Close Encounters on Your Campus: It’s PETA’s ‘Abduction’ Experience!

Published by Elena Waldman.

You’ve seen it in horror movies—aliens abducting humans and using them in experiments. But imagine if you were the one on the table, helpless, unable to control what was happening to you, and unable to communicate or fight back as you were poked and prodded for “research.” Pretty terrifying, right?

Well, this is exactly how animals must feel when used in cruel, needless experiments in laboratories on campuses all around the country. For them, the nightmare is real.

That’s why we’re bringing this nightmare to life for students with the launch of Abduction, a unique virtual reality experience soon landing on college campuses that house laboratories where animals are imprisoned and tormented.

In this eerie experience, visitors will enter a mysterious truck and put on a virtual reality headset. They’ll seemingly find themselves stranded in the desert with friends, abducted by aliens, taken aboard a spaceship, and subjected to a terrifying experience similar to what animals endure in laboratories: They’ll watch as their friends are subjected to experiments inspired by real tests conducted on animals, knowing that they’ll be next.

Abduction, which was filmed in VR180 with assistance from the virtual reality creation studio Prosper XR, will stop at several college campuses, including the following:

  • George Washington University (Washington, D.C.), where experimenters drilled holes in the skulls of baby mice in order to inject tumor-causing cells into their brains
  • Princeton University (Princeton, New Jersey), where experimenters cut into the heads of sensitive and intelligent monkeys, carved out a portion of their skulls, implanted a recording chamber, and inserted electrodes into their brains before forcing them to respond to images on a screen in exchange for a “reward” of juice
  • University of Massachusetts–Amherst (Amherst, Massachusetts), where experimenters drill holes in the skulls of monkeys and implant electrodes, zip-tie the animals into restraining devices, and overheat them with hand warmers in order to simulate hot flashes associated with menopause, which they don’t even experience

Studies show that 90% of all basic research, most of which involves animals, fails to lead to treatments for humans, which is why PETA is pushing universities to pivot to sophisticated, human-relevant research methods.

text reads abduction over image of aliens and huddled humans

Keep Reading to See How PETA’s ‘Abduction’ Tour Is Taking Over

Update (October 27, 2022): On October 26, “aliens” crash-landed on the rooftop of PETA’s Bob Barker Building in Los Angeles to give influencers, celebs, and other partygoers a firsthand glimpse of the Abduction virtual reality experience.

Attendees of PETA’s Abduction event—including social media influencers Jessica Killings, Will Moncada, and Kyra Lizama—were transported to a spaceship and subjected to terrifying experiments that resemble what our fellow animals face in laboratories.

Abduction will launch on campuses across the country, putting students in the place of monkeys, rats, mice, and other animals who are mutilated and killed in cruel, useless tests.

Check Out Abduction and Help PETA Free Our Fellow Animals From Labs

Find out more about Abduction, and request that it visit your school’s campus. If you want to help PETA end the imprisonment of animals in laboratories, support our Research Modernization Deal, a roadmap to replace experiments on animals with modern, human-relevant research.

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 Ingrid E. Newkirk

“Almost all of us grew up eating meat, wearing leather, and going to circuses and zoos. We never considered the impact of these actions on the animals involved. For whatever reason, you are now asking the question: Why should animals have rights?” READ MORE

— Ingrid E. Newkirk, PETA President and co-author of Animalkind