Elaine KnoxAbout a fifth of the UKs population now believes Earth has probably been visited by aliens. Probably is not certainly, but the number is still high. It is higher still in the US, where belief in UFOs has risen from 34 per cent in 2007 to 42 per cent in 2023. This is a real shift and a societal problem.Odd ideas such as fortune telling and belief in ghosts have always had some currency. But such sympathies tend to be offshoots of religious traditions involving the supernatural, and have little connection to shifting political trends.By contrast,