On Feb. 14, 2026, former President Barack Obama sat for a rapid-fire question round on Brian Tyler Cohen’s No Lie podcast. Asked if aliens are real, he said yes, he just hadn’t seen them, and they weren’t being kept at Area 51. The clip went viral. Obama later clarified on Instagram that he meant the universe is so vast that life elsewhere is statistically likely, and that he saw no evidence of alien visits while in office.

On Air Force One on Feb. 19, Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy asked President Trump about it. Trump said Obama had made a big mistake by revealing classified information, said he himself didn’t know if aliens were real, and joked that he might get Obama out of trouble by declassifying it.

Hours later, on Truth Social, he did just that. Citing “tremendous interest,” Trump said he would direct the Secretary of War and other relevant departments and agencies to begin identifying and releasing government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena and UFOs, and any other information connected to them.

The order set off the year’s biggest UFO story. Within a day, The Black Vault’s online archive was wiped, fueling cover-up talk. Within months, the Pentagon launched war.gov/UFO and began posting files in batches under a program called PURSUE. The Pentagon’s UFO office had said in 2024 that it found no evidence of extraterrestrial beings, activity or technology.