A recent poll conducted by Ripley’s Believe It Or Not in London has revealed that more Britons believe in ghosts and aliens than in God. The detailed study, which included 500 children and 1,500 adults, concluded that more than half its adult respondents believe in ghosts and aliens while only a quarter have similar faith in God. According to the poll, one in five Britons have had a supernatural experience and one in ten Britons have lived in a haunted house at some point in their lives. Among the children that were surveyed, almost two-thirds felt ghosts and aliens are real and half were confident that UFOs exist.
Ripley’s general manager Natascha Crump said, “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. It's reassuring to have the answers for many of life's questions but the average person will always be drawn to the odd, the unexpected and to the question ‘what if?’”
The poll’s results were indeed amusing, especially if one considers how 26 percent of children polled believe that humans are only aliens in disguise and one in 20 children polled believe that they actually know an alien. Of those, one in 20 think that their mothers could in all possibility be extra-terrestrial, although the most likely individual for that was their sibling. In addition, half of all respondents said there is a stereotype associated with aliens, with 43 percent saying they believe aliens are green in color.
However, it is not just children that have their share of doubts. In fact, adults turned out to be even more superstitious, with 26 percent touching wood so fate does not feel tempted to jinx their good luck. Thirteen percent of adults said they were even more scared of ghosts than their children were while 53 percent said they fight their fear so their children are not scared of the same things – spiders, dogs, heights and flying.
Below are the top five supernatural things British adults believe in:
- 55 percent – ghosts
- 51 percent – aliens
- 42 percent – UFOs
- 27 percent – angels
- 25 percent – god
And here are the top five supernatural things British children believe in:
- 64 percent – ghosts
- 64 percent – aliens
- 50 percent – UFOs
- 33 percent – god
- 27 percent – angels
“… it's inevitable that parents are going to be bombarded with questions about ghosts and ghouls. The stereotype would be of exasperated parents quashing any claims of aliens and UFOs but this research shows this is clearly not the case. Our aim at Ripley's is to really broaden the minds of children and adults alike for them to believe anything is possible,” added Crump.
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