After accusing the former president of confirming aliens exist, President Donald Trump has announced he will be releasing government records related to aliens and any unidentified flying objects.
“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,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Thursday.
Trump’s post came hours after he condemned former President Barack Obama of disclosing classified information after the former president said aliens are “real” on a podcast last week.
“They’re real,” Obama told podcast host Brian Tyler Cohen. “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.”
“Statistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are good there’s life out there,” he said. “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.”
The clarification did little to stop Trump from taking another jab. Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Thursday, Trump said Obama “made a big mistake.”
“He gave classified information; he’s not supposed to be doing that,” Trump told reporters. “He made a big mistake … He took it out of classified information.”
In admonishing the former president, Trump suggested Obama’s comments were classified, but offered to throw him a helping hand. “I may get him out of trouble by declassifying.” Trump added that while he doesn’t “have an opinion on it,” he knows there’s an overwhelming number of people who believe it.
Trump’s comments on declassification are not new. In October 2022, two months after FBI agents seized boxes of materials from his Mar-a-Lago home, the then-former president questioned a president’s or former president’s legal authority to declassify sensitive information.
He later added to the confusion when he said in an interview there really is no such thing as classified information.
Trump himself was asked what his thoughts were on aliens. In June 2019 he said he was briefed on Navy UFO reports but expressed doubts.
