Barack Obama Clarifies Saying Aliens 'Are Real' But He Hasn't 'Seen Them' in Bizarre Interview

Barack Obama has one message for everyone spiraling over his remarks about aliens.

After saying the truth might actually be out there, the former president jumped back into the conversation to clear things up about extraterrestrial life. His original remarks came during a chat with political podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen, published on Friday, February 13. But once headlines started flying, Obama immediately explained exactly what he meant.

“I was trying to stick with the spirit of [Cohen’s] speed round, but since it’s gotten attention let me clarify. 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,” he wrote on Instagram on Sunday, February 15.

Obama, 64, wrapped up his clarification with a firm statement. “I saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us. Really!”

During the original podcast interview, Obama made it clear he never personally encountered aliens while in office.

“They’re not being kept at 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 told Cohen, 37.

He even joked that finding out the truth about aliens was at the top of his to-do list when he first stepped into the Oval Office.

“Where are the aliens?” he recalled asking officials.

This isn’t the first time Obama has touched on the topic. Back in 2021, he admitted there were UFO sightings the government couldn’t fully explain.

“When it comes to aliens, there are some things I just can’t tell you on air,” the 44th president said with a laugh during an appearance on The Late Late Show with James Corden. “Look, the truth is that when I came into office, I asked.”

He continued: “I was like, ‘All right, is there the lab somewhere where we're keeping the alien specimens and spaceships?’ And they did a little bit of research, and the answer is no.”

“What is true — and I’m actually being serious here — is there are, there’s footage and records of objects in the skies that we don’t know exactly what they are,” Obama declared. “We can’t explain how they moved, their trajectory. They did not have an easily explainable pattern.”

Still, Obama acknowledged that some of the leaked UFO footage making headlines is authentic.

“What is true — and I’m actually being serious here — is there are, there’s footage and records of objects in the skies that we don’t know exactly what they are,” Obama declared. “We can’t explain how they moved, their trajectory. They did not have an easily explainable pattern.”

He said that “people still take seriously trying to investigate and figure out” what the unexplained flying objects are.