STUART, Fla. — This story is literally out of this world, and it will have you looking toward the sky.
We're talking about extraterrestrial life! A new exhibit at the Elliott Museum on Florida's East Coast is challenging everything we think we know.
WATCH: The truth is out there at the Elliott Museum
Aliens, UFOs, unexplained crop circles, and these days, drones, have us wondering what's really out there. Sightings of extraterrestrial life have been making front page headlines for the past 80 years.
Visitors will have the chance to interact with three different A.I. chat boxes. Each ufologist avatar is based on a real-life scientist. These avatars can answer questions about the information you learn throughout the exhibit.
Jes Robinson is the creative director here at the Elliott Museum, which sits seaside in the city of Stuart.
Making its world premiere, Robinson speaks to the start of when extraterrestrial life started making headlines in the news.
"It really starts with the kind of advent of atomic program energy here in America in the '40s in WWII and that's when the huge prevalence of modern era sightings kind of takes place."
It's a topic that is both thought-provoking and controversial. A 2022 study by YouGov America found 57% of Americans believe aliens definitely or probably exist.
Robinson says the aim of the exhibit is to let the visitor form their own opinions, "without giving you any opinion you must believe, it just presents the evidence."
Evidence that lines the walls through newspaper articles and videos documenting human interactions with the unknown.
Florida is second only to California in the number of UFO sightings in the U.S. The Golden State reports nearly 12,000 sightings and Florida tops 5,000.
Robinson tells us there is a high number of clusters of sightings near nuclear bases.
"Why as a society do we have such a hard time taking this seriously," said Robinson. Right, is it because there have been so many hoaxes, so many differing opinions, so much objective. Well it could be this or it could be that and a lack of physical evidence... really... that's the big ticket right there."
The exhibit walks visitors through three sections: denial, disclosure, and discernment.
J. Allen Hynek is the ufologist avatar in the denial section. Hynek investigated UFOs in the late '50s and early '60s for the federal government.
"I was involved with projects like Project Blue Book, where my task was to find conventional explanations for these sightings" said Hynek.
Hynek concluded 80% of sightings were hoaxes or explainable items. But what about the other 20%?
"There were a few that just could not be explained and so he brought science into it and said let's take a scientific approach to this" said Robinson.
One of the believers is Dr. Steven Greer, who fought for the public release of the government's knowledge on UFOs in the '90s.
I asked the avatar based on Greer if he was becoming more or less convinced in the existence of UFOs as he continues to study and research.
"More convinced, absolutely. The more evidence we gather from credible witnesses to declassify documents the clearer it becomes UFOs are real and their implications for humanity are profound," answered Greer.
The UFO exhibit runs through the end of August. Robinson encourages visitors to come with an open mind about a mystery that's hard to wrap your mind around.
"Once they move through it's interesting to see when people have an aha moment," said Robinson.
