Obama says he 'absolutely' wants to know the truth behind UFOS and believes the US could spend more on weapons and deal with new religions if aliens do exist
- President Obama said on The Ezra Klein Show that he 'absolutely' wants to know what the unidentified objects seen in the videos that have been released by the Pentagon are
- If aliens do exist, Obama said it's possible the US could 'spend a lot more money on weapons systems to defend ourselves,'
- New religions would also pop up, as well as other arguments stemming from the knowledge of their existence
- A report from the Director of National Intelligence on the US government's secret files on UFOs is expected to be released some time this month
- Two-thirds of respondents in a recent survey said they believe the US government knows more about aliens then they have said publicly
If the presence of extraterrestrial life is confirmed, former President Barack Obama said the US might have to 'spend a lot more' to defend ourselves and 'new religions would pop up.'
In a wide-ranging interview on The Ezra Klein Show podcast, Obama said that he 'absolutely' wants to know what the unidentified objects seen in the videos that have been released by the Pentagon are.
'And so I would hope that the knowledge that there were aliens out there would solidify people’s sense that what we have in common is a little more important,' Obama said in response to a hypothetical question that humanity has become aware of intelligent life beyond this planet, but is unable to get in touch with them.
'But no doubt there would be immediate arguments about like, well, we need to spend a lot more money on weapons systems to defend ourselves,' the 44th President continued.
'New religions would pop up. And who knows what kind of arguments we get into. We’re good at manufacturing arguments for each other.'
Obama's comments come just days after he told James Corden that he had viewed footage of UFOs harassing US military targets and they must be taken seriously.
'What is true... is that there's footage and records of objects in the skies that we don't know exactly what they are,' Obama told the host of The Late Late Show.
'We can't explain how they moved, their trajectory… they did not have an easily explainable pattern,' he added.
If aliens do indeed exist, President Obama said there would be arguments in favor of more weapons spending and new religions would pop up
Obama made the comments on The Ezra Klein Show, a podcast hosted by New York Times journalist Ezra Klein (pictured)
'So I think that people still take seriously trying to investigate and figure out what that is. But I have nothing to report to you today.'
In May, a video was released appearing to show a UFO buzz a US stealth ship near San Diego before diving under the water back in July 2019.
Former US Navy Lieutenant Ryan Graves, who flew an F/A-18 fighter off the Virginia coast between 2015 and 2017, said his fighter squadron spotted the 'maneuverable' spherical objects flying in restricted airspace near Virginia Beach almost every day from 2015 to 2017.
In May, a video was released that appeared to show a UFO buzz a US stealth ship near San Diego before diving under the water back in July 2019
'I am worried, frankly. You know, if these were tactical jets from another country that were hanging out up there, it would be a massive issue,' Graves recently told 60 Minutes.
'But because it looks slightly different, we're not willing to actually look at the problem in the face. We're happy to just ignore the fact that these are out there, watching us every day.'
A report on the US government's secret files on UFOs will be in the hands of lawmakers this month after years of sightings and videos suggesting that highly advanced extraterrestrials are, indeed, out there.
One of the videos was captured off the coast of Jacksonville, Florida, in 2015 (pictured)
The other video shows the notorious 2004 'Tic Tac' incident (pictured) that was recorded over the Pacific Ocean
But the report from the Director of National Intelligence, pulled together with classified military files, could fall short of explaining scores of purported unidentified flying object incidents over decades.
While not clearly rejecting the alien theory, Pentagon officials make clear their real interest is in whether UFOs, or unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) in the US military's parlance, could represent actual threats from adversaries here on earth.
The US spy chief is required to turn over to Congress by the end of June. An unclassified version will be made public, while a more detailed classified one will remain secret.
Separately in May, a new survey showed that nearly two-thirds of all Americans now believe that extraterrestrial life exists and that the US government isn't telling the public the full truth.
The term UFO has been more recently replaced by unidentified aerial phenomenon, especially in light of the U.S. Pentagon declassifying three videos in April 2020.
The footage had been previously acknowledged as real by the Navy, and captured what pilots recorded on their video sensors during training flights in 2004 and 2015.
Two of the clips were first published in 2017 by the New York Times and the third by the To The Stars Academy in 2018 - a group that specializes in unexplained phenomenon and was founded by Blink-182 guitarist Tom DeLonge.
'Tic Tac' UFO: US Navy pilot made visual contact with the object on November 14, 2004
At least six Super Hornet pilots made visual or instrument contact with the UFO on November 14, 2004.
The encounters, which are documented in numerous interviews with first-hand witnesses, remain a mystery, and the object's incredible speed and movements have led to speculation that it was extraterrestrial in origin.
The original FLIR video from the USS Nimitz encounters leaked online as early as 2007.
Witnesses say that clips of the video had been circulated widely on the Navy's intranet - used to communicate between ships in the carrier group - and an unknown sailor in the group likely first leaked it.
The clip became one of the most-touted pieces of evidence in the UFO community when the Pentagon confirmed its authenticity in 2017.
In January, Chad Underwood, the former Navy aviator who shot the famous leaked video clip, broke his silence in an interview with New York Magazine.
Chad Underwood, the former Navy aviator who shot the famous leaked video clip, broke his silence in an interview with New York Magazine in January
He said the oblong, wingless 'Tic Tac' shaped object was spotted off the coast of Mexico over the Pacific.
He also revealed that for about two weeks, the Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser USS Princeton, part of Carrier Strike Group 11, had been tracking mysterious aircraft intermittently on an advanced AN/SPY-1B passive radar.
The radar contacts were so inexplicable that the system was even shut down and restarted to to check for bugs - but operators continued to track the unknown aircraft.
Then on November 14, Commander David Fravor says he was flying in an F/A-18F Super Hornet when he made visual contact with the object, which seemed to dive below the water, resurface, and speed out of sight when he tried to approach it.
As Fravor landed on the deck of the Nimitz, Underwood was just gearing up to take off on his own training run.
Fravor told Underwood about the bizarre encounter, and urged Underwood to keep his eyes open.
He recalls how he suddenly saw a blip on his radar before tracking it on his FLIR camera.
Underwood was flying in an F/A-18F Super Hornet as part of the USS Nimitz (above) carrier group when he encountered an 'unidentified aerial phenomena'
'The thing that stood out to me the most was how erratic it was behaving,' Underwood told the magazine.
'And what I mean by 'erratic' is that its changes in altitude, air speed, and aspect were just unlike things that I've ever encountered before flying against other air targets.'
Underwood said the object wasn't obeying the laws of physics and dropped from 50,000 feet altitude to 100 feet in seconds, which he says, 'isn't possible'. He added that he saw no signs of an engine heat plume or any sign of propulsion.
The pilot refuses to speculate as to whether the object is an alien spacecraft or not, however.
'That's not my job. But I saw something. And it was also seen, via eyeballs, by both my commanding officer, Dave Fravor, and the Marine Corps Hornet squadron commanding officer who was out there as well.'
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