The US president has cited “tremendous interest” in extraterrestrial life, hours after accusing Barack Obama of leaking “classified information”
US President Donald Trump has announced he will order the Department of War and other agencies to release government files related to alien life because of “tremendous interest.”
In a Truth Social post on Friday, Trump said the records marked for disclosure would cover unidentified aerial phenomena and unidentified flying objects, along with “any and all other information connected to these highly complex, but extremely interesting and important, matters.”
Trump made the announcement hours after accusing former President Barack Obama of disclosing “classified information” when he suggested in a recent podcast interview that aliens were real.
Obama’s remarks went viral last weekend after podcast host Brian Tyler Cohen asked the former president whether aliens exist.
“They’re real, but I haven’t seen them,” Obama said. “And they’re not being kept in, what is it? Area 51. There’s no underground facility, unless there’s this enormous conspiracy and they hid it from the president of the United States.”
Area 51 refers to a classified US Air Force site in Nevada that has long been the focus of conspiracy theories alleging the government conducts secret research there and stores extraterrestrial materials and technology.
Trump said he would direct the secretary of war and other officials “to begin the process of identifying and releasing government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs).” He noted that the decision was driven by “tremendous interest” in the subject, without elaborating.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Trump said, “I don’t know if they’re real or not,” adding of Obama, “I may get him out of trouble by declassifying.”
Clarifying his stance, Obama later said he had seen no evidence that aliens “have made contact with us,” but added that “statistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are good there’s life out there.”
Asked about the prospect of extraterrestrial visitors, Trump said: “I don’t have an opinion on it. I never talk about it. A lot of people do. A lot of people believe it.”
In late 2024, the Pentagon announced it had received 757 new reports of unidentified UAPs between May 2023 and June 2024.
Of those, 21 “merit further analysis” because of “anomalous characteristics and/or behaviors.”
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