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- PRESS RELEASE
- National Institute for Discovery Science
- June 7, 1999
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- HOW WOULD HUMANS REACT IF E.T. LANDED?
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- NASA and the scientific community are
actively searching for evidence of extraterrestrial life, but what if we
were confronted with undeniable proof that ETs exist and have been visiting
Earth?
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- A nationwide survey by the Roper Organization
has uncovered the following:
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- ...one out of four Americans think most
people would "totally freak out and panic" if such evidence were
confirmed.
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- ...eighty percent of influential Americans
think the US government would classify or suppress evidence of extraterrestrial
life.
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- The Roper survey was conducted on behalf
of the National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS), a privately funded
scientific research organization based in Las Vegas, NV. The pollsters
asked a nationwide sample of 1,971 men and women a variety of questions
concerning a sudden confirmation of extraterrestrial life. (The poll has
error margins of 2.5 percent.)
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- Among other findings:
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- When asked what they thought UFOs were:
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- 25% thought they were alien spaceships
- 19% said UFOs are normal events that
are misinterpreted by witnesses, and
- 12% thought they were secret government
programs
- 9% said hallucinations
- 7% said travelers from other dimensions.
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- When asked whom they would choose to
make first contact with ETs on Earth:
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- 20% said the military
- 29% said scientists
- 14% said the government
- 11% said religious leaders, and
- 20% said a private organization that
had planned for such a contingency.
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- "There have been no systematic studies
about the potential impact of confirmed contact", says Dr. Colm Kelleher,
deputy administrator of NIDS. A 1960 report by the Brookings Institute
and an internal RAND document from 1968 predicted profound social consequences
if contact were confirmed, but there have been no follow-up studies.
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- For more information about the Roper
survey and about NIDS, keep reading, or visit the NIDS website at: http://www.accessnv.com/nids
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- When asked how they would react psychologically
to confirmation of advanced extraterrestrial life:
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- 32% said they were "fully prepared
to handle it"
- 17% said they would "rethink their
place in the universe".
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- Yet when asked how they think OTHERS
would react to the same news:
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- 25% said that "most people would
totally freak out and panic"
- 10% said most others would "act
irrationally and become dangerous to others
- 14% said that others would "begin
to act very strangely"
- 36% said "most people would be very
concerned", and only
- 13% said "most people would handle
the information in a calm and rational way".
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- Since 1995, NIDS has been conducting
scientific research into unconventional and novel areas including aerial
phenomena research. NIDS's president and founder is Robert Bigelow. The
Las Vegas based organization employs a staff of Ph.D. level, multi-disciplinary
scientists and is advised by a world class science advisory board.
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- Kelleher pointed to ongoing serious scientific
studies on the remote possibility of an asteroid striking the planet. "On
the other hand we have no government programs, no contingency plans that
are in the public domain for coping with the possibility of E.T. contact.
Yet these numbers from Roper say that 80% of the trend-setters in America
do not trust the government to inform the public and one in four of the
general public think there would be total panic if confirmation of advanced
extraterrestrials occurred", said Kelleher.
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- The full text of the poll can be accessed
on the NIDS website at: http://www.accessnv.com/nids. Or contact Dr. Colm
Kelleher at NIDS at 702-798-1700 or nids@anv.net.
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- Jean Henry of the Roper Organization
can be reached at: 914-698-0800
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