President Donald Trump waves after stepping off Air Drive One, Thursday, Feb. 19, 2026, at Joint Base Andrews, Md., on return from a visit to Georgia.
Mark Schiefelbein/AP
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Mark Schiefelbein/AP
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump mentioned Thursday that he is directing the Pentagon and different authorities businesses to establish and launch recordsdata associated to extraterrestrials and UFOs due to “great curiosity.”
Trump made the announcement in a social media submit hours after he accused former President Barack Obama of exposing “categorised data” when Obama lately prompt in a podcast interview that aliens had been actual.
Trump informed reporters aboard Air Drive One, “I do not know in the event that they’re actual or not,” and mentioned of Obama, “I could get him out of bother by declassifying.”
In a submit on his social media platform Thursday evening, Trump mentioned he was directing authorities businesses to launch recordsdata associated “to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs), and any and all different data related to those extremely advanced, however extraordinarily attention-grabbing and necessary, issues.”
Obama, who made his feedback in a podcast look over the weekend, later clarified that he had not seen proof that aliens “have made contact with us,” however mentioned, “statistically, the universe is so huge that the chances are good there’s life on the market.”
Trump informed reporters Thursday that when it got here to the prospect of extraterrestrial guests: “I haven’t got an opinion on it. I by no means speak about it. Lots of people do. Lots of people consider it.”
Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump prompt this week that he was prepared to discuss it, nonetheless, when she mentioned on a podcast that the president had a speech ready to ship on aliens that he would give on the “proper time.”
That was information to the White Home. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt responded with fun when she was requested about it Wednesday and informed reporters, “A speech on aliens could be information to me.”
Public curiosity in unidentified flying objects and the potential for the federal government hiding secrets and techniques of extraterrestrial life remerged within the public consciousness after a gaggle of former Pentagon and authorities officers leaked Navy movies of unknown objects to The New York Occasions and Politico in 2017. The renewed scrutiny prompted Congress to carry the primary hearings on UFOs in 50 years in Might 2022, although officers mentioned that the objects, which seemed to be inexperienced triangles floating above a Navy ship, had been doubtless drones.
Since then the Pentagon has promised extra transparency on the subject. In July 2022 it created the All-Area Anomaly Decision Workplace, or AARO, which was meant to be a central place to gather studies of all army UFO encounters, taking up from a division job pressure.
In 2023, Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, the top of AARO on the time, informed reporters he did not have any proof “of any program having ever existed as a to do any form of reverse engineering of any form of extraterrestrial (unidentified aerial phenomena).”
The knowledge that has been made public exhibits that the overwhelming majority of UFO studies made by the army go unsolved however the ones which might be recognized are largely benign in nature.
An 18-page unclassified report submitted to Congress in June 2024 mentioned service members had made 485 studies of unidentified phenomena up to now 12 months however 118 circumstances had been discovered to be “prosaic objects resembling numerous kinds of balloons, birds, and unmanned aerial techniques.”
“You will need to underscore that, so far, AARO has found no proof of aliens, exercise, or know-how,” the report harassed.
