President Calls Extraterrestrials ‘Real’, Astrophysicist Claps Back: ‘Bring Forth the Alien’
Well, this wasn’t on my 2026 bingo card: former President Obama casually mentioned that he never saw aliens or UFOs while in office. Current President Donald Trump scolded Obama for revealing this “classified” information. Then he announced he would be releasing any files related to “extraterrestrial life.” Now, science communicator Neil deGrasse Tyson is throwing in his two cents: Files aren’t enough.
Former President Obama: “They’re real”
On a podcast, former President Barack Obama was asked, “Are aliens real?” His response: “They’re real. But I haven’t seen them. And they’re not being kept in Area 51. There’s no underground facility. Unless there’s this enormous conspiracy and they hid it from the President of the United States.” In the same interview, he even joked that the first question he wanted answered when he became President was, “Where are the aliens?”
A few days later, he made some clarifications. When he said “They’re real,” he meant, “Statistically the universe is so vast that the odds are good there’s life out there.” He added, “I saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us. Really!”
Note that as a candidate in 2007, Obama was asked whether he believed life exists beyond Earth. His response nearly two decades ago: “I don’t know, and I don’t presume to know.”
President Trump: “Big mistake”
President Trump’s immediate response, during a press conference, was to take a shot at Barack Obama. “I can’t tell you if they’re real or not. I can tell you he gave classified information. You’re not supposed to be doing that. He made a big mistake. He took it out of classified information. I don’t have an opinion on it. I never talk about it. A lot of people do. A lot of people believe it.”
President Trump’s response suggests that just saying “I saw no evidence during my presidency” is somehow a national security risk. Perhaps he’s is suggesting it’s advantageous to our foreign policy to keep other nations guessing as to whether we possess advanced alien technology. But the truth is probably more boring: President Trump would never alienate conspiracy theorists by definitively stating that the U.S. has no alien crafts or knowledge of aliens. And his next move made that very clear.
President Trump followed up his comments with a post. It read, in part, that he will “begin the process of identifying and releasing Government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life.” He also name-dropped “UFOs” in case you don’t get the point. Sound familiar? That’s because President Trump made a nearly identical promise while running for his second term, then appeared to forget all about it once he was back in office.
An astrophysicist’s response: “If I were Trump”
Neil deGrasse Tyson is an astrophysicist and one of the world’s leading “science communicators,” having decoded many scientific issues on his own shows and in interviews. He’s actually finishing up a book titled Take Me To Your Leader: Perspectives on Your First Alien Encounter, with some interesting theories on the form extraterrestrial life might take. It sounds like he’s a bit fed up with President Trump’s UFO promises.
“If I were Trump, I would have instead said, ‘I want any government agency that has an alien to bring forth the alien.’ Then you don’t need documents. Think about that: What’s the point of documents if you actually have the alien? Just bring out the alien.”
Tyson just dropped a checkmate. President Trump is, well, the President. And he’s been in office for over five years across two terms. So he can finally come clean with any alien remains the U.S. has. Or he can quit stoking the conspiracy theory fires for once and for all. But Tyson pointed out why Trump may never do that. “Until that happens, it seems to be all about who you believe, and what conspiracy theory. And it feels almost like a religion at some level where, ‘Are you a believer, or are you not? Are you with us, or are you not?’ And I think bringing forth an alien would just settle that immediately.”
In a previous interview, Tyson said, “Given how tribal we have all been—especially in recent years—where we are finding reasons to separate ourselves and then fight, to find life somewhere else might be the first occasion to unify Earth as a tribe of its own.” It’s ironic that definitive proof aliens exist might be the greatest single unifier for human history, but bickering over the promise—or threat—that aliens might exist divides us.
You can watch Tyson’s comments in the video below:
