Following former President Barack Obama’s recent comment to a podcaster that aliens are real, but he hasn’t seen them, President Donald Trump announced that he’s directing top officials to begin identifying and releasing government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life, including unidentified flying objects.
Rusty Hester, assistant state director for MUFON, said the organization wasn’t surprised or particularly excited by Obama’s contention.
"We here in MUFON and I were not excited, because all presidents have made comments about it," she said. "I do believe that Obama probably has been briefed in a little bit about UFOs and aliens, but I don't think they know everything. A couple years ago, David Grusch, he is a recent whistleblower. He was high up in intelligence and he testified to Congress about crash retrieval programs and that the information is withheld from the President. I kind of believe the military people more than our elected officials.
"And MUFON, our stance is that we've already had disclosure. We've had multiple lists and lists of people that are in our military, that have testified and that have talked about this and ongoing people who have applied for Whistleblower Protection Act."
Hester elaborated on what other presidents have said.
"For instance, also Jimmy Carter, he actually filed a UFO report in 1969 with the International UFO Bureau before he ran for president, because he had his own sighting with 12 other people. Ronald Reagan, he had a sighting and some of his speeches talked about UFOs and aliens. And Bill Clinton said he believes."
MUFON investigates all claims of UFO sightings, checking things like airplane flight radar, information about weather balloons and other data to try to explain phenomena. Hester says that about 90 percent of the time reports are explainable, leaving about 10 percent of unknown origin. And she feels freer to speak about this than she used to.
"I used to feel embarrassed about it, and wouldn’t talk about it. … I feel like it's just more accepted."
Although Obama later added, “I saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us,” a 2021 survey by the Pew Research Center found that 65 percent of Americans believed intelligent life may exist on other planets.
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