Roughly 50 percent of Americans are skeptical about UFO origins: Poll

( NewsNation ) — Amid increasing attention to UFOs , or Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs), Americans remain skeptical about possible alien origins of unexplained sightings .

According to a new poll from Gallup , 49 percent of Americans believe all UFO sightings can be explained by human activity or natural phenomena, while 37 percent believe at least some are extraterrestrial visitors and 13 percent don’t have an opinion.

While the number of UFO skeptics has decreased from polling done in 2019 (60 percent) and 2021 (50 percent), data indicates that rather than becoming convinced sightings are alien, Americans have become more unsure, with the percentage growing from 7 percent in 2019 to 13 percent in 2026.

According to new polling data, men tend to be more skeptical of UFOs than women, young adults from ages 18 to 29 tend to be more skeptical than older adults and college graduates tend to be more skeptical than those without a college degree.

The findings come as the Pentagon has been releasing declassified documents on UAPs. President Trump has created the new UAP Governance Board , and a number of whistleblowers have come forward with claims that the government knows more about the sightings than is being told to the public.

Those claims have sparked congressional inquiries and attention from the public. More than four in five Americans say they have heard or read about UFOs, a number similar to findings in 2019 but lower than previous decades, according to the survey.

While most Americans say they have heard about UFOs, only 17 percent say they have seen what they thought was a UFO. Among those who say they have seen something unexplained in the sky, 61 percent believe that some UFOs are alien in nature , the research shows.

UAP sightings are most reported among men, middle-aged adults, people without a college degree and residents of the eastern and western U.S.

Whatever Americans think about the origin of UFOs, 78 percent think the U.S. government knows more than it is telling the public, up from 68 percent in 2019 and 71 percent in 1996. Only 17 percent of Americans say the government is not withholding information.

Those views remain consistent among different demographics, including political affiliation.

The Gallup poll was conducted from July 1-19 among 1,200 U.S. adults. The margin of error is 4 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level.