Obama clarifies he has not observed any contact with aliens days after saying ‘they’re real, but I haven’t seen them’

Former President Barack Obama stated he had uncovered no evidence that extraterrestrials “have made contact with us,” after setting social media abuzz when he claimed aliens were real during a podcast appearance over the weekend.

During a rapid-fire lightning round question segment with podcast host Brian Tyler Cohen, Obama was posed the question, “Are aliens real?”

“They’re real,” he responded, going on to add: “But I have never seen any of them. And, they are not being kept in Area 51.”

On Sunday, the former president released a statement on , appearing to explain the intended meaning of his comments that have since spread widely online as viral content.

“I was trying to stay in line with the spirit of the speed round, but since the remark has gained so much attention let me clear things up. Statistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are high there is life existing somewhere out there. But the distances between different solar systems are so great that the chance we have been visited by aliens is very low, and I saw no proof during my term as president that extraterrestrials have made contact with human beings. Really!”

The long-running secrecy around Area 51, a highly classified Cold War test site situated in the Nevada desert, has fueled conspiracy theories among UFO fans for decades.

In 2013, the CIA officially acknowledged the existence of the site, but did not confirm claims of UFO crashes, black-eyed extraterrestrials or staged moon landing events.

Declassified official documents referred to the 8,000-square-mile (20,700-square-kilometer) installation by its formal name after decades of U.S. government officials declining to admit it existed.

The base has served as a testing ground for a wide range of top-secret aircraft, including the U-2 spy plane in the 1950s and the B-2 stealth bomber in later years.