People also report seeing aliens while dreaming, meditating and under the influence of hallucinogens.

So there are aliens, just maybe not in the direction that is popularly assumed.

I went through this/a similar rabbit hole in my preteen years and I found Raelism, lol. 😅

"Raëlism teaches that an extraterrestrial species known as the Elohim created humanity using their advanced technology. An atheistic religion, it holds that the Elohim have historically been mistaken for gods. It claims that throughout history the Elohim have created 40 Elohim/human hybrids who have served as prophets preparing humanity for news about their origins. Among them are The Buddha, Jesus, and Muhammad, with Raël himself the 40th and final prophet." - Wikipedia

Aliens are just Bigfoots that come from space.

Incidence of alien sighting and abduction stories have high correlation with the airing of movies featuring those themes. Notice that aliens only ever look like how a film depicted it first?

There are aliens, 100%. Statistically there must be, if only .000001% of planets could support life, that’d still be millions of planets in the universe that have it.

But…. none of them have ever visited earth. Space is too big of a place, it’s too empty, and life on earth is too young.

You rather missed my point

Fine

So there are aliens, just maybe not in the direction that is popularly assumed

There are subjective experiences that people characterize as "aliens". And the more people talk about aliens, the more exposure there is to the idea of aliens, which leads to more people describing a certain kind of subjective experience as "aliens".

Subjective experience of something some people characterize as aliens is real (as in: people genuinely have an experience). Does not mean aliens exist in consensus reality.

In your opinion, for it to exist in consensus reality, how much of the population needs to see it?

1%? 10? 80?

I'd say we'd need to be able to consistently capture it in some way other than the human mind:

any type of a recording. From basic audio/photo/video to fancy science gadgets.

Else, it's just a blip in the brain. A very real blip for those who experience it but again, not consensus reality. Of course if there was some kind of an universalish experience of aliens comparable to an emotional state like love, then we'd probably have to revise.

Ok, so how universalish? Gimme a percentage.

99% or so. Leaving just a tiny bit of room for outliers which always seem to exist.

The real aliens were inside us all along 🥰

Is agreeing with the 99% important to you? Do you feel anxious when strange ideas crop up in your mind?

I meant that to have the subjective experience of aliens to be considered to have the same level of reality as emotions, 99% of people would have to experience it.

I know I already experience things that vast majority of people don't. It doesn't bother me because there are people who experience things I don't. Consensus reality is fine for general use but the range of human experience is incredibly diverse.

You seem to bring up consensus as if it bears upon my post and then argue that it doesn't really bear. Maybe I'm not getting your point.

Just gave my view on the matter with precise language.

I made a distinction between a description of a subjective experience, and a claim about consensus reality.

People experience something and then use the best language available to talk about it. These experiences are viscerally real to the experiencer.

Vast majority of people will reasonably make a claim about consensus reality if they experience something that feels very real. Because vast majority of people don't know or understand that you CAN have a very visceral subjective experience that only happens in the brain. Or to put it another way: the brain behaves in a way that gives one every reason to think the experience happened in consensus reality.

It doesn't make them "crazy" or "stupid". But again, because most people don't understand the distinction between a subjective experience and consensus reality, it's easy to be dismissive of people who talk about outlandish experiences.

It would be more rational and kind to meet in the middle:
"I believe you had an experience, but I don't believe it means Aliens exist in consensus reality."

If you offer a party guest a bowl of ice-cream and then immediately assure him that it isn't tainted with semen, chances are the guest will pass on the ice cream.

You see how that works?