‘Abduction’: A VR Nightmare Landing on College Campuses

You’ve seen it in horror movies—aliens abducting humans and using them in experiments. But imagine if you were the one on the table, helpless, unable to control what was happening to you, and unable to communicate or fight back as you were poked and prodded for “research.” Pretty terrifying, right?

Well, this is exactly how animals must feel when used in cruel, needless experiments in laboratories on campuses all around the country. For them, the nightmare is real.

That’s why we’re bringing this nightmare to life for students with the launch of Abduction, a unique virtual reality experience soon landing on college campuses that house laboratories where animals are imprisoned and tormented.

In this eerie experience, visitors will enter a mysterious truck and put on a virtual reality headset. They’ll seemingly find themselves stranded in the desert with friends, abducted by aliens, taken aboard a spaceship, and subjected to a terrifying experience similar to what animals endure in laboratories: They’ll watch as their friends are subjected to experiments inspired by real tests conducted on animals, knowing that they’ll be next.

Abduction, which was filmed in VR180 with assistance from the virtual reality creation studio Prosper XR, will stop at several college campuses, including the following:

• George Washington University (Washington, D.C.), where experimenters drilled holes in the skulls of baby mice in order to inject tumor-causing cells into their brains
• Princeton University (Princeton, New Jersey), where experimenters cut into the heads of sensitive and intelligent monkeys, carved out a portion of their skulls, implanted a recording chamber, and inserted electrodes into their brains before forcing them to respond to images on a screen in exchange for a “reward” of juice
• University of Massachusetts–Amherst (Amherst, Massachusetts), where experimenters drill holes in the skulls of monkeys and implant electrodes, zip-tie the animals into restraining devices, and overheat them with hand warmers in order to simulate hot flashes associated with menopause, which they don’t even experience

Studies show that 90% of all basic research, most of which involves animals, fails to lead to treatments for humans, which is why PETA is pushing universities to pivot to sophisticated, human-relevant research methods.

Check Out Abduction and Help PETA Free Our Fellow Animals From Labs

Find out more about Abduction, and request that it visit your school’s campus. If you want to help PETA end the imprisonment of animals in laboratories, support our Research Modernization Deal, a roadmap to replace experiments on animals with modern, human-relevant research.