Why do people believe in aliens and UFO's?

Why do people believe in aliens and UFO's?

Chris French (Anomalistic Psychologist) gives expert video advice on: Why do people believe in the paranormal?; Do most people believe in the paranormal?; How important are people's paranormal beliefs to them? and more...

When it comes to aliens, people often say to sceptics, “How can you possibly be so arrogant that you think that intelligent life has only evolved on this one tiny planet, when the universe is so vast?” And the truth is that most sceptics aren't actually saying that at all. Most scientists, although some would disagree, would accept the idea that the universe is such a big place that it is quite likely that life has evolved elsewhere and even that intelligent life has evolved elsewhere. But that's not the question. The question is really “Are we being visited on a regular basis by extraterrestrial life?” Now, if by UFOs people mean there are things up in the sky when you look up there and you don't know what they are, then we all accept that UFO's exist. But, of course, people don't mean that. They mean E.T. There are lots of explanations for why people might think they have seen an extraterrestrial craft. Usually, it's going to be explained in terms of something like the planet Venus, or a weather balloon, or an airplane seen from an unusual angle, or meteorites, or whatever else it may be. Usually we can figure out what it was people that actually saw that they mistook as being a UFO.