Chilling Virtual Reality Experience From peta2 Promises Close Encounters at East Tennessee State University
For Immediate Release:
September 5, 2024
Contact:
Brandi Pharris 202-483-7382
To encourage empathy for animals suffering in university laboratories, peta2—part of PETA’s youth division—is visiting East Tennessee State University next Wednesday through Friday with Abduction, an award-winning virtual reality experience landing on college campuses across the country. In this eerie experience, visitors will enter a mysterious truck containing a mobile virtual reality studio. The students will seemingly find themselves stranded in the desert with a couple of fellow humans, abducted by aliens, taken aboard a spaceship, and subjected to a shocking experience, similar to what animals endure in laboratories. They’ll watch as their friends are subjected to painful tests—knowing that they’ll be next.
When: Wednesday, September 11, through Friday, September 13, 11 a.m.–5 p.m.
Where: Borchuck Plaza, Charles C. Sherrod Library, 344 J.L. Seehorn Jr. Rd., Johnson City
Watch the trailer here.
At East Tennessee State University, experimenters have cut into dogs’ chests, restricted blood flow to different regions of their hearts, and severed their neural connections. In another laboratory, experimenters subjected mice to chronic, unpredictable stress by immobilizing them or placing them in a device that shook them by rotating. The mice were held in tilted cages or ones containing damp bedding. Experimenters have also induced sepsis in mice by cutting them open and forcing feces into their abdominal cavities and conducted the debunked forced swim test on mice before decapitating them.
“Many students don’t know that on their own college campuses, frightened and confused animals are being psychologically tormented, mutilated, and killed in laboratories, with no way to escape or even understand what’s happening to them,” says peta2 Vice President Rachelle Owen. “peta2 is on a mission to open young people’s eyes to this cruelty, help students understand what it feels like, and motivate them to join our call for a switch to superior, non-animal research.”
Studies show that 90% of all basic research—most of which involves animals—fails to lead to treatments for humans, which is why peta2 is pushing universities to pivot to sophisticated, human-relevant research methods.
Since its debut, Abduction has visited more than 50 college campuses from coast to coast, including Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of California–Los Angeles, and the University of Texas at Austin. Abduction—which was filmed in VR180 with assistance from the immersive content creation studio Prosper XR—won Gold and Audience honors at 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 free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit peta2.com or follow the group on TikTok or Instagram.
