President Obama Discusses UFOs on Jimmy Kimmel Live
On 12 March 2015, President Barack Obama appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live and, asked about Area 51 and aliens, joked that "the aliens won't let it happen" and that he was "instructed to say" there was nothing — pointedly declining to flatly deny knowledge.
Background
The Appearance
On 12 March 2015, President Barack Obama appeared as a guest on ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Live. During the interview Kimmel — who has long pressed presidential guests on UFOs — asked Obama directly about Area 51 and the existence of aliens.
The Response
Obama smiled and responded along two distinct lines. First, he joked that "the aliens won't let it happen" — implying he could not disclose secret information because of the aliens themselves. Second, he said he was "instructed to say" that there was nothing to see. Neither formulation constituted a direct denial of government knowledge, and UFO researchers including Coulthart point out that Obama specifically avoided the plain, flat denials his predecessors had offered.
Later Presidential Statements
In the years that followed, Obama made several further comments on the subject. In 2021, after leaving office, he told The Late Late Show with James Corden and CBS This Morning that the government had identified "objects in the skies that we don't know exactly what they are" and that their movements could not be explained — remarks that many interpreted as the first substantive confirmation by a former president that the phenomenon was real and unexplained.