12 Million Americans Believe Lizard People Run Our Country

12 Million Americans Believe Lizard People Run Our Country

About 90 million Americans believe aliens exist. Some 66 million of us think aliens landed at Roswell in 1948. These are the things you learn when there's a lull in political news and pollsters get to ask whatever questions they want.

Update, October 31: We've figured out who the government reptilians are, using science.

Public Policy Polling has raised weird polls to an art form. During last year's presidential campaign, the firm earned a bit of a reputation for its unorthodox questions; for example, "If God exists, do you approve of its handling of natural disasters?"

Today PPP released the results of a national survey looking at common conspiracy theories. Broken down by topic and cross-referenced by political preference, the results will not inspire a lot of patriotism. If you need to defend your fellow countrymen, be sure to note that the margin of error is 2.8 percent.

We took the findings and arranged them from most- to least-believed. And, just to inspire additional shame, figured out how many actual Americans that meant must believe in things like the danger of fluoride in water. (28 million, if you're wondering.)

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View the full question asked for each conspiracy.

Conspiracy

Percent believing

Number of Americans believing

JFK was killed by conspiracy

51 percent

160,096,160

Bush intentionally misled on Iraq WMDs

44 percent

138,122,178

Global warming is a hoax

37 percent

116,148,195

Aliens exist

29 percent

91,035,072

New World Order

28 percent

87,895,931

Hussein was involved in 9/11

28 percent

87,895,931

A UFO crashed at Roswell

21 percent

65,921,948

Vaccines are linked to autism

20 percent

62,782,808

The government controls minds with TV

15 percent

47,087,106

Medical industry invents diseases

15 percent

47,087,106

CIA developed crack

14 percent

43,947,966

Bigfoot exists

14 percent

43,947,966

Obama is the Antichrist

13 percent

40,808,825

The government allowed 9/11

11 percent

34,530,544

Fluoride is dangerous

9 percent

28,252,264

The moon landing was faked

7 percent

21,973,983

Bin Laden is alive

6 percent

18,834,842

Airplane contrails are sinister chemicals

5 percent

15,695,702

McCartney died in 1966

5 percent

15,695,702

Lizard people control politics

4 percent

12,556,562

Just to further inspire conversation, PPP broke down belief in each theory by whom the respondent supported in the 2012 election. This yielded some genuinely interesting results.

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For example, only three conspiracies were more commonly believed by Obama supporters: that Bush intentionally misled America about Iraq's WMDs (a massive 69 percent of his supporters believe that one), that the CIA launched the crack epidemic, and that the moon landing was faked. There are two theories with equal support among Obama and Romney supporters: that aliens exist and the one about fluoridation. Everything else, from lizard people to vaccines and autism to global warming being a hoax? Believed by more Romney supporters.

No conspiracy was less commonly believed than one suggesting that the government is populated by lizard people. But that's mostly because only 2 percent of Obama supporters believe the theory while 5 percent of Romney supporters do.

This article was originally published at http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/04/12-million-americans-believe-lizard-people-run-our-country/63799/

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