What Does Pew Research Show About Americans’ Views on Aliens, UFOs, UAPs, and Extraterrestrial Life?

Key Takeaways

• Pew found 65% of U.S. adults in 2021 believed intelligent life exists on other planets.
• Only 11% called military UFO reports definite evidence of intelligence beyond Earth.
• In 2023, 40% expected intelligent life to be discovered on another planet within 50 years.

What Pew Research Says About Americans’ Views on Aliens and UFOs

In June 2021, 65% of U.S. adults told the Pew Research Center that their best guess was that intelligent life exists on other planets. That result provides the clearest starting point for understanding Americans’ views on aliens and UFOs because it measures belief in extraterrestrial intelligence separately from belief about unexplained objects observed near Earth.

Pew surveyed 10,417 U.S. adults from June 14 through June 24, 2021, using its American Trends Panel, an online survey panel recruited through national random sampling of residential addresses and weighted to represent the U.S. adult population. Pew describes the population represented by the survey as U.S. adults rather than specifically as U.S. citizens, an important distinction when describing the findings.

Timing matters. Pew completed the survey immediately before the U.S. government issued its June 25, 2021 preliminary UAP assessment. The polling consequently captured public opinion before respondents could react to that document. Only 12% said they had heard or read a lot about the government preparing to release information about UFO sightings, 66% had heard a little, and 21% had heard nothing at all.

The 65% figure should not be interpreted as evidence that 65% of Americans believed extraterrestrials had visited Earth. Pew asked whether intelligent life exists on other planets, a much broader proposition. A person can consider intelligent life elsewhere in the universe probable and still reject every claim that an unidentified object observed in Earth’s atmosphere represents extraterrestrial technology.

That separation between cosmic probability and claimed visitation runs through Pew’s findings and explains several results that can otherwise appear inconsistent.

Terminology also requires care. Pew’s 2021 public material used “unidentified flying objects,” or UFOs, because that terminology was familiar in public discussion. Federal agencies increasingly use “unidentified anomalous phenomena,” or UAP. NASA’s UAP guidance describes UAP as observations that cannot initially be identified as aircraft or known natural phenomena. NASA also states that it has found no credible evidence of extraterrestrial life and no evidence that UAP are extraterrestrial.

The word “alien” creates another complication. In popular culture it often means an extraterrestrial intelligent being, but scientific research usually uses more precise categories such as extraterrestrial life, intelligent life, biosignatures, or technosignatures. Pew’s questions should be interpreted according to the wording actually presented to respondents rather than through the broader cultural meaning of “aliens.”

Belief in Intelligent Life Is Broader Than Belief That UFOs Prove It

Pew found a much narrower division when it asked whether UFOs reported by people in the military were evidence of intelligent life outside Earth. A combined 51% said such reports were definitely or probably evidence, but certainty was limited. Only 11% chose definitely, compared with 40% who chose probably. A combined 47% took the opposite position, including 36% who said probably not and 11% who said definitely not.

Those figures from the 2021 Pew UFO survey show why a simple division between “believers” and “skeptics” loses information. The largest individual groups chose probabilistic responses rather than certainty.

Belief that intelligent civilizations could exist elsewhere does not require belief that such civilizations have reached Earth. The propositions operate on very different scales. One concerns the possible existence of intelligence somewhere among an immense number of stars and planets. The other concerns whether particular observations near Earth provide evidence of extraterrestrial technology.

Popular discussion frequently blends aliens, UFOs, UAP, and extraterrestrial life into one subject. Scientifically, they represent different questions with different standards of evidence. Astrobiology investigates the origin, distribution, and potential detection of life beyond Earth. The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, generally called SETI, looks for evidence associated with technological civilizations. UAP investigations examine observations that remain unidentified after initial review.

An unexplained observation is an unresolved observation. The label does not determine whether its cause is natural, human-made, technological, or extraterrestrial.

The scientific search for extraterrestrial life reinforces this distinction. NASA reports that no credible evidence of extraterrestrial life has been confirmed, even though astronomy has established that planets are common and researchers are actively examining environments where life might be possible. New Space Economy’s coverage of biosignatures and technosignatures describes the two broad evidence categories scientists use when looking for biological activity or technological activity beyond Earth.

