Nearly half of Americans believe in aliens, and nearly as many think aliens are visiting Earth, according to a new survey. Fewer than 20% believe in alien abduction, and even fewer claim that they have seen a UFO.

20th Century Fox Home Entertainment commissioned the survey as part of its promotional campaign for the Blu-ray release of the movie “Phoenix Forgotten.” The film is a sci-fi thriller set during the mass UFO sighting in Phoenix in 1997 that is referred to as “The Phoenix Lights.” The film was produced by Ridley Scott, whose producer and director credits include “Alien” and “The Martian.”

“The Phoenix Lights phenomenon of March 13, 1997, led us to introduce a survey to find out what Americans believe about aliens,” a representative from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment told OpenMinds.tv. “From our survey, we found that nearly half (47%) believe in aliens but less than a fifth think they’ve ever seen a UFO or alien themselves.”

More than 1,700 Americans took part in the survey conducted by 20^th Century Fox Home Entertainment.

Among the interesting findings in the survey was that about 39% “believe aliens have visited Earth before.” Only 18% believed in alien abduction.

Regarding UFOs, only 16.74% of those surveyed claimed to have seen one.

24/7 Wall St. posted a story in May on the states with the most UFO sightings, based on sightings per 100,000 in population.

To determine the states with the most UFO sightings, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed 2001 to 2015 sightings in data from Cheryl Costa’s “UFO Sightings Desk Reference: United States of America 2001-2015: Unidentified Flying Objects Frequency–Distribution–Shapes.”

Vermont had the most, with 80.7 sightings per 100,000 people. The five states with the most sightings per 100,000 people are in either the Pacific Northwest or New England, areas associated with thick forests and that are sparsely populated. Mississippi had the fewest, with 21.3 sightings per 100,000 people.

As for Arizona, the state was sixth on the list, with 68.2 sightings per 100,000 people.

Other recent polls have found most people believe intelligent life exists beyond Earth. Most Americans, British and Germans think that intelligent alien life exists. That poll, conducted by the market-research company YouGov two years ago, found the Germans are most likely to believe, at 56%, followed by Americans and British, at 54% and 52%, respectively.

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