Alien UFO Invasion Will 'Save Earth from World War III': Latest Conspiracy Theory Shows People Really Want To Believe In Extraterrestrial Life

President Barack Obama and Russia President Vladimir Putin are probably not tied to a global conspiracy to protect the Earth from a September 2017 alien invasion. But to hear the tabloids tell it, a leaked top-secret Kremlin "report" circulating on the internet shows that Putin has meet with Vice President Joe Biden in multiple meetings to discuss how to create an "Earth-wide" missile defense system to stop the looming UFO invasion.

NASA satellites have found a "miles-wide" alien UFO invasion fleet expected to make it to Earth by September 2017, British tabloid the Daily Star reported Sunday. "While some believe that the aliens are a hostile war-like extraterrestrial species and that mankind could be facing a threat of extinction due to military invasion and extermination of our race, others have expressed faith that the aliens are a benevolent species coming to save Earth from World War III between the U.S. and Russia," the Inquisitr, an aggregate news site owned by an Israeli businessman, wrote Friday.

The conspiracy theory has bounced around internet chatrooms since at least January 2014. Believers claim the invasion was predicted by Nostradamus and the Bible's Book of Revelation.

No credible news outlet has covered the story and there is no evidence that the White House, Pentagon, NASA or any other U.S. government agency is preparing for the rumored invasion. But that probably won't stop at least some Americans from falling for the story.

A majority of Americans believe alien life exists, various polls show. A poll from market-research company YouGov found last year that 56 percent of Germans believe, as do 54 percent of Americans and 52 percent of Brits. Only one-fifth of Americans and British said they weren't sure whether there was intelligent life beyond Earth. A 2012 survey from National Geographic found even more Americans were certain aliens could become part of our daily lives. In that poll, 77 percent of Americans said aliens had visited Earth at some point.

Susan Krauss Whitbourne, professor of psychological and brain sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, said social networks and websites dedicated to UFOs help fuel conspiracy theories related to alien invasions and discoveries.

"People have more of an outlet now. You can find people to listen to you but you can also get information that feeds those beliefs you already have," she told IBTimes UK. "I think people who are going to be skeptical will always be skeptical and vice versa. Once you have a belief system, you fit the facts into that belief system, so I doubt if anyone is looking at it rationally."

Count many NASA scientists and other researchers among the believers. Scientists informed Congress in 2014 that the components necessary for life are "perhaps ubiquitous" in the Milky Way galaxy and popular astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson also believes in aliens. Most recently, scientists at University of California, Berkeley said they were using one of the world's largest telescopes to explore possible life on a star located nearly 1,500 light-years from Earth.