President Donald Trump said on February 19 (US time) that he would direct federal agencies to begin publishing government records related to aliens and unidentified flying objects.
On social media, he said he would ask Pentagon leader Pete Hegseth and other agencies to release information, describing the issue as "extremely interesting and important", while emphasizing the strong public interest.
On the same day, while traveling to Georgia, Mr. Trump accused former President Barack Obama of disclosing classified information during public discussions about aliens and said that Mr. Obama "made a big mistake". Mr. Trump said that content was classified and should not be disclosed.
However, there is no sign that Mr. Obama has disclosed classified documents in his speeches. His office did not respond to the request for comment.
In an interview with podcast host Brian Tyler Cohen announced last week, Mr. Obama was asked if the aliens were real. He replied that "they are real" but said he had never seen them and was not detained at Area 51. He said there is no secret base, unless there is a very big conspiracy hidden even from the US president.
Area 51 is a top-secret military base of the US Air Force in the Nevada desert, which has long been the focus of theories that it contains corpses of aliens and spacecraft crashes. CIA records released in 2013 say that this was once a top-secret reconnaissance aircraft test site.
In an Instagram post last weekend, Mr. Obama wrote that, during his term, he did not see any evidence that extraterrestrial life had ever been in contact with humans. He believes that the possibility of extraterrestrial life is high due to the vast universe, but the possibility of them visiting Earth is low due to the long distance.
After mentioning Mr. Obama, Mr. Trump also said he had not seen evidence of the existence of aliens and said it was unclear whether they were real or not.
In recent years, the Pentagon has investigated reports of UFOs. Senior military leaders said in 2022 that no evidence was found that aliens had ever come or fallen to Earth.
The Pentagon's 2024 report states that US government investigations since World War II have not detected extraterrestrial technology and most cases are identified as misidentification of ordinary objects and phenomena.
The website of the National Archives and Records Administration said it is storing many UFO-related documents in various collections.
