How can this percentage be so high?

80 per cent of Americans surveyed by the CNN TV news network believe that their government is hiding evidence of the existence of space aliens.

http://cosmicvariance.com/2005/10/02/the-world-eyes-american-ignorance/#comment-4413

I dont believe it simply because thatd mean nearly everyone I saw walking down the street was an alien-conspiracy-nutjob

Well what do you expect?  99% of documents marked secret by the US government are just routine bureaucratic crap.  The US stamps "top secret" on everything, even though most information is available through other sources.  The US still hasn't acknowledged Area 51 even though you can see it on Google Earth.

If the US wants to reduce the level of retardation, it would open up all the files.  There could be rare exceptions for things that legitimately need to be protected such as ultra modern weapons systems or CIA employment records.  Still, as things are today, Cheney could have put Marvin Martian on his energy task force and we wouldn't be the wiser.

But if theyre just 99% bureaucratic crap then whats the harm in keeping it secret? It isnt like anyone within the American public is going to care to read it. They already have regular declassifications, which should convince the public that theyre not hiding anything that important beyond new weapons systems and such - but the public still wants to believe in the crazy alien conspiracies

>>3

It's much easier for the average person to realize how mundane and boring the mechanics of government are if they have better access to the inner workings.  Even the most vital and important programs have mountains of invoices, contracts, memorandums, advisories, etc..

People like me and you see that the federal government is the countries largest employer because it needs to handle that necessary but drab work on a national scale.  The average person looks at the size of the federal government and thinks "OMG conspiracy!"

I believe that 80 percent of the American people are hiding the government from CNN.

No wonder CNN doesnt know the government