President Donald Trump said he will direct federal agencies to start releasing government files connected to unidentified flying objects and aliens, citing what he described as strong public interest in the subject.
In a social media post, Trump stated that he would instruct Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth and other agencies to disclose information about the matter, which he characterized as “extremely interesting and important.”
His announcement came after he publicly criticized former President Barack Obama over the handling of classified material tied to the topic. Without presenting evidence, Trump accused Obama of improperly disclosing sensitive information and called it a “big mistake.”
“He took it out of classified information … He’s not supposed to be doing that,” Trump told reporters while traveling in Georgia.
Obama addressed questions about extraterrestrials in a Saturday interview on Brian Tyler Cohen’s podcast, where he was asked directly whether 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, a classified U.S. Air Force installation in Nevada, has long been the focus of conspiracy theories claiming it houses alien remains and crashed spacecraft. Declassified CIA archives released in 2013 identified the site as a testing ground for highly secret spy aircraft.
There has been no indication from Obama’s remarks that he revealed classified material. His office did not respond to requests for comment.
“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 same post, he explained that while he considers the possibility of life elsewhere in the universe plausible due to its vastness and statistical probability, he views the likelihood of such beings reaching Earth as low because of immense interstellar distances.
Trump later acknowledged that he has not personally encountered proof of extraterrestrial life, telling reporters, “I don’t know if they’re real or not.”
