Intense Virtual Reality Experience From peta2 Puts UConn Students at the Mercy of AI-Powered Aliens

For Immediate Release:
April 4, 2025

Contact:
Sara Groves 202-483-7382

Storrs, Conn. –

Can students convince a powerful, advanced alien species to set them free? That’s the objective behind When They Came for Us, the immersive new virtual reality experience coming to college campuses courtesy of peta2, part of PETA’s youth division. Visitors of the eerie experience, which lands at the University of Connecticut next week, will find themselves “abducted” by an all-powerful intergalactic captor.

The alien is powered by groundbreaking OpenAI technology that enables users to have real-time spoken conversations with them. They see humans as inferior and exploitable, and the students will be forced to argue for their freedom and make a case for why they shouldn’t be used for the alien’s purposes. The alien has unique replies depending on what the student says, creating a custom encounter for each participant. The experience aims to help students confront their own speciesism—the misguided belief that one’s own species is more important than others.

Where: Outside the UConn Student Union, 2110 Hillside Road, Storrs

When: Monday, April 7 through Thursday, April 10, 11 a.m.–5 p.m. daily

Students have praised the one-of-a-kind experience, with one Temple University student describing its message as “the most profound thing that I’ve heard about animal rights” and adding that the encounter “changed something inside me.” Watch the trailer here.

*An image from the experience. Credit: PETA*

“When They Came for Us uses cutting-edge AI and VR technology to give students a glimpse at what it’s like to be a chicken crammed into a tiny cage, a sheep cut to ribbons on a wool farm, or a rat imprisoned in a laboratory on their own campus,” says PETA Associate Director Kenneth Montville. “peta2 encourages anyone horrified by the thought of being caught in these exploitative industries to stop supporting them and live vegan.”

The tour will visit other top schools in the Northeast, including Brown University.

peta2—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers young people positive, empowering actions to help animals and free guides to going vegan for anyone thinking of making the switch. For more information, please visit peta2.com or follow peta2 on TikTok or Instagram.