People have always looked at the stars and wondered if life existed on other planets. Several ancient cultures tell stories in which beings from the stars visit the earth. Not until the mid-twentieth century, however, did the phenomena of alien abduction become a part of American culture.

Public Opinion

Following the claim of the UFO crash in Roswell, New Mexico, an August 1947 Gallup poll found that of the 90 percent of Americans surveyed who had heard about the UFO crash, less than 1 percent believed that alien visitors were responsible for the crash. A few years later, a 1950 survey by Public Opinion Quarterly found that 94 percent of Americans had heard of flying saucers, but only 5 percent actually believed the unidentified flying objects were actually from another planet. Yet after Roswell, the number of flying saucer reports skyrocketed. Some people even claimed they had had contact with the aliens flying the...