A frenzy among believers in extraterrestrial life was sparked by an excerpt from a podcast featuring former US President Barack Obama, in which he answered “yes” to the question of whether aliens are real.
“Are aliens real?” asked Brian Tyler Cohen, with the former US President responding: “they are real but I haven’t seen them.”
As if wanting to add even more “fuel to the fire,” Obama hastened to add “we don’t keep them hidden in Area 51. There is no underground facility unless there’s a massive conspiracy being hidden from the US President.”
“And what was the first question you asked when you became President?” Obama was asked, and he replied laughing “where are the aliens.”
my entire feed is obama confirming alienspic.twitter.com/JFLAn82eX9
— Supreme (@supremebeme) February 15, 2026
Obama’s response triggered a series of headlines such as “Former US President Barack Obama says aliens are real” and “‘They are real’: Obama’s shocking statements about aliens.” Time magazine characteristically reported: “Obama says aliens are real, but they’re not in Area 51.”
Barack Obama’s clarifying statement
All this forced Barack Obama to issue a clarifying statement via Instagram on Sunday evening in which he wrote that “I was trying to keep up with the spirit of the ‘rapid-fire’ Q&A, but since it’s gotten attention, let me be clear. Statistically, the universe is so vast that the chances of life existing out there are high. But the distances between solar systems are so great that the chances of aliens having visited us are small, and I saw no evidence during my presidency that aliens have made contact with us. Truth!”
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The conspiracy theory suggests that the US government is hiding aliens in Area 51, a highly classified Air Force base in Nevada.
Documents released in 2013 revealed that the secret airstrip was actually used for aerial testing of US government programs, including the U-2 and Oxcart surveillance programs: “High-altitude U-2 testing soon led to an unexpected side effect – a massive increase in reports of unidentified flying objects (UFOs).”
