President Donald Trump has ordered federal agencies to begin releasing government files related to aliens and unidentified flying objects, describing the subject as “extremely interesting and important” and pointing to what he called strong public interest.
In a social media post on Thursday, Trump said he would direct Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth and other agencies to make the information public.
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In an interview with U.S. political podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen, former president Barack Obama was asked whether he believed in aliens. He said he does, but denied the existence of Area 51. Cohen and Obama also discussed current president Donald Trump, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the riots in Minnesota. #mothershipnews #mothershipabroad
Earlier in the day, Trump accused former President Barack Obama, without providing evidence, of improperly disclosing classified material when speaking publicly about aliens. “He took it out of classified information … He’s not supposed to be doing that,” Trump told reporters while traveling to Georgia.
During a podcast interview released on Saturday with host Brian Tyler Cohen, Obama was asked whether aliens were real. “They’re real, but I haven’t seen them, and they’re not being kept in … Area 51. There’s no underground facility unless there’s this enormous conspiracy and they hid it from the president of the United States,” he said.
There was no indication in Obama’s remarks that he disclosed classified information, and his office did not respond to a request for comment to Reuters. In a separate Instagram post on Sunday, Obama said he saw no evidence during his presidency that extraterrestrials had made contact with Earth. He added that while the statistical odds of life beyond Earth were high given the vastness of the universe, the likelihood of extraterrestrials visiting Earth was low due to the immense distances involved.
Trump said he had not personally seen evidence that aliens exist. “I don’t know if they’re real or not,” he said.
The issue of UFOs has drawn increased attention in recent years. The Pentagon has investigated reports of unidentified aerial phenomena, and senior military leaders said in 2022 they found no evidence that aliens had visited or crash-landed on Earth. A 2024 Pentagon report similarly concluded that U.S. government investigations since the end of World War Two found no evidence of extraterrestrial technology, with most sightings attributed to misidentified objects and natural phenomena.
Area 51, a classified Air Force facility in Nevada long associated with UFO speculation, was identified in CIA archives released in 2013 as a test site for top-secret spy planes.
