UFO belief stayed remarkably stable and high across five decades of polling.

Evidence

Two aspects of these fi gures are particularly striking. First, they have remained astonishingly stable over a fi fty-year period. What might have been an early Cold War fad clearly came to occupy a semipermanent niche in the American psyche. Second, the level of belief was not only relatively stable; it was extraordinarily high, regardless of when the survey was taken or by which polling organization. Even if one compensates for problems of sampling or the wording of questions, tens of millions of Americans accept the reality of UFOs. — Michael Barkun, A Culture of Conspiracy, 408

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the stability of millenarian conviction across time from earlier chapters; a durable-belief pattern. — connects to: UFO interest spans millions far beyond the active subculture’s size. — Michael Barkun, A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic…, 403; Conspiracy belief rates may be stable while their reach has exploded — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects…, 227; UFO believers are a large, stable, mainstream slice of the American public — Michael Barkun, A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic…, 408

Broader Connections

• Conspiracy belief rates may be stable while their reach has exploded #expands (0.78) — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof, 227