Does Barack Obama Really Think "Aliens" Are Real?

Former US President Barack Obama has clarified comments he made about the existence of extraterrestrial life after a brief answer on a podcast sparked widespread attention online.

During an appearance on Brian Tyler Cohen's podcast, published on Saturday, February 15, Obama was asked a series of questions in a rapid-fire "lightning round."

When asked "Are aliens real?", Obama replied:

"They're real, but I haven't seen them. They're not being kept in Area 51. There's no underground facility unless there's this enormous conspiracy and they hid it from the president of the United States."

The podcast host did not follow up on the comment and moved on to the next question. The clip circulated widely online over the following 24 hours.

On Sunday, February 16, Obama posted a clarification on his official Instagram account alongside the original video clip.

"I was trying to stick with the spirit of the speed round, but since it's gotten attention let me clarify," he wrote. "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!"

Cohen later said on Monday that he had reached out to Obama's team to request the clarification after the clip went viral. "I decided to reach out to the president's team and ask if he'd be willing to make a clarification to his statement, which he did," Cohen said in a video posted to his channel.

It is not the first time Obama has commented on the subject. In a 2021 appearance on The Late Late Show with James Corden, Obama said that upon entering office he had asked whether there was a facility "where we're keeping the alien specimens and space ship," adding that his team looked into it and "the answer was no." He also noted at the time that there was "footage and records of objects in the skies that we don't know exactly what they are" and that their movement and trajectory could not be explained.

Watch the video below:

Obama served as the 44th President of the United States from 2009 to 2017. He is far from the only public figure to have weighed in on the subject. In a 2014 interview with late night host Jimmy Kimmel, former US President Bill Clinton said he "wouldn't be surprised" if aliens visited Earth, while also stating there were none at Area 51 or Roswell. Former President Donald Trump, when asked about Roswell, told reporters: "I won't talk to you about what I know about it, but it's very interesting." He did not elaborate further.

The question of extraterrestrial life has also drawn attention at a policy level. The US Congress passed the Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act in 2023, and the Department of Defense established the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office to investigate unidentified aerial sightings. A YouGov poll conducted in June 2019 found that 54 percent of US adults believed the government knew more about UFOs than it was publicly sharing.

Obama's clarification post on Instagram drew significant engagement over the weekend, with the original podcast clip shared widely across social media platforms. Cohen's podcast, which has more than five million subscribers on YouTube, saw the exchange become one of the most circulated clips from the interview.