Former US president Barack Obama was forced to clarify after his comments on a podcast caused a global media wave of headlines admitting that aliens are real.
In a conversation with US host Brian Tyler Cohen over the weekend, during a quick Q&A, Obama was asked: "Are aliens real?" He replied: "They are real, but I haven't seen them." He then added that they "don't behave in Area 51" and that there is no underground base unless there is a "huge conspiracy" hidden even by the US president.
The statement was quickly picked up by media around the world with headlines like "Obama: Aliens are real". Even Time magazine summarized that the former president believes that life exists, but not at the infamous base in Nevada.
On Sunday evening, however, Obama posted a clarification on Instagram. He indicated that he had tried to respond in the spirit of a blitz, but given the attention he wanted to clarify his position. "Statistically, the universe is so vast that the probability of life somewhere is high", he said. "But the distances between star systems are so great that the probability of us being visited is low. During my term, I have not seen any evidence of contact with aliens. Really!"
The claims that aliens are hiding in Area 51 are part of a long-standing conspiracy theory. In 2019, after about 1.5 million people signed up online for an event called "Storm Area 51", only about 150 influencers gathered on site. The incident ended with several arrests and an impromptu music festival.
Documents declassified in 2013 showed that the secret Nevada runway was used to test US government projects, including the high-flying Lockheed U-2 reconnaissance program and the top-secret Lockheed A-12 Oxcart. According to the archives, it was the high-altitude tests of the U-2 that led to a sharp increase in reports of unidentified flying objects (UFOs), because civilian pilots and observers were not informed about these programs.