Former President Barack Obama weighed in on one of America’s most enduring mysteries during a wide-ranging interview Saturday with progressive podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen, offering comments that are sure to spark renewed debate about what the government really knows.
During what Cohen described as a “lightning round,” the host seized the rare opportunity to pose unconventional questions to a former commander in chief.
“I want to do a little bit of a lightning round, because it’s not often I’ll get access to a president of the United States,” Cohen said.
“Come on, man,” Obama replied, encouraging him to continue.
Cohen then asked directly: “Are aliens real?”
“They’re real, but I haven’t seen them, and they’re not being kept in Area 51,” Obama said.
He went on to dismiss the idea of a hidden underground facility harboring extraterrestrials. “There’s no underground facility,” he added, before joking, “unless there’s this enormous conspiracy and they hid it from the President of the United States.”
The exchange struck a lighthearted tone, but Obama did not elaborate on how he arrived at his statement that aliens are “real,” nor did he clarify whether he was speaking from personal belief or information he encountered while in office.
When Cohen asked what the first question Obama wanted answered upon becoming president was, Obama responded with a chuckle: “Where are the aliens?”
While the former president’s comments were delivered with humor, the broader subject of extraterrestrial life and so-called unidentified aerial phenomena has become increasingly prominent in recent years — particularly on Capitol Hill.
Between 2022 and 2025, Congress held several hearings focused on “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena,” a term used by the federal government to describe what were once commonly called UFOs. The hearings drew national attention as lawmakers pressed for greater transparency from defense and intelligence agencies.
In 2023, NPR reported on testimony from Retired Maj. David Grusch, a former member of the Pentagon’s UAP Task Force who later became a government whistleblower. Grusch told the House Oversight Committee’s national security subcommittee that he had been denied access to certain government UFO programs but claimed to know the “exact locations” of UAPs allegedly in U.S. possession.
According to the NPR report, Grusch also alleged that the United States had retrieved “non-human” biological matter from the pilots of unidentified crafts — a claim that generated intense public interest and skepticism alike.
The conversation has not been limited to whistleblowers. Last summer, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., told podcast host Joe Rogan that she had seen evidence of what she described as “interdimensional beings.”
Luna, who heads the Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets under the House Oversight Committee, told Rogan, “Based on the photos that I’ve seen, I’m very confident that there’s things out there that have not been created by mankind.”
As public fascination grows and lawmakers continue to demand answers, Obama’s off-the-cuff remarks add another layer to an issue that has steadily moved from the fringes to formal congressional inquiry.
For now, the former president says he hasn’t seen aliens — and insists they’re not tucked away in Area 51. But with hearings ongoing and whistleblowers speaking out, the questions clearly aren’t going away.
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