Former President Barack Obama jokingly confirmed the existence of aliens in a podcast interview with host and YouTuber Brian Tyler Cohen.
The friendly banter quickly made headlines, with many wondering about the joke’s legitimacy.
So was this an answer to the age-old question of whether aliens are real? And how strongly is their presence felt in Illinois?
What did Obama say about aliens?
During a lightning round of questions in the Feb. 14 interview, Cohen asked the former president if aliens exist.
“They’re real, but I haven’t seen them,” Obama said. “They’re not being kept at Area 51. There’s no underground facility, unless there’s this enormous conspiracy, and they hid it from the president of the United States.”
Cohen then continued the lightning round by asking the Obama, “What was the first question you wanted answered when you became president?”
“Where are the aliens?” Obama responded quickly before laughing.
Obama further clarified his statement the following day on Instagram, saying, “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!” Obama wrote.
What is a UFO?
Unidentified flying object, often referred to as UFO, is the popular term for aerial phenomena whose cause cannot be easily or immediately identified, according to the Air Force Declassification Office.
Though the term is commonly linked to the presence of alien lifeforms today, it was coined by the U.S. Air Force in 1952 to describe objects still unidentifiable after expert investigation.
How many UFOs has Illinois reported?
The National UFO Reporting Center, founded in 1974 by UFO investigator Robert J. Gribble, has collected reports of “unusual, possibly UFO-related events” since 1995, processing over 180,000 reports since its creation, according to the center’s website.
Since 1995, 4,498 reports of UFOs have come out of Illinois, making it the No. 9 state in terms of UFO reports to NUFORC.
Which states report the most UFO sightings?
The following states have reported the most UFOs to NUFORC:
This article originally appeared on Journal Star: Are aliens real? See how many UFO reports have come out of Illinois
Reporting by Hannah Hudnall and Kate Perez, Peoria Journal Star / Journal Star
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
