Whether it’s about flat Earth or Americans’ falsifying landing on the Moon in 1969, there are many people in Russia that believe in conspiracy theories.

Most Russians over the age of 45 believe Americans falsified Moon landing

Researchers of WCIOM.ru asked locals about their views on major conspiracy theories, including HIV, vaccination, flat Earth, aliens from the outer space, and purposeful efforts to destroy traditional family values in Russia.

Surprisingly, even in 2020 there are enough people who believe the Earth is flat!

Unless, of course, the respondents were simply giving this answer out of annoyance, which could be the case. The questions were asked via phone, which can lead to lower levels of truthfulness, as compared to a personal interview. WCIOM’s surveys are based most often on answers of only 1,600 respondents, with the margin of statistical error at 2.5%. Thus, answers where only 3-4% of responses deviate from the common norm could be just a form of mischief, especially if they are about such things as flat Earth: Only 2% of respondents believe in that in 2020 (32 people in the survey).

But in questions where over 20% of respondents picked a certain answer, we can definitely talk about a strong trend.

As such, 49% of respondents who don’t believe in Americans’ landing on the Moon in 1969 aren’t a statistical glitch: 2 years ago in 2018 the share of non-believers in 1969 Moon landing was 57%. Among people aged 45+, over 55% of respondents think it was a purposeful falsification by the USA government to report about the successful mission on the Moon.

1 in 3 Russians believe that aliens from the outer space visit the Earth

Another thing that Russians tend to believe in is extraterrestrial beings’ visiting the Earth: In total, 36% of respondents in 2020 said they think that aliens have already been on our planet. Among these people, 13% think that governments hide this fact from us, while 23% believe that aliens don’t wish to be seen by people and hide from the humanity.

Less than half of the respondents (48%) said they don’t think that aliens are visiting our planet or exist at all, while 16% took the option “Difficult to answer”.

15% of Russians are against vaccinations

The share of Russians who don’t believe in the benefits of vaccinations is 30%: Half of these respondents (15% of total sample) think that vaccines are useless, while the other half (15% of all survey participants) are convinced that vaccination does more harm than good.

Only slightly more than half (54%) of survey participants from Russia agreed that vaccinations are useful. 16% took the easy option out, saying it was hard to answer.

Given the recent announcement by the Russian government that they have developed a vaccine for the virus that caused 2020 pandemic, it’s an interesting finding, especially knowing that the target for mass vaccinations is 60% of the population.

Data: WCIOM

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