SETI extends the search toward intelligence. New Space Economy’s history of SETI technology follows the field from early radio experiments through optical searches, digital signal processing, technosignatures, and large astronomical datasets. The history demonstrates why a suspected signal requires repeat observation, interference screening, independent verification, and analysis before an extraterrestrial explanation becomes credible.

Pew’s numbers reveal a gradient of confidence rather than a binary dispute. The 40% who said military UFO reports were probably evidence of intelligence outside Earth formed a much larger group than the 11% who chose definitely. Many respondents were willing to entertain an extraterrestrial explanation without claiming certainty.

Public opinion on the subject is consequently better described as a spectrum of probability judgments.

Age, Gender, and Education Shape Some of the Differences

Age produced one of the clearest demographic differences in Pew’s 2021 data. Among adults younger than 30, 76% said intelligent life exists on other planets, compared with 57% among adults age 50 and older. The survey does not establish why those groups differed, but it shows younger Americans were more likely to accept the proposition that intelligence exists beyond Earth.

Gender also mattered on the broad extraterrestrial-life question. Pew found that 70% of men and 60% of women said intelligent life exists on other planets. That 10-percentage-point difference did not carry over in the same manner to the question about military-reported UFOs. Pew found that men were not more likely than women to describe those reports as evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence.

Education produced another distinction. College-educated adults tended to be more skeptical than people with less formal education about treating military UFO reports as evidence of extraterrestrial life. That result should not be transformed into a claim that education predicts disbelief in life elsewhere. Pew asked separate questions, and the demographic pattern for interpreting military UFO reports was not identical to the pattern for estimating whether intelligent life exists somewhere beyond Earth.

These differences caution against treating the American public as a single opinion bloc. National percentages summarize the weighted adult population, but attitudes differed according to age, gender, education, religion, and engagement with the UFO subject.

Pew also found a relationship between following government UFO developments and greater acceptance of extraterrestrial interpretations. Among the 12% who had heard or read a lot about the government preparing to release UFO information, 80% believed intelligent life exists elsewhere and 65% said military UFO reports were at least probably evidence of such life.

Pew specifically warned against drawing a causal inference from that relationship. The survey could not determine whether exposure to UFO information changed respondents’ opinions or whether people already interested in extraterrestrial explanations were more likely to follow the subject closely.

That limitation matters because media consumption and prior belief can influence each other. Survey data can show that two attitudes are associated without establishing which one caused the other.

Religion Produces One of Pew’s Largest Differences

Pew’s analysis of the same June 2021 survey found a substantial relationship between religious engagement and belief in extraterrestrial intelligence. The Pew religion analysis found that 57% of U.S. Christians said their best guess was that intelligent life exists on other planets, compared with 80% of religiously unaffiliated adults.

Religious-service attendance showed an even wider difference. Among adults who attended services at least weekly, 44% said intelligent life exists elsewhere. The share reached 75% among adults who seldom or never attended.

Other measures pointed in a similar direction. Among adults who said religion was very important in their lives, 49% believed intelligent life exists on other planets, compared with 76% among people who assigned religion less importance. Daily prayer was also associated with lower belief in extraterrestrial intelligence in the survey. Among adults who prayed daily, 54% said intelligent life exists elsewhere, compared with 80% among those who seldom or never prayed.

Differences among religious identities were substantial. Pew found that 40% of White evangelical Protestants said intelligent life exists on other planets, compared with 65% of White non-evangelical Protestants and 67% of Catholics. Among religiously unaffiliated adults, the figure was 80%. Black Protestants were more evenly divided, with 55% saying intelligent life exists and 44% saying it does not.

One of the most revealing results involves self-described atheists. Pew found that 85% said intelligent life exists on other planets, yet only 31% said military-reported UFOs were definitely or probably evidence of extraterrestrial life.

That gap demonstrates why “belief in aliens” is an imprecise description of public attitudes. Someone can regard extraterrestrial intelligence as highly plausible because of astronomy, probability, or the enormous number of planetary systems and still demand much stronger evidence before accepting a claim that extraterrestrial technology has reached Earth.

Religion should not be treated as a simple cause of either belief or skepticism. Pew measured associations among attitudes and practices rather than isolating a single variable experimentally. Religious affiliation overlaps with age, education, cultural background, views of science, and other characteristics. The survey establishes differences in opinion, not a single mechanism explaining those differences.

