UFOs have been making the headlines a lot lately amid news reports about harrowing encounters between seasoned U.S. Navy fighter pilots and strange objects near the southeastern coast of the United States. Several pilots who were stationed on the aircraft carriers USS Nimitz and USS Theodore Roosevelt said they encountered UFOs resembling giant "Tic Tacs" between 2004 and 2015. The sightings by the Super Hornet pilots remain unexplained today with former squadron leader David Fravor telling ABC News "I think it was not from this world".
Given the coverage that those strange incidents attracted, Area 51 has suddenly come in for more attention. Conspiracy theorists have long believed the top-secret U.S. Air Force base harbors extraterrestrial life or parts of crashed alien spacecraft that have been possibly reverse-engineered. The intense secrecy and security surrounding he base prompted someone to create a Facebook event entitled "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All Of Us". 1.4 million people signed up stating they will "attend the raid" while another 1.1 million more were "interested" before Facebook took the event down. The date on the Facebook event was Sept. 20, 2019.
The event has now gained such momentum that that the U.S. Air Force issued an official warning, discouraging people from any attempt to access the base. So all of this certainly begs the question: do the U.S. public think their government is hiding something about UFOs? The most recent polling on the issue was conducted by YouGov in June and they found that 54 percent of Americans think it's likey something is being covered up, 27 percent saying it is unlikely and 19 percent saying they don't know.
Is The U.S. Government Hiding Something About UFOs?
"Storm Area 51"
Description
This chart shows the share of the U.S. public believing the government has UFO information which isn't being shared with the public.
