Former President Barack Obama reignited public fascination with extraterrestrial life on Saturday after saying that aliens are “real,” while stopping short of claiming any personal encounters.

Obama made the remarks during a conversation with political commentator Brian Tyler Cohen, who asked him directly whether he believed in the existence of extraterrestrials.

“Yes, they’re real… but I haven’t seen them,” Obama replied.

Obama dismissed claims that the U.S. government is secretly holding alien technology or life forms at Area 51, the highly restricted military site in Nevada that has become central to UFO lore.

“There’s no underground facility, unless there’s this enormous conspiracy, and they hid it from the president of the United States,” he said.

The former president has previously addressed the issue, most notably in a 2021 interview where he acknowledged that some aerial phenomena remain unexplained.

“There is footage and records of objects in the skies that we don’t know exactly what they are,” Obama said at the time, noting that government researchers continue to study the material.

Those remarks followed growing public disclosures by the Pentagon and intelligence agencies confirming the existence of “unidentified aerial phenomena,” or UAPs — formerly known as UFOs — captured on military sensors.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)