Politics

Barack Obama appears to confirm existence of aliens as he shuts down major conspiracy theory

Brian Tyler Cohen/YouTube

It’s long been the subject of speculation and conspiracy theories, and now former US president Barack Obama appears to have confirmed that aliens are real, in an interview with commentator Brian Tyler Cohen which has left social media users scratching their heads.

Asked simply if aliens are real, the Democrat replied: “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.”

According to Obama’s predecessor Bill Clinton, the Nevada facility is so secretive because its where the US government “do a lot of our invisibility research in terms of technology, like how we fly airplanes that aren’t picked up by radar and all that”.

“But there’s no aliens that I know of,” he told James Corden on The Late Late Show in 2022.

And of course, three years before that, a Facebook event set up with the intention of ‘storming’ Area 51 to “see them aliens” made international headlines as thousands wanted to find out what really goes on at the desert site (although fewer than 200 people actually turned up).

But X/Twitter users haven’t been left satisfied by the interview, citing the lack of a follow-up question from Cohen:

Another said it was “one of the most epic interview fumbles of all time”:

Content creator Jesse Michels noted Cohen “didn’t ask ‘how do you know that?’”:

“Interviewing is a hard business but I think I would have managed the follow-up here,” wrote New York Times columnist Ross Douthat:

Instead, Cohen moved on to ask Obama what the one question was that he wanted answered as president.

“Where the aliens,” he replied, smiling and laughing.

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