Donald Trump has said a UFO review has turned up “many very interesting documents,” which his administration would release “very soon.”
The U.S. president teased a UFO reveal at a rally in Phoenix, one that would let people “go out and see if that phenomena is correct.”
“We found many very interesting documents, I must say, and the first releases will begin very, very soon, so you can go out and see if that phenomena is correct. You’ll figure it out. Let me know,” Trump said.
In February, Barack Obama clarified comments he made in an interview in which he said aliens were “real,” insisting he saw “no evidence” that extraterrestrials had made contact with us while he was president. Obama had set the internet alight when he told American podcast host Brian Tyler Cohen that aliens were “real but I haven’t seen them” during a quickfire “lightning” round of questions.
“They’re not being kept in Area 51,” Obama continued. “There’s no underground facility unless there’s this enormous conspiracy and they hid it from the president of the United States.” Obama then admitted his first question after becoming president in 2008 was, where are the aliens?
Obama later clarified: “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!”
However, Trump soon ordered the release of government files on UFOs and aliens, saying there was strong public interest. At the time, Trump accused Obama of revealing classified information when he said aliens were real on the podcast. “He’s not supposed to be doing that,” Trump said. “He made a big mistake.”
Asked if he thought aliens were real, Trump replied: “Well, I don’t know if they’re real or not.”
In 2023, the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released a report detailing official sightings of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs). Many of the phenomena continue to defy explanation, and were described as exhibiting “unusual flight characteristics or performance capabilities.” According to the report, UAP reporting was “increasing,” which is “enabling a greater awareness of the airspace and an increased opportunity to resolve UAP events.” As of August 2022 there had been 510 UAP reports.
The Pentagon’s public attitude toward sightings of UFOs — now rebranded as UAPs — has shifted dramatically in recent years. Notably, in April 2020, the government made a surprise move to declassify three videos captured by instruments aboard U.S. Navy aircraft, which, having previously been leaked to the public in 2017, depicted encounters with fast-moving unknown objects.
After the report was published, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson pledged that the agency would not conceal the existence of aliens, if they were discovered to be the cause of any UAP it is working to investigate.
Photo by Jim WATSON / AFP via Getty Images.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
