Barack Obama details what he really meant by saying aliens are ‘real’ after causing frenzy

Are there aliens out there? Barack Obama is now setting the record straight.

The former President of the United States shocked the world by seemingly revealing that aliens are ‘real’; a declaration that came last week when Obama was interviewed by Brian Tyler Cohen.

The interviewer got straight to the point as he asked Obama: “Are aliens real?”

Obama said: "Uh, they're real, but I haven't seen them.”

The former POTUS then cleared up some theories about Area 51 - the US military facility in Nevada that has long been the topic of speculation regarding aliens and UFOs.

Barack Obama sat down with Brian Tyler Cohen (YouTube/ Brian Tyler Cohen)

“They're not being kept in uh, what is it? Area 51!” Obama revealed to Cohen, adding: “There's no underground facility unless there's this enormous conspiracy and they hid it from the President of the United States.”

Cohen then asked: “What was the first question you wanted answered when you became president?”

Obama replied jokingly: “Where are the aliens?”

Following the interview, it wasn’t just tin foil hat conspiracy theorists who ran with the idea that aliens are out there. Many people took Obama’s comments as confirmation that we are not alone in the universe, forcing the former president to clarify the remarks he'd made in the lighthearted 'speed round' interview.

While he doesn’t doubt that life exists elsewhere in the universe, he emphasized the vast distances between solar systems and said there’s no evidence that aliens have visited Earth.

Obama's comments about aliens went viral (Getty Stock)

In a statement shared on Instagram as a caption for the viral interview clip, Obama wrote: "I was trying to stick with the spirit of the speed round, but since it’s gotten attention let me clarify. 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!"

So while we shouldn’t expect little green men showing up at our doorsteps anytime soon, the universe is vast enough to keep our imaginations busy. Thank you, Obama.

While Area 51 has long captured the public imagination as the place on Earth aliens have visited, its true history is a lot more grounded. The remote site has been used by the US Air Force to test experimental aircraft, including the U-2 spy plane that monitored the Soviet Union, China, and Cuba during the Cold War.

Its extreme secrecy has fueled decades of UFO and alien conspiracy theories (and TV shows and films), but so far we don’t have any public evidence that alien tech or remains have been stored there.