United States: Roper survey suggests 3.7 million Americans think they were abducted
In May 1992, the Roper Organization released its Unusual Personal Experiences survey of nearly 6,000 US adults, devised by Budd Hopkins, David Jacobs and Ron Westrum and financed by the Bigelow Holding Corporation, which suggested that 2% of adult Americans (more than 3.7 million) believed they had been abducted.
Background
The Roper Organization released the results of its “Unusual Personal Experiences” survey of nearly 6,000 US adults, conducted in 1991 and devised by Budd Hopkins, David Jacobs and Ron Westrum. Its aim was to estimate how widespread the abduction phenomenon might be. Five indicator questions asked about sleep paralysis, dreams of flying, missing time, unusual lights inside a room and puzzling body scars. The poll, financed by the Bigelow Holding Corporation, suggested that 2% of adult Americans, more than 3.7 million people, believed they had been abducted by aliens. Critiques followed in the Journal of UFO Studies by Hall, Rodeghier and Johnson (1992) and in the Skeptical Inquirer by Stires and Klass (1993) and Blackmore (1998). The account follows the entry in George M. Eberhart's chronology UFOs and Intelligence (CUFOS) and the sources cited there; it is not an independent determination by From Beyond Space.