Greetings from another small town Arkansas boy  (Pocahontas, Rector, and Searcy) now living in Tennessee.  I'm with you on this.  Sometimes I feel like I'm living in the Twilight Zone because so many people around me believe what seems to me to be zany, far out, and impossible.  Some of it is fear whipped up by certain media as you said.  And some of the time, they want to believe it, to help prove something their  ego has invested in, I guess.