The findings are also measurements from 2021. They should not be described as the percentage of religious Americans who hold those opinions in September 2026 without a newer equivalent survey.

Americans Did Not Treat UFOs as Predominantly Hostile or Threatening

Belief in possible extraterrestrial intelligence did not translate into broad fear in Pew’s 2021 survey. When respondents were asked for their best guess about UFO intentions, 74% said UFOs were neither friendly nor unfriendly. Only 17% characterized them as friendly and 7% as unfriendly.

The same restrained pattern appeared when Pew asked about national security. A combined 87% regarded UFOs as either no threat or a minor threat. That included 51% who said they were not a threat at all and 36% who described them as a minor threat. Only 10% described UFOs as a major threat to U.S. national security.

Those answers are significant because the survey occurred during growing government and media attention to military UFO observations. Public interest in extraterrestrial explanations did not automatically produce a corresponding perception of danger.

Even respondents who believed military-reported UFOs were probably or definitely evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence generally did not describe them as hostile. Within that group, 26% called UFOs friendly, 7% called them unfriendly, and 65% said neither.

Believing that an observation could have an extraterrestrial origin was consequently different from believing it represented hostile intent.

Government UAP programs operate under another framework. U.S. agencies can investigate unidentified observations because of aviation safety, intelligence collection, sensor performance, airspace awareness, military operations, or national-security concerns without adopting an extraterrestrial explanation. New Space Economy’s examination of AARO’s official UAP data provides additional context for how unresolved observations can receive government attention without being classified as extraterrestrial technology.

The most current annual All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office document available on September 2, 2026 is the Fiscal Year 2025 UAP report, which AARO lists as added on July 20, 2026. Its information cutoff is May 30, 2025, so its statistics should be identified with that reporting period rather than presented as measurements through 2026.

AARO reported receiving 319 UAP reports in the covered intake set. It resolved 114 of those reports and also resolved 256 cases reported during an earlier period, bringing the total number of cases resolved during the reporting period to 370.

AARO attributed every resolved case in that set to ordinary objects or phenomena, including balloons, satellites, birds, aircraft, unmanned aerial systems, a commercial rocket launch, and a jet pack. The office said a new analytical capability enabled analysts to resolve 238 reported UAP as satellite flaring.

The report also placed 191 of the 319 incoming cases in an active archive because insufficient information prevented an assessment and identified nine reports for further analysis. An unresolved case in this system means the available evidence does not permit a confident determination. It does not mean investigators have established that the event involved extraterrestrial technology.

Government Awareness and Trust Complicate the 2021 Snapshot

Pew found a narrowly negative balance when respondents evaluated the federal government’s handling of UFO reports. In 2021, 49% said the government was doing a very or somewhat bad job dealing with reports of UFO sightings, compared with 45% who said it was doing a very or somewhat good job.

People who followed the subject closely were more negative. Among respondents who had heard or read a lot about the government preparing to release information on UFO sightings, 60% rated the government’s handling negatively, compared with 47% among people who had heard a little or nothing.

Respondents who regarded military UFO reports as evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence were also more dissatisfied. Pew found that 54% of that group said the government was doing a bad job, compared with 44% among people who did not regard the reports as evidence of extraterrestrial life.

Those numbers permit more than one interpretation. Some respondents may have wanted greater transparency. Others may have believed government investigations were inadequate. People already convinced that extraordinary evidence existed may have been more dissatisfied with official explanations. Pew’s survey design does not identify which explanation accounted for the pattern.

Government disclosure and scientific proof are also different concepts. Authorities can release files, acknowledge unresolved incidents, declassify recordings, revise reporting procedures, establish investigative programs, or discuss classified oversight without confirming extraterrestrial intelligence.

A scientifically verified discovery would involve a different evidentiary process centered on authentication, independent confirmation, repeatability where applicable, analysis of alternative explanations, and disclosure of sufficient data for qualified researchers to evaluate the claim. New Space Economy’s discussion of extraterrestrial intelligence disclosure examines how government communication could differ from scientific confirmation if verified evidence were ever obtained.

Public trust can influence how information is interpreted. A person who already believes authorities have concealed extraterrestrial evidence may see an unresolved observation as support for secrecy. A person who starts with strong confidence in official explanations may be inclined to dismiss an unresolved observation prematurely.

Neither response changes the evidence itself. The strength of a claim depends on the quality, completeness, provenance, and independent verification of the underlying information.

