US President Donald Trump said on Thursday he will direct Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth and other relevant agencies to begin identifying and releasing government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs).
Donald Trump on Thursday accused former President Barack Obama of disclosing classified information when he recently said that aliens were real, but Trump did not cite any evidence to support the allegation.
"He took it out of classified information ... He’s not supposed to be doing that," Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One while traveling to Georgia. "He made a big mistake."
During an interview with podcast host Brian Tyler Cohen released on Saturday, Obama was asked if aliens are 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," Obama said.
Area 51 is a classified Air Force facility in Nevada that fringe theorists have speculated holds alien bodies and a crashed spaceship. CIA archives released in 2013 said it was a test site for top-secret spy planes.
No indication of classified information
There was no indication in his remarks that the former president relied on classified information.
“I saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us. Really!” Obama said in an Instagram post on Sunday.
In the post, Obama explained his belief that aliens exist by saying the statistical odds of life beyond Earth were high because the universe is so vast. He added that the chances of extraterrestrial life visiting Earth were low, given the distance.
On Thursday, Trump said, "I don’t know if they’re real or not" when asked whether he had seen evidence that aliens exist.
The White House said it had nothing to add to the president's comments. Obama's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Pentagon, in recent years, undertook a push to investigate reports of unidentified flying objects, and senior military leaders said in 2022 they found no evidence that aliens have visited Earth or crash-landed here.
A 2024 Pentagon report said US government investigations since the end of World War II have found no evidence of extraterrestrial technology, and most sightings were misidentified as ordinary objects and phenomena.