25 Percent Of All Russians Believe Alien Contact Will Happen

MOSCOW, APRIL 12 (RIA NOVOSTI) - ALMOST ONE IN FOUR RUSSIANS (23 PERCENT) EXPECT THE HUMAN RACE TO BE CONTACTED BY REPRESENTATIVES OF AN ALIEN CIVILIZATION IN THE NEXT 50 YEARS, ACCORDING TO AN OPINION POLL PUBLISHED ON FRIDAY.

But a majority of Russians (53 percent) said they did not believe in aliens.

"Those who believed that contact would be beneficial for humanity were two times greater than those who believed the opposite," the Public Opinion Foundation pollster said in a statement.

The poll was carried out to mark Cosmonauts Day, which commemorates Soviet cosmonaut Yury Gagarin's groundbreaking flight into space in 1961.

The findings come shortly after an influential archpriest in Russia's Orthodox Church said people often mistook angels and demons for aliens.

The poll, which quizzed 1,500 respondents, had a margin of error no greater than 5 percent.

HERE IS ANOTHER STORY FROM RIA ABOUT ALIENS BEING MISTAKEN FOR ANGELS AND DEMONS;

ARCHPRIEST CHAPLINMOSCOW, APRIL 9 (RIA NOVOSTI) - ANGELS AND DEMONS DO REALLY EXIST, BUT ARE OFTEN MISTAKEN FOR "SO-CALLED ALIENS" BY THOSE WHO ENCOUNTER THEM, A SENIOR RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH CLERGYMAN SAID.

"They are real creatures, humans come into contact with them as they sometimes reveal themselves," Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, who oversees the Church's public relations, told RIA Novosti in an interview when asked about Christianity's attitude to ufology.

When speaking about the meteorite that fell on Russian territory in February, Chaplin said that people should always remember that life is fragile, "even without any meteorites."http://www.educatinghumanity.com/feeds/posts/default