- Former US President Obama stated aliens are real but their location is unknown
- Obama dismissed Area 51 conspiracy theories about aliens being held there
- Area 51 is a secretive US Air Force base linked to UFO sightings and aircraft testing
Former US President Barack Obama sparked interest in extraterrestrial life by claiming that aliens are "real". But he also said that he doesn't know where they are. During an interview released Saturday, Obama responded to YouTuber Brian Tyler Cowen's question about the existence of aliens.
Obama said the aliens are real, but quickly dismissed conspiracy theories that they are being kept at Area 51, a secretive US Air Force base in Nevada.
"They're real," he said, further adding, "...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."
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What is Area 51?
Area 51 has long been associated with alien and unverified UFO sightings. However, the US government didn't officially acknowledge the base's existence until 2013. It's said to be a testing ground for advanced military aircraft.
Obama's comments come amid growing interest in Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs), the government's term for UFOs. The Pentagon has established the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) to investigate UAP sightings, and Congress has passed laws requiring the government to disclose more information about these incidents.
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Are Aliens Real?
There is no concrete evidence that can confirm the existence of life beyond planet Earth. Still, scientists keep scanning the vast reaches of outer space in the hope of finding a clue. However, scientists recently received a breakthrough because of a crowd-sourced project aimed at searching for alien intelligence.
The project named, the SETI@Home was launched in 1999, and millions of volunteers worldwide participated, aiming to identify unusual radio signals in data from the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico.
The huge radio telescope collapsed in 2020 due to a cable failure, and the project ended abruptly, but citizen scientists have identified more than 12 billion signals of interest in 21 years of data.
Researchers are now checking and analysing the results, as after 21 years, the team narrowed down the signals to 100 promising candidates, currently being re-examined using China's FAST radio telescope.
