Aliens or God? A Poll in Britain Asks The Question

What are you more likely to believe in – God or aliens? A poll in Great Britain taken by the leading authority in all things believable – Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! – found that more Brits believe in aliens than God.

The question was asked of 1,500 adults and 500 children aged 8 to12. Among the adults, 51 percent believed in aliens while 25 percent believed in God. When picking their favorite supernatural creatures, 55 percent of the adults went with ghosts, followed by aliens (51 percent), UFOs (42 percent), angels (27 percent) and God (25 percent). The adults polled were more superstitious than the kids, with 26 percent protecting themselves from bad things by knocking on wood. This may be because 20 percent said they’ve encountered a supernatural phenomenon and 10 percent have lived in a haunted house.

The answers from the children in the survey are far more interesting. Their favorite supernatural being is a tie between aliens and ghosts (64 percent), followed by UFOs (50 percent), God (33 percent) and angels (27 per cent). Yes, I know UFOs aren’t beings but that didn’t seem to bother the responders. Twenty-six percent of the kids believed that aliens disguise themselves as humans, 5 percent thought they knew one and 5 percent of those felt it was their mother. The kids were also less prejudiced against aliens even if they were green (43 percent).

Yes, it's a small sampling and the sampler is Ripley's but it's still food for thought. What might these numbers mean? Ripley’s General Manager Natascha Crump offered this insight:

According to the results it’s clearly not just children who have an open mind when it comes to other life forms and keeping an open mind. We live in the age of science and turn to it for most of our answers, but the results show that many of us still hold belief in things that might exist outside of our world and beyond our understanding.

God? Aliens? Ghosts? UFOs? Which ones do YOU believe in … or not?