Authored by Rachel Roberts via The Epoch Times,

Former U.S. President Barack Obama said in a Feb. 14 podcast interview that aliens are real but that none are kept at the secretive Area 51 military base in the Nevada desert, later adding that he didn’t see any evidence indicating that extraterrestrials have contacted Earth during his presidency.

In the interview, when asked, “Are aliens real?” Obama replied, “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.”

Obama became the first leader of the United States to affirm the existence of extraterrestrial life when questioned by progressive podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen in a video posted on YouTube.

After the interview went viral, Obama said on Instagram that he wanted to “clarify” his comments to Cohen, writing that he was “trying to stick with the spirit of the speed round” while speaking on the podcast.

“Statistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are good there’s life out there,” he wrote. “But the distances between solar systems are so great that the chances we’ve been visited by aliens is low, and I saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us. Really!”

In 2013, Obama was possibly the first U.S. leader to acknowledge the existence of Area 51, an Air Force base built during the Cold War, which has long been rumored to house extraterrestrials and unidentified flying objects (UFOs).

Cohen did not ask Obama a follow-up question on the issue. Instead, he asked the former president what his first question had been upon entering the White House. “Where are the aliens?” Obama joked in response.

Some critics, including British political commentator Calvin Robinson, said Cohen should have asked Obama for more information about aliens.

“When a former President of the United States says on the record there are aliens, YOU FOLLOW UP WITH RELEVANT QUESTIONS. You do not continue reading from your script,” he wrote on X.

The U.S. government first acknowledged Area 51’s existence in 2013 through a Freedom of Information request and has declassified documents detailing its history and purpose. The base has been a testing ground for a host of top-secret aircraft, including the U-2 in the 1950s and later the F-117 stealth fighter.

Trump Admin on Aliens

President Donald Trump has expressed skepticism about the existence of aliens, while acknowledging that “anything is possible.”

Trump addressed the subject in several media appearances during the 2024 presidential campaign. On a podcast with Lex Fridman, Trump said he would consider pushing the Pentagon to release additional UFO footage that many believe is classified.

“Oh yeah, sure, I’ll do that. I would do that. I’d love to do that,” Trump said, noting that public pressure to disclose records relating to UFOs is similar to that surrounding the John F. Kennedy assassination.

On Logan Paul’s “Impaulsive” podcast in June 2025, Trump said, “Am I a believer? No, I can’t say I am."

“But I have met with people, serious people, that say there’s some really strange things flying around out there.”

Trump added that given the size of the universe, “Why wouldn’t there be something, somebody?”

Vice President JD Vance has expressed his personal enthusiasm, telling the “Ruthless” podcast in August 2025 that he is “obsessed with the whole UFO thing.”

“What’s actually going on? What were those videos all about? What’s actually happening?” Vance probed.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said last August that she believes aliens may exist and that the U.S. government holds classified information on the subject.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard in Washington on Dec. 2, 2025. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images

Gabbard pledged to share disclosures from ongoing investigations into UFOs amid growing discussion of the phenomena at the highest levels of government.

Pentagon Cases Unresolved

The Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) continues to investigate more than 1,600 reports of “unidentified aerial phenomena,” an official term that has largely replaced “UFOs.”

At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing in November 2024, AARO’s director, Jon T. Kosloski, detailed cases the military believes it has solved—such as the widely circulated 2016 “GOFAST” video, now thought to show an object flying at 13,000 feet rather than right above the water—as well as other incidents which have so far defied explanation.

Previous presidents, including Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, have discussed their curiosity about alien life without confirming a belief in it.

Carter reported that he saw an unidentified bright object in the sky when he was governor of Georgia in 1969, although he later said it was likely a natural phenomenon.

A view of Area 51. Google Maps/Screenshot via The Epoch Times

Clinton said that he was curious about the possibility of extraterrestrial life and that he had asked aides to look into both Area 51 and the Roswell incident of 1947, which gave rise to much speculation about a government cover-up. After Air Force personnel recovered metallic and rubber debris near Roswell, New Mexico, the U.S. Army Air Forces announced that they were in possession of a “flying disc” before retracting the statement within a day.

Clinton said he was told there was no evidence of alien life in connection with the incident. In 1995, he joked about the Roswell incident, saying, “If the U.S. Air Force did recover any alien bodies, they didn’t tell me about it.”

The American public is increasingly convinced that aliens exist and have visited Earth, according to recent polls. More than half (56 percent) of Americans believe extraterrestrials definitely or probably exist, according to a 2025 YouGov poll.

Democrat (61 percent) and Independent (59 percent) voters are more likely than Republicans (46 percent) to believe aliens exist, with 73 percent of Americans believing the government would hide evidence of UFOs if it had any, and just 13 percent thinking it would be transparent, according to the same survey.