Why did Obama say aliens are real? – The Latest

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:11A former US president saying the words aliens are real is going to raise a lot of eyebrows. Are aliens real? They're real, but I haven't seen them and they're not being kept in Area 51. one. 86 % of astrobiologists agree or strongly agree that there is life out there. It's just that there haven't been any signs yet. A former US president says aliens are real. So could Barack Obama be right? From the Guardians today in Focus, this is the latest with me, Lucy Hoff.

0:46I'm joined by Madeline Finlay, who is the host and producer of our sister podcast, Science Weekly. Maddie, it's so nice to have you in the studio. And it's safe to say I was not expecting to talk about whether aliens are real on a Monday. But here we are. Former US President Barack Obama has been on a podcast, the podcast of a man called Brian Tyler Cohen, who seems to have got this mad scoop that Obama thinks aliens are real. The power of a lightning round questions. I mean, quite incredible. So yeah, so he was asked during this quick fire round. Are aliens real? And Obama responds. And then he goes on to say they're not in Area 51.

1:26There's no underground facility and I haven't seen any evidence of them. And so, you know, if they are real, there was a conspiracy to keep them from the US president. Yeah. And Area 51 is this very secretive kind of military site in the middle of the desert, right for which there's this very rich history of conspiracy theories? Yeah, Area 51 is really fascinating because it's this top secret military base. It's in the Nevada desert. And its secrecy is really why these conspiracies have popped up. It was opened in 1955. But just to say how secret it is, it was only officially acknowledged by President Obama in 2013.

2:07So top secret. And it Really, it's a test and training facility, but it has these associations with aliens and alien conspiracies. But no evidence there yet. Not yet. Obama, I think, was quite surprised by the reaction to his comments on this podcast and then had to post on Instagram what he actually thought about it, which was slightly more caveated than what he said on the podcast, right? Yeah. Yeah. So as you can imagine, a former US president saying the words aliens are real is going to raise a lot of eyebrows. You're going to get a lot of headlines on this. And so then he had to come out with these clarifying comments, basically saying, you know, statistically speaking, aliens are probably real.

2:54That, you know, life is out there, but that he hadn't seen any evidence of them and that, you know, there wasn't this kind of aliens have come to Earth. It was really just that when you look at the science and the numbers on this, it's probable that aliens are out there somewhere on another planet. But you are the presenter of our sister podcast, Science Weekly. So in that capacity, can I ask you, what is the science behind whether aliens are real? What research is there? So I think a good place to start on this is this Fermi paradox. So this was named after a scientist, Enrico Fermi. And the idea behind this is if aliens are out there, you know, why haven't we heard from them?

3:36Where are they? Where are the aliens? And this basically comes from this idea that there are, you know, one septillion stars in the observable universe. This number of stars, it's one with 24 zeros on the end. It's a big number. It's a lot. big number um and so you know you have all these stars which may have planets around them so why haven't we heard from anyone yet and so scientists have tried to kind of understand all right well what is the likelihood that there are aliens and we might have been able to hear from them and then we come to drake's equation now this is frank drake he's an astronomer he was really interested in looking for signs of extraterrestrial life.

4:23And he came up with this equation. And kind of to sum it up, it's sort of the probability of an alien civilization being able to contact us. And so there's factors like, okay, how many stars out there are there? How many of those are going to have planets around them? How many of those planets are going to be in what's known as the Goldilocks zone so this is an area around a star where life can exist then you have to ask questions like okay well if you've got a habitable planet how likely is it that life will have arisen on it and how long does it take for a civilization to develop technology that could reach out to us so calculating all of this it seems like the probabilities in of themselves each individual one would be very small.

5:12But because of the vast, vast, vast numbers of stars and possible planets, it's actually very, very probable that life is out there somewhere. And if that is indeed the case, is it possible that a US president would be given documents by science or space agencies saying, we found this and we need you to know about it and that that information would not be given to the broader public for any particular reason. So I think just to say, you know, even if it's probable that life is out there somewhere, the distances that life would have to kind of be able to communicate over are so vast. I mean, we've only been on this planet for, you know, an infinitesimal amount of time.

5:58So the likelihood that we would receive any kind of message, and of course, scientists are out there looking for these messages. So is it likely that a president would be told if there were messages found. Look, I wish I had insight into the intelligence and the secrecy around that. I think probably, you know, a US sitting US president would be party to this information. And certainly, you know, a lot of previous presidents have wanted to get to the bottom of these sort of, you know, things around aliens and UFOs. But are they? I I wish I could, you know, be in those meeting rooms when they decide who gets to know and who doesn't get to know.

6:42Because there is a little bit of a precedent historically, isn't there, of US presidents acknowledging the existence of extraterrestrial beings or UFOs. Right. Can you tell me about that? Yeah, absolutely. So this goes back to Truman, who said that he had was interested in this stuff. And then you have Jimmy Carter, who apparently had had seen a UFO, so an unidentified flying object, which is very different from a little green man. You have Bill Clinton, who was apparently really interested in this kind of a bit of a sci fi guy. And then, you know, Barack Obama has spoken about this multiple times on, you know, late night shows.

7:23He said that he would be interested in finding out what, you know, what the intelligence services had any information. But no president has ever said that there was anything, you know, anything that they would take as evidence for certainly aliens and, you know, UFOs, unidentified flying objects. There are many things that those objects could be that are Earth based possibilities rather than coming from, you know, outside our solar system. And just lastly, Maddy, I mean, obviously, for someone with Barack Obama's profile to say something like this on a podcast, I mean, there's a sense to which you think maybe he's having a bit of a joke with the public.

8:07But this is catnip for communities, both real and online, or IRL or online, that really believe in this stuff. This must have really fueled that debate. What does that look like? I mean, absolutely. If you are a former US president, there are certain topics that you need to be careful around. And certainly anything to do with aliens, you want to be very deliberate and accurate with your words. And obviously, a lightning round is a bit of a trap for saying something in maybe not quite the right way. and I do think he was a bit unfortunate bringing up Area 51 in the way that he did because you know saying there's nothing there there's always going to be a group of people who are going well why did he bring up Area 51 if there isn't anything there and so you know of course people have got excited it's a topic that really inspires you know the sci-fi lovers and the people who think that the government might be hiding something from them.

9:06And, you know, just to say, 86 % of astrobiologists, when they were asked this, so these are the people who study life on, the possibility of life on other planets, say that they think, agree or strongly agree that there is life out there on another planet. It's just that there haven't been any signs that it's reached us yet. So I think there's a lot of reason to believe. I think Barack Obama's right. It's just that, you know, maybe we keep the aliens visiting us in a big spaceship. That's definitely sci-fi and that needs to stay in the land of sci-fi books for now. Maddy, such an enlightening conversation.

9:51Thank you so much for your time.

9:58that's it for today my huge thanks again to madeline finley who is host of our sister podcast science weekly do have a listen to that if you haven't already we'll put a link in our show notes thanks for listening to this episode of the latest the new evening edition of today in focus we'll be with you every weekday evening with what you need to know about the story everyone's talking about in around 10 minutes today in focus we'll be back in your feeds as usual tomorrow morning and we'll be back tomorrow night. This episode was presented by me, Lucy Hoff. The producer was Bryony Moore. The senior producer was Ryan Ramgobin.

10:27The lead producer was Zoe Hitch.

10:36This is The Guardian.