February 20, 2026 | 12:25 pm
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - US President Donald Trump, citing "tremendous interest," said he was directing the Pentagon and other government agencies to release files related to extraterrestrials and unidentified flying objects (UFOs).
He said the agencies should include "any and all other information connected to these highly complex, but extremely interesting and important, matters."
He made the announcement on social media on Thursday, hours after accusing former President Barack Obama of disclosing "classified information" when he suggested in a podcast interview that aliens were real.
"I don't know if they're real or not," Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One. When asked of Obama, he said: "I may get him out of trouble by declassifying."
What did Obama say about aliens in the podcast?
In a podcast released last week, Obama said he believed aliens were real, but he had not seen any evidence of them during his presidency.
"They're real, but I haven't seen them and they're not being kept in... Area 51," he told host Brian Tyler Cohen, referring to the top-secret facility at the heart of many UFO conspiracies.
Once his comments quickly went viral, the ex-president took to clarify on Instagram.
"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. Really!"
Aliens and Area 51
Public interest in extraterrestrials, unidentified flying objects and unidentified aerial phenomena has prompted several conspiracy theories over the years.
Several internet chat rooms and social media accounts dedicate themselves to solving this mystery, and many insist the US government knows more than it lets on.
It is what gave birth to the "Storm Area 51" event, where about 100 people gathered at the entrance to the secretive US military base "to see them aliens."
This interest was renewed in recent years as the US government investigated several reports of what appeared to be supernatural aircraft. However, in March 2024, the Pentagon released a report saying it had no proof the aerial phenomenon was alien technology.
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