The 2023 Survey Shows Belief and Expected Discovery Are Different

Pew returned to extraterrestrial intelligence in a broader 2023 survey of American space attitudes. The organization surveyed 10,329 U.S. adults from May 30 through June 4, 2023.

When respondents were asked about developments during the next 50 years, 40% said intelligent life would definitely or probably be discovered on another planet. A larger 58% said they did not expect that to happen.

The 40% expectation of discovery is substantially lower than the 65% who said in 2021 that intelligent life exists on other planets. The findings are compatible because the questions measure different beliefs.

Existence is one proposition. Detection within a specified 50-year period is another.

Someone can believe intelligent civilizations exist elsewhere yet expect astronomical distance, technological limitations, timing, rarity, or short civilization lifetimes to prevent discovery during the next half-century. Conversely, someone could assign a lower probability to intelligent life being common but still believe increasingly capable telescopes make a discovery possible.

The 2023 survey also asked Americans to rank NASA priorities. Sixty percent said monitoring asteroids and other objects that could potentially strike Earth should be a top priority. Fifty percent assigned top priority to monitoring major components of Earth’s climate system.

Only 16% said searching for life and planets that could support life should be a top NASA priority. Pew reported that another 39% considered that objective not too important or said NASA should not pursue it.

That finding separates fascination from budget preference. Americans can find extraterrestrial life interesting, think it probably exists, and still place asteroid detection, Earth observation, or other NASA activities higher when asked to set agency priorities.

The scientific search also spans more than one NASA activity. Researchers investigate potentially habitable environments within the solar system, study exoplanets, analyze planetary atmospheres, search for biosignatures, and examine possible technosignatures.

New Space Economy’s technosignature reference guide illustrates how broad this search has become. Proposed technosignatures can include narrowband radio emissions, optical pulses, infrared waste heat, artificial atmospheric compounds, or physical artifacts. None of those categories removes the requirement to test natural, instrumental, statistical, and human-made explanations before interpreting a candidate as extraterrestrial technology.

The 2023 Pew result measures Americans’ expectations about discovery. It does not measure the scientific probability that extraterrestrial intelligence exists or the likelihood that a specific observational method will detect it.

UAP Terminology Changed, but the Evidence Standard Did Not

The public vocabulary changed considerably after Pew’s 2021 survey. UFO remains the culturally familiar term, but U.S. agencies generally use UAP. The NASA UAP program presents the agency’s scientific approach to observations that cannot initially be identified as aircraft or known natural phenomena.

Changing the label does not transform an unidentified event into evidence of extraterrestrial technology. “Unidentified” describes the status of an observation during analysis. An event may later be attributed to a balloon, aircraft, satellite, optical effect, astronomical object, weather condition, sensor artifact, drone, or another conventional source.

Some observations remain unresolved because information is incomplete. Lack of resolution represents an information problem, not an origin classification.

NASA’s UAP guidance states that NASA has found no credible evidence of extraterrestrial life and no evidence that UAP are extraterrestrial. The agency also says the limited quantity of high-quality UAP observations makes scientific conclusions difficult.

NASA’s 2023 independent study report focused heavily on data quality. It did not attempt to adjudicate every historical UFO case. Its recommendations emphasized improved observations, standardized information, calibrated sensors, scientific analysis, and greater use of data that could permit hypotheses to be tested.

AARO’s FY2025 report demonstrates the same problem from an intelligence and defense perspective. The office states that a lack of timely and actionable sensor data continues to limit its ability to resolve cases.

The report also says that, as of its May 30, 2025 information cutoff, no evidence suggested that a U.S. government or private entity had ever captured or exploited UAP-derived materials. That statement addresses one class of claims that has received substantial public attention.

It does not establish that intelligent life is absent elsewhere in the universe. It addresses the narrower issue of evidence available to AARO concerning UAP and alleged recovered material.

Scientific searches for extraterrestrial life remain active because the astronomical question is separate. NASA can search for life on Mars, ocean worlds, or exoplanets without treating unexplained aerial observations as evidence of aliens. SETI researchers can search for technological signals without asserting that reported UFOs are extraterrestrial spacecraft.

This separation closely resembles the pattern in Pew’s polling. Belief that extraterrestrial intelligence exists was considerably broader than certainty that military UFO reports proved it.

