Alien Encounters Coming to Middle Georgia State University, Courtesy of Eerie VR Experience From peta2

For Immediate Release:
March 17, 2026

Contact:
Sara Groves 202-483-7382

Macon, Ga. –

Close encounters of an eye-opening kind will await students at Middle Georgia State University this week, when peta2—part of PETA’s youth division—lands on campus with its award-winning virtual reality experience, Abduction, as part of a nationwide tour to encourage empathy for animals caged and tormented in university laboratories.

Visitors to the chilling experience will enter a mysterious truck containing a mobile virtual reality studio and find themselves seemingly stranded in the desert with a couple of fellow humans, only to be abducted by aliens, taken aboard a spaceship, and subjected to a terrifying scenario that mirrors what other species endure in laboratories. They’ll watch as their friends are subjected to painful tests—knowing that they’ll be next.

When: Wednesday, March 18 – Friday, March 20, 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. each day

Where: Outside of the Student Life Center, 100 University Pkwy, Macon

Watch the trailer here. Broadcast-quality footage of the Abduction virtual reality experience is available upon request.

Text reads: Imagine having your body left to science-while you're still in it. Abduction arriving at a campus near you this spring

Credit: PETA.

Studies show that 90% of all basic research—most of which involves animals—fails to lead to treatments for humans. That’s why peta2 is pushing universities nationwide to invest in research relevant to humans through Research Modernization NOW, a roadmap to better science.

“The nightmare illusion of being used as an unwilling test subject eventually ends for students visiting Abduction, but the terrified animals who are tormented in laboratories on college campuses have no escape,” says peta2 Vice President Rachelle Owen. “peta2’s immersive VR experience is opening students’ eyes to the horrors of animal experimentation and moving them to join our call for a switch to superior, non-animal research.”

Since its debut, Abduction has traveled from coast to coast, visiting nearly 100 colleges and universities, including Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of California–Los Angeles, and the University of Texas at Austin. Students have hailed Abduction as “a really effective way of getting the message across” and said that it opened their eyes to the cruelty of experiments on animals, with one student saying, “I gotta go find the labs on this campus … I can’t believe they’re doing these things here.”

Abduction was filmed in VR180 with assistance from the immersive content creation studio Prosper XR, won “Gold” and “Audience” honors in the 2023 Shorty Impact Awards, and was a nominee for the 2024 Webby Awards.

peta2—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers young people positive, empowering actions to help animals. For more information, please visit peta2.com or follow peta2 on TikTok or Instagram.