‘Aliens’ to Turn UW-Madison Students into Unwilling Test Subjects in Chilling peta2 VR Experience
For Immediate Release:
November 9, 2026
Contact:
Sara Groves 202-483-7382
A mysterious truck is rolling onto the University of Wisconsin–Madison (UW-Madison) campus, and students brave enough to venture inside will soon find themselves transported to an alien laboratory—where they’ll get a much closer encounter than they bargained for. It’s all part of Abduction—the award-winning virtual reality experience from peta2, part of PETA’s youth division—which is landing on campus this week as part of a nationwide tour to encourage empathy for animals caged and tormented in university laboratories.
During the immersive experience, participants find themselves seemingly stranded in the desert with a couple of fellow humans, only to be kidnapped by aliens, taken aboard a spaceship, and forced to watch as their friends are subjected to cruel, painful experiments—inspired by real experiments conducted on animals—knowing that they’ll be next.
When: Tuesday, November 10 – Thursday, November 12, 11 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Where: Outside of Memorial Union at UW-Madison, 800 Langdon St.
Watch the trailer here.
Credit: PETA
Studies show that 90 percent of basic research, most of which involves animals, fails to lead to treatments for humans. Yet at UW-Madison, experimenters at the school’s Wisconsin National Primate Research Center have infected monkeys with a mosquito-borne virus, probed their brains through holes drilled into their skulls, and torn baby monkeys away from their mothers. One UW–Madison experimenter has burned lesions into monkeys’ brains and used live snakes to frighten them. In a decades-long aging experiment, other UW–Madison experimenters cut rhesus monkeys’ daily calories by 30 percent to see whether they would live longer.
A PETA undercover video investigation also revealed that monkeys were held in barren steel cages and bleak, windowless rooms. Some showed signs of severe psychological distress, including incessant pacing, rocking, and pulling out their hair. One frustrated monkey mutilated his own leg down to the muscle, while others suffered injuries in fights with other stressed monkeys.
“The aliens in Abduction may be science fiction, but for animals caged in university laboratories, the nightmare scenario of being trapped, tormented, and subjected to painful experiments is all too real,” says peta2 Vice President Rachelle Owen. “peta2 is giving students a visceral look at the horrors of animal experimentation and inspiring them to join our call for a switch to superior, animal‑free research methods.”
Abduction has visited nearly 100 colleges and universities since its debut, earning rave reviews from students, who have described the experience as “a really effective way of getting the message across.” 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.
