Barack Obama claims aliens exist and sparks wave of conspiracy theories

During a podcast interview with political commentator Brian Tyler Cohen released Sunday, former US president Barack Obama casually remarked that aliens exist.

When asked about their existence, Obama said:

They're real. But I haven't seen them. And they're not being kept in... what is it? 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 asked another question:

What was the first question that you wanted answered when you became president?

Obama replied with a smile:

Where are the aliens?

If you take Obama at his word, it was another nothingburger. Like NASA's top scientists and most well-informed space enthusiasts, the 44th president was saying that while he suspects life exists somewhere out there, he's seen no confirmation himself.

However, the remarks from the podcast segment sparked a storm of speculation, especially amid official UFO investigations reaching Congress. Self-proclaimed body language experts rushed to analyze Obama's eye contact during the exchange. Particularly imaginative observers even pointed to the confidence with which Obama made his statements as a paradoxical sign that he must have seen some evidence of aliens' existence during his time in the White House.

Obama later issued a clarifying statement, explaining that he simply wanted 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!

We wouldn't be surprised if this sparked even more conspiracy theories. Obama is getting nervous, they might say. The deep state pulled some strings to remind him who's really in charge. The Greys' ambassador denounced the reckless comments at the Shadow Council meeting, triggering a brief diplomatic crisis.

Naturally, the most likely explanation is also the most boring – Obama can be taken literally when he says he suspects alien life exists somewhere out there, but hasn't seen direct evidence in an official capacity. Perhaps the strongest argument for this banal conclusion: if the government really had evidence of aliens, Donald Trump probably would have accidentally blurted it out by now. Though perhaps they never disclosed that information to him.