Trump confirmed Obama gave classified information and requests release of documents on UFOs and aliens
President Trump added fuel to the controversy sparked by former President Obama's comments: "They are real." and doubles down by requesting the Department of War to reveal documents on ET life.
A global media storm erupted as Trump confirmed that Obama’s statements revealed classified information about aliens.
During an interview with Fox News on 19 February 2026, President Trump added fuel to the controversy sparked by former President Obama’s comments: “They are real.”
As reported by Sentinel News, Barack Obama caused quite a stir during his interview on 14 February 2026.
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 United States.
After his comment was picked up by the media, his interviewer, Brian Tyler Cohen, admitted that he had been unprofessional in not asking Obama to clarify his remarks and contacted Obama’s team.
Shortly thereafter, Barack Obama’s instagram account posted the following message:
I was trying to stick with the spirit of the speed round, but since it’s gotten attention let me clarify. Statistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are good there’s life out there. 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!
However, this explanation makes little sense when we consider his initial response. In the same sentence, he states that ‘they’ are real, yet not kept at Area 51 — the area that was recently acknowledged and which popular culture believes stored objects of non-human origin. He therefore does not seem to be referring to cases where:
distances between solar systems are so great that the chances we’ve been visited by aliens is low
It seems that the message was intended to defuse the situation rather than provide an explanation for his reasoning. Nevertheless, the media did not discuss this well-known political communication strategy, which is used to correct statements that have gone beyond the expected limits. Many agencies and media outlets repeated the message without questioning it.
The debate could have ended there, but on 19 February 2026, Donald Trump was interviewed by Peter Doocy, a Fox News reporter.
Doocy : Barack Obama said that aliens are real. Have you seen any evidence of nonhuman visitors to Earth?
Trump : Well, he gave classified information. He’s not supposed to be doing that, you know.
Doocy : So aliens are real.
Trump : Well, I don’t know if they’re real or not. I can tell you he gave classified information. He’s not supposed to be doing that. He made, he made a big mistake. He took it out of classified information. No, I don’t, I don’t have an opinion on it. I never talk about it. A lot of people do. A lot of people believe it. Do you believe it, Peter ?
Doocy : Well, the president can declassify anything that he wants to, so if you want to make an announcement...
Trump : I may get him out of trouble by declassifying.
Trump’s remark about Obama leaking classified information is food for thought. If Obama was only talking about civilisations that are too far away to ever reach us, why would this information be classified?
One might wonder whether the mention of ‘aliens being real’ would not be classified. After all, it’s hard to imagine how the rest of his statement, which contradicts the popular belief that there are underground bases, could be classified information.
But President Trump did not stop there. A few hours after this interview began to be picked up by all the major media outlets, he posted on his Truth social network:
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. GOD BLESS AMERICA !
This is not the first time that the US government has published its UFO archives, with examples including the Blue Book project archives and various reports on the Roswell investigation, which offered four different explanations for the case’s origin. More recently, the US National Archives released an action plan for the publication of UFO-related documents, following various amendments to the National Defense Appropriations Act.
Various review committees have already examined the subject, including the Robertson Panel. The Panel’s conclusion, which aimed to discourage US citizens from reporting UFO cases, was later revealed to have been influenced by US intelligence, which also conducted disinformation campaigns on the subject.
Therefore, we should not assume that we have reached a point of total openness on the subject, as there are still many obstacles that could stop Trump’s initiative in its tracks. Nonetheless, along with regaining control of the narrative by criticising Obama, disclosing information on such a subject would enable Trump to dominate the media, which was beginning to focus on the links between the Epstein documents and the Trump presidency.
Since his statements, the international press, already upset by Obama’s comments, has extensively covered the subject, with coverage from outlets including the Washington Post, BBC, Reuters, AFP, the Wall Street Journal, NBC, Politico, Le Temps, Axios, the New York Times, the Guardian, Le Parisien, La Croix and Al Jazeera.
The actions taken in the US since 2017 — including media appearances by Luis Elizondo, Christopher Mellon, Ryan Graves and David Fravor, followed by public hearings — have undoubtedly defused the issue enough for journalists with access to world leaders to feel able to ask the question. We can only hope that they will persevere in their efforts, and that this time, US intelligence services will refrain from exerting pressure.
However, recent pressures by the intelligence community to remove an amendment that would have allowed the FAA to share UFO sighting reports by civilian pilots casts a shadow over President Trump’s attempts at declassification. The Department of War could argue, for example, that AARO’s historical report, even ridden with many factual mistakes, fit Trump’s request.
The Speech
According to his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, speaking on Pod Force One, a speech regarding ETs has been prepared:
We’ve kind of asked my father-in-law about this… we all want to know about the UFOs… and he played a little coy with us,
I’ve heard kind of around, I think my father-in-law has actually said it, that there is some speech that he has, that I guess at the right time, I don’t know when the right time is, he’s going to break out and talk about and it has to do with maybe some sort of extraterrestrial life.
Questioned on the same subject, White house spokesperson Karoline Leavitt declared :
I’ll have to check in with our speech writing team. Uh, and that would be of great interest to me personally, and I’m sure all of you in this room and apparently former President Obama, too.
With the national media now paying close attention, we can expect all parties involved to try to advance their positions as statements continue to be made. Future statements on the subject will reveal how long President Trump can withstand pressure from both sides.