What the Pew Data Can and Cannot Tell Us

Pew’s research is most informative when treated as a collection of carefully separated public-opinion measurements. It shows how Americans answered specific questions at specific times using nationally representative survey methods.

The 2021 survey found broad belief that intelligent life exists on other planets. It found an almost even division over whether military UFO reports represented evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence. It also found that most respondents did not regard UFOs as hostile or as a major national-security threat.

The surveys cannot determine whether extraterrestrial life exists. Public opinion is not scientific evidence for or against life elsewhere.

They cannot validate or invalidate a particular UAP case. A survey response cannot establish the origin, velocity, composition, location, or behavior of an observed object.

The surveys also cannot show that media exposure causes belief, that religious participation causes skepticism, or that distrust of government demonstrates the existence of concealed extraterrestrial evidence. Pew itself cautioned against inferring causation from the relationship between closely following UFO developments and accepting extraterrestrial interpretations.

Question wording has a large effect on what these findings mean.

“Do you think that intelligent life exists on other planets?” asks respondents for a general judgment about the universe.

Asking whether military UFO reports are evidence of intelligent life asks respondents to interpret observations made near Earth.

Asking whether intelligent life will be discovered on another planet within 50 years requests a prediction about scientific discovery.

Asking whether NASA should prioritize searching for life asks respondents to express a preference about government activity.

Those are four different concepts: existence, evidence, expected discovery, and spending or program priorities. Combining them into a single measure of whether Americans “believe in aliens” would erase much of the information Pew collected.

The dates also need to remain explicit. Pew’s principal UFO and extraterrestrial-life survey discussed here was conducted in June 2021. Its space-futures survey was conducted in May and June 2023. They are historical measurements and should not be presented as September 2026 polling.

Government UAP investigations, congressional attention, scientific research, media coverage, and public discussion continued after those surveys. A new Pew survey repeating the same questions could produce different percentages.

A future survey could provide considerably more precision by separating microbial extraterrestrial life, complex life, intelligent life, technological civilizations, extraterrestrial visitation, UAP interpretation, confidence in government disclosure, and confidence in specific kinds of evidence.

It could also ask respondents what evidence they would consider persuasive. Independently verified astronomical signals, repeatable observations, physical material with documented provenance, atmospheric biosignatures, or confirmed biological samples carry very different evidentiary implications.

Such distinctions would make it possible to tell whether public attitudes changed because of greater familiarity with astrobiology, government UAP investigations, distrust of institutions, media exposure, scientific discoveries, or some combination of factors.

Summary

Pew Research portrays Americans as broadly open to the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligence but far less uniform about what follows from that belief. In 2021, 65% said intelligent life exists on other planets, yet only 11% regarded military UFO reports as definite evidence of intelligence beyond Earth.

Large shares occupied the middle ground. Forty percent said military UFO reports were probably evidence, and 36% said they were probably not evidence. Those responses suggest uncertainty was more common than absolute conviction on either side.

The 2023 findings add another dimension. Only 40% expected intelligent life to be discovered on another planet within 50 years, and only 16% placed NASA’s search for life and potentially habitable planets in the top-priority category.

Existence, expected detection, evidence of visitation, government trust, perceived threat, and public-program priorities are distinct attitudes.

Government findings available by September 2, 2026 have not erased that distinction. NASA states that it has found no credible evidence of extraterrestrial life and no evidence that UAP are extraterrestrial. AARO’s FY2025 annual report attributes its resolved cases to conventional objects or phenomena and says many unresolved cases lack sufficient data for a determination.

None of those government findings answers the much broader astronomical question of whether life or intelligence exists somewhere beyond Earth.

Pew’s polling consequently tells a more interesting story than a simple count of Americans who “believe in aliens.” A majority of U.S. adults surveyed in 2021 considered intelligent extraterrestrial life plausible. Far fewer expressed certainty that UFO reports provided proof. Most did not regard UFOs as hostile, and expectations of actually discovering intelligent life within 50 years were lower than belief that such life exists.

The strongest interpretation is one of layered belief rather than a single public position. Many Americans appear comfortable with the possibility that humanity is not alone without concluding that extraterrestrials have visited Earth. That distinction is consistent with the scientific approach, which permits the search for life and intelligence to continue without treating an unexplained observation as evidence of an extraterrestrial origin.