Barack Obama has said aliens are “real” in an interview, before later taking to social media to clarify his comments.
During an appearance Saturday on Brian Tyler Cohen’s podcast, the former US president was asked if aliens are real.
“They’re real, but I haven’t seen them,” Mr Obama replied.
Mr Obama also responded to a racist video shared by Donald Trump on social media that depicted him and his wife, Michelle Obama, as apes.
The ex-president did not mention Mr Trump by name, but said the “decorum” and “respect for… office” that used to guide US officials had been lost.
Posting a message on Instagram to clear up what he meant by the aliens comments, the 44th president said: “I was trying to stick with the spirit of the 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, and I saw no evidence during my presidency that extra-terrestrials have made contact with us. Really!”
During the podcast interview, Mr Obama, 64, also said aliens were not being kept at Area 51, an Air Force base in Nevada.
“There’s no underground facility, unless there’s this enormous conspiracy and they hid it from the president of the United States,” Mr Obama said.
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Mr Cohen then asked what Mr Obama’s first question was after becoming president.
“Uh, where are the aliens?” he quipped.
Mr Obama has also previously commented on the possible existence of extra-terrestrial life.
During a 2021 appearance on The Late Late Show with James Corden, Mr Obama said that after he took over as president, he sought information on aliens and whether they were being studied in a secret lab. He was told the answer was “no”.
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But Mr Obama said officials are seriously investigating aerial phenomena that behave in seemingly unexplainable ways.
“There is footage and records of objects in the skies that we don’t know exactly what they are,” he said.
“We can’t explain how they moved, their trajectory. They did not have an easily explainable pattern. I think people still take seriously trying to investigate and figure out what that is.”
