Aliens ‘Are Real, But I Haven’t Seen Them’
Former President Barack Obama has spoken out about phenomena in the world’s skies that have perplexed observers since “flying saucers” were first reported after World War II.
“Are Aliens Real?” » YouTuber Brian Tyler Cohen asked Obama in an interview published Saturday.
“Um, they’re real, but I haven’t seen them,” the former president responded.
He then quickly addressed speculation around Nevada’s Area 51, a secret military testing site that has long been claimed to contain downed aliens and their planes, which are believed to be reverse-engineered.
“Um, they’re real, but I haven’t seen them,” Obama explained. “And they’re not being held at Area 51. There’s no underground facility unless there’s this huge conspiracy and they hid it from the President of the United States.”
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Of course, a “huge conspiracy” is exactly what has been alleged in many documentaries on the issue; that an “underground facility” at Area 51 is a closely guarded secret “need to know,” even hidden from presidents.
Cohen then asked Obama what question he most wanted answered upon entering the White House.
“Where are the aliens?” Obama responded with a laugh. We didn’t know if he was serious or joking.
But Obama is not the first president to ask the question.
Jimmy Carter, during the transition period after his election in 1976 as the 39th president, reportedly asked George HW Bush, then director of the CIA, for access to UFO files. Bush reportedly refused, saying his curiosity was not reason enough to release the information.
John Podesta, President Bill Clinton’s chief of staff and Obama adviser, pushed for years for disclosure, including picking up the phone “to call the Air Force and ask what’s going on at Area 51,” according to a 1998 report.
Podesta also tweeted at the end of his tenure with the Obama administration that his “biggest failure” in 2014 was not getting government UFO files released.
Area 51, along with Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, are often cited as sites of a secret government program to study and reverse engineer extraterrestrial technology. A scientist named Bob Lazar claimed in 1989 to be part of a classified project doing just that at the Nevada site.
While the subject of UFOs has often been ridiculed, in recent years government revelations have given rise to a much more serious approach.
Lawmakers, including former Senator and now Secretary of State Marco Rubio (R-FL) and the late Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), have called for government transparency regarding Pentagon programs that record and study what are now called UAPs (unidentified anomalous phenomena) as a potential threat to national security.
The UAPs were the subject of a stunning hearing in the House of Representatives two years ago, attended by members of the Air Force and a government whistleblower, David Grusch, who said crashed alien craft and “non-human biological materials” had been recovered as part of a secret government program.
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The serious treatment of UAPs or UFOs by legislators and the media became clear after a New York Times A 2017 article revealed that a secret Pentagon program was tracking the phenomenon.
It included official fighter jet footage showing unidentified craft encountered during military exercises near San Diego that appeared to defy the known capabilities of manned aircraft.
Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the author of the New York Times bestselling true-crime novel House of Secrets and nine other mystery novels and non-fiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com to find out more.
