President Donald Trump talks to reporters on board Air Force One on Feb. 19, 2026. Credit - Chip Somodevilla—Getty Images
With talk of aliensmaking headlinesin the past week, President Donald Trump announced Thursday night that he will order the public disclosure of government records related to extraterrestrial life.
"Based on the tremendous interest shown, I will be directing the Secretary of War, and other relevant Departments and Agencies, to begin the process of identifying and releasing Government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs), and any and all other information connected to these highly complex, but extremely interesting and important, matters," Trumppostedon his social media platform Truth Social.
The buzz came after former President Barack Obama commented, in an apparently offhand response to a "lighting round" question,during an interviewwith progressive podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen published Saturday that aliens are "real." Obama noted at the time, however, that they aren't being kept in the highly-classified military facility dubbed Area 51, and he dispelled rumors about any such underground government facilities existing anywhere, "unless there's this enormous conspiracy and they hid it from the President of the United States."
Area 51 is a classified Air Force facility in southern Nevada that has long been the focus of conspiracy theorists regarding extraterrestrial life and supposed government cover-ups. In 2013, the government confirmed the existence of Area 51 after the CIAdeclassified documents, which revealed that the site was a testing ground for spy planes, though the documents made no mention of aliens.
On Thursday, aboard Air Force One, Trump was asked by Fox News reporter Peter Doocy about Obama's comment and if Trump had seen any evidence of nonhuman visitors to Earth. "Well, he gave classified information. He's not supposed to be doing that," Trump responded.
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"So aliens are real?" Doocy followed up.
"Well I don't know if they're real or not," Trump said, instead repeating the assertion that Obama "made a big mistake."
Doocy suggested that the President could declassify anything that he wants to, to which Trump smirked, "I may get him out of trouble if I declassify," seemingly still referring to Obama.
Obama's brief interview remark has shown no evidence of relying on classified information, and hefollowed up onhis interview remarks on social media Sunday. "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!"
A2024 Pentagon study, which analyzed U.S. government investigations into reported sightings of unidentified anomalous phenomena since 1945, found no evidence of extraterrestrial technology or alien life.
Critics, includingRepublican congressman Thomas Massie, have suggested that Trump's declassification order is meant to draw attention away from controversy related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. "They've deployed the ultimate weapon of mass distraction," Massieposted on X, "but the Epstein files aren't going away… even for aliens."
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