Left: US President Donald Trump tells media on February 19, 2026, his predecessor Barack Obama “made a big mistake” in giving “classified information” following Obama’s recent remarks on aliens. Photo: A screenshot from Fox News

Right: Former US President Barack Obama says aliens “are real” during an podcast program on February 14, 2026. Photo: A screenshot from Obama’s Instagram

US President Donald Trump said his predecessor Barack Obama "made a big mistake" in giving "classified information" following Obama's recent remarks on aliens, according to Fox News.

According to a video clip Fox News released, when asked for response to Obama's recent remarks on aliens, Trump told reporters on Thursday onboard Air Force One that "He gave classified information. He is not supposed to do that. He made a big mistake." But Trump did not clarify what specific classified information Obama released, according to Fox News.

At the end of an interview with US podcast host Brian Tyler Cohen on February 14, in a quick question and answer session, when asked "are aliens real," Obama said that "they are real, but I haven't seen them. They are not kept in Area 51." He added that "there's no underground facility, unless there's this enormous conspiracy, and they hid it from the president of the United States."

The video soon went viral on social media, triggering heated discussion on not only the existence of aliens but whether the US government is hiding the truth on the issue from the public.

Conspiracy theories involving extraterrestrial life have long abounded about Area 51, a highly classified US Air Force facility located at Groom Lake in southern Nevada. In June 2019, a poll conducted by YouGov, a US analytics and market research services provider, found that 54 percent of US adults think it is likely the government knows more than it's telling about UFOs, CNN reported on Monday amid growing public attention on the alien issue.

Amid the controversy, Obama made a clarification on Instagram on February 15, saying that he was just trying to "stick with the spirit of the speed round." "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!" he wrote on Instagram.

But the clarification did not satisfy everyone. "Obama says there's no evidence of aliens. Fair enough. But if there were... Would we even be told?" an X user named commented.

In a latest move, Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social on Thursday that "based on the tremendous interest shown," he would 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 other information connected to these highly complex, but extremely interesting and important, matters."

Some netizens seem to be thrilled after Trump announced to release aliens-related government materials. "The people deserve this transparency. Let's see those files unredacted," wrote an X user.

Others are demanding the truth. "No more hiding and lies!" wrote another X user.

But some netizens doubted it is just a trick of the Trump administration to distract the public's attention from the Epstein case. "What's in the Epstein files is so bad, that Trump is going to release the files about aliens instead," X user Melanie D'Arrigo said.

As to whether aliens are real or not, Trump said, "I don't know," according to the Fox News video clip.

For decades, sightings of cutting-edge spy planes, drones, low-orbit satellites and weather balloons have driven theories about UFOs, most famously at a secret military flight testing base called Area 51. While many reports of unidentified flying objects remain unsolved, the Pentagon has found no evidence that the government was covering up knowledge of extraterrestrial technology and has said there is no evidence that any UFO sightings represented alien visitation to Earth, according to the New York Times.

Global Times