The UFO Phenomenon

Obama on disclosure: 'contact with intelligent aliens has not happened yet'

By T.K. Randall
May 7, 2026 ·  21 comments

Image: President Barack Obama
Credit: Pete Souza / (PD) White House Back in February, Obama turned heads when, during a 'quick fire' questions round on a podcast with host Brian Tyler Cohen, he said "aliens are real, but I haven't seem them".

"They're not being kept in Area 51," he added. "There's no underground facility unless there's this enormous conspiracy and they hid it from the president of the United States."

His remarks attracted so much attention, in fact, that Obama was later forced to clarify what he meant.

"I was trying to stick with the spirit of the speed round, but since it's gotten attention let me clarify," he said. "Statistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are good there's life out there."

"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!"

Fast-forward to the present and now, during a chat with Stephen Colbert on The Late Show, Obama made another reference to alien life while once again playing down any government knowledge."Here's the thing: For those of you who still think that we've gotten little green men underground somewhere, one of the things you learn as president is the government is terrible at keeping secrets," he said.

"This idea of conspiracy theories - if there were aliens or alien spaceships or anything under the control of the United States government that we knew about, seen, photographs, what have you..."

"I promise you some guy guarding the installation would have taken a selfie with one of the aliens and sent it to his girlfriend to impress her. There would be leaks."

In other words, his comments are in direct contradiction to what President Trump has been hinting at for months - that the US government is about to release a treasure trove of documents and files pertaining to UFOs and extraterrestrial life.

Question is - who is telling the truth?

You decide.

Source: Hollywood Reporter | Comments (21)

Tags: Obama, UFO, Aliens