Numlock Sunday: Jamie Ballard talks American belief in cryptozoology, aliens, and ghosts

Photo by Jon Sailer on Unsplash

By Walt Hickey

Welcome to the Numlock Sunday edition.

This week, I spoke to Jamie Ballard who wrote Half of Americans believe aliens have visited Earth for YouGov. Here’s what I wrote about it:

A new survey found that 28 percent of Americans believe that Bigfoot definitely or probably exists, though only 23 percent believe that the Yeti exists and just 16 percent believe that the Chupacabra exists. Furthermore, 22 percent believe that the Loch Ness monster is real. This result is somewhat peculiar — the gap between Bigfoot belief and Yeti belief is mildly vexing, given, you know, the sheer size of the potential range of a Himalayan Sasquatch versus the dwindling old-growth American forests that could potentially support an American variety. Also, that’s a pretty big number in favor of the Loch Ness monster, an impressive feat with the overwhelmingly scant documentary evidence and the infamously small habitat for the beast. Still, despite our many differen…