Abduction

To deliver a powerful animal rights message, peta2 introduces Abduction—a first-of-its-kind virtual reality experience in which the analogy of an alien abduction allows participants to better comprehend what animals used for laboratory experiments endure. In this five-minute, nongraphic experience, participants engage in a series of scenes inspired by real-life experiments on animals—but humans are the test subjects in an alien lab. The empathy-building exhibit travels across the U.S. in a UFO-themed truck and “abducts” 2,000 students during its first year on the road. Students call the experience “psychologically powerful” and say that “it really humanizes what animals go through.” Abduction visits more than 35 university campuses and public spaces, including the University of California–Los Angeles, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Harvard, Yale, and Brown universities.

Over the course of the 2023–24 academic year, peta2’s virtual reality exhibit Abduction visits 34 universities across 18 states, including the Ohio State University, Rutgers, and the University of Texas at Austin. During this time, we show it to 2,253 participants and distribute more than 52,000 pieces of literature to educate students on the horrors of animal testing taking place at universities just like their own.