobak Ha'Eri, CC BY 3.0
MediaJun 2012
A Kelton Research survey of 1,114 U.S. adults, commissioned by National Geographic Channel to promote its series Chasing UFOs, found 36 percent believed aliens had visited Earth, 48 percent were unsure, and 79 percent thought the government kept UFO information secret.
Photo: AgnosticPreachersKid, CC BY-SA 4.0
MediaSep 1996
A Gallup survey taken September 3-5, 1996 found 71 percent of U.S. adults believed the government knew more about UFOs than it was telling, a figure Gallup later used as the benchmark for its 2019 result of 68 percent.
Photo: Gallup, Inc., CC BY 4.0
Close encounters1992
A report funded through Bigelow Holding Corporation analyzed 1991 Roper poll questions written by Budd Hopkins, David Jacobs and Ron Westrum. It projected that about 3.7 million Americans might be abductees. Critics such as Susan Blackmore said the questions did not measure abduction.
Photo: Carol Rainey, CC BY-SA 4.0
Close encounters1978
A 1978 Gallup survey found 57 percent of Americans who had heard of UFOs thought they were something real rather than imagination, the highest result Gallup recorded with that wording. Gallup later noted that 'real' did not necessarily mean alien craft.
Photo: Unknown author, Public domain
Close encountersNov 1973
A Gallup poll fielded Nov. 2-5, 1973 found 11 percent of U.S. adults said they had seen something they thought was a UFO. Gallup has repeated the question in later polls; in July 2026 the share was 17 percent.
Media8 May 1966
A Gallup poll taken April 14-19, 1966 found 5 percent of U.S. adults said they had seen something they thought was a flying saucer, which Gallup projected to more than five million Americans. Of those who had heard of saucers, 46 percent thought they were something real.
Close encountersAug 1947
Weeks after Kenneth Arnold's report, a Gallup poll released in August 1947 found that about 90 percent of Americans had heard of flying saucers. Asked what they were, the largest groups gave no answer or called them illusions; others guessed U.S. secret weapons or hoaxes.
