Former US President Barack Obama said he believes in extraterrestrial life but admitted he doesn’t know where such beings might be in a podcast interview with YouTuber Brian Tyler Cowen published on Saturday.
“They’re real, but I haven’t seen them,” Obama said. He added: “They’re not being held at Area 51, there’s no underground facility, unless there’s this huge conspiracy and they’re hiding it from the President of the United States.”
Area 51 is said to be a top secret US Air Force facility located at Groom Lake, Nevada. For decades, it has attracted the attention of conspiracy theorists who claim that the government is hiding alien spaceships and extraterrestrial remains at the site.
Some theories about covert operations at the site claim it houses studies and attempts to reverse-engineer crashed alien spacecraft, including debris allegedly recovered from Roswell, New Mexico in 1947.
Others suggest the device is being used to develop a range of advanced technologies, from intergalactic weapons and time travel to teleportation devices or even weather control systems, The Independent reports.
Renewed focus on UFO sightings
Interest in the possibility of extraterrestrial contact with Earth has increased in recent years following the release of government documents detailing several unexplained aircraft sightings. Leaked radar footage captured 13 years ago by US Air Force Reaper drones reportedly shows Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs), the government’s revised term for UFOs, moving through the airspace over West Asia.
In 2021, the Pentagon released three unclassified Navy videos showing unusual objects streaking across the sky as US personnel reacted with amazement. One of the UAPs appeared to spin while flying against the wind. Notably, this was not the first time that former President Barack Obama spoke about aliens and UFOs.
“When it comes to aliens, there are some things I just can’t tell you on the air,” he joked during a 2021 interview with The Late Late Show host James Corden.
He later confirmed that the UAP sightings were genuine and said the government was unable to determine the origin of the craft or explain their unusual flight behavior. He added that there is indeed footage and documentation of objects in the sky, the exact nature of which remains unknown, and emphasized that he meant it.
Obama’s remarks about Area 51 and aliens came months after the filmmaker behind a documentary alleging a massive government cover-up of alien intelligence suggested Donald Trump may soon acknowledge the existence of extraterrestrial life.
“I think it’s only a matter of time before the release of this movie is followed by a sitting president who steps up to the stage and tells the world, ‘We’re not alone in the universe,'” Dan Farah, director of The Age of Disclosure, told Entertainment Weekly in late November.