"There’s Footage and Records of Objects in the Skies That We Don’t Know Exactly What They Are," Says Former President Obama about UFOs

Former President Barack Obama during his appearance on The Late Late Show with James Corden. — Former President Barack Obama during his appearance on *The Late Late Show with James Corden.*

Former President Barack Obama spoke candidly about the UFO phenomenon with host James Corden and band leader Reggie Watts during an interview last Monday on The Late Late Show with James Corden.

"When it comes to aliens, there are some things I just can’t tell you on air," the former president at first joked in response to a question from Watts about UFOs. "The truth is, when I came into office, I asked. I was like, you know, is there the lab somewhere where we’re keeping the alien specimens and spaceship? They did a little bit of research, and the answer was no."

Former President Obama did, however, become somewhat earnest in his response at one point.

"But what is true, and I’m actually being serious here, is that there’s footage and records of objects in the skies that we don’t know exactly what they are. We can’t explain how they move, their trajectory. They did not have an easily explainable pattern. And so, I think people still take seriously trying to investigate and figure out what that is," he said. "But I have nothing to report to you today."

The former president’s statement came just days after documentarian Jeremy Corbell shared footage of what he said were “'spherical' shaped UFOs and advanced transmedium vehicles."

According to Corbell, "This footage was filmed in the CIC (Combat Information Center) of the USS Omaha [at 11 p.m. PST] on July 15th, 2019 in a warning area off San Diego. This footage depicts a UAP [Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon; the current government nomenclature for UFO] event series that reached a crescendo with one of the unknown targets entering the water. No wreckage found. None of the unknown craft were recovered."

Some have speculated that the object in the video could be a balloon radar reflector attached to the long range radio antenna of a submarine, although no official explanation for the video has been released.

Corbell had previously released a video last March which he claimed shows a July 2019 incident involving multiple "pyramid-shaped" craft recorded by an infrared camera from the deck of the USS Russell.

Critics of the “pyramid” craft video have pointed out that the aperture of many cameras will make out-of-focus lights appear to be triangular, and the flashing lights are consistent with a mundane aircraft. Still others suspect that the object might be a high-altitude balloon of tetrahedral shape, which have been in use since at least the 1970s.

Former President Obama’s remarks on The Late Late Show with James Corden represent an increased public interest among current and former politicians regarding the UFO phenomenon.

Intelligence Committee Chairman Senator Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) both gave statements to media outlet Mystery Wire following the release of a series of photos featuring unidentified flying objects and the video released by Corbell in March.

Although Sen. Warner declined to confirm whether or not he had viewed the video or photos, he did stress the need to investigate the phenomena.

“One of the things that has changed, and I [have] received classified briefings on this, so I can only give you the top line is that the military has seen enough things where they’re actually now encouraging pilots to report,” Sen. Warner said. “You know, if there are objects flying over military installations that could pose a security threat.”

“If there’s something out there, let’s seek it out," he added. "It probably is a foreign power. But I think, you know, the past approach that the military had, which was the pilot saw something to kind of say, whatever you do, don’t record, it’s gonna look bad on your record. And now say, no, if you’re seeing things and if we’ve now seen there’s actual visual recorded evidence, we gotta sort this out.”

Sen. Rubio, the former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee under President Trump, told Mystery Wire, “The bottom line is that we’ve had now consistent reports of objects flying over military installations and military training areas. And it’s not the US government. And so anytime I see things flying over installations that are not ours, we need to know who they are. We need to know why they’re there. And that’s the way I focus on it. Other people want to speculate about other things that are more exciting. And all that sort of thing. And, you know, I don’t we just don’t know what it is. I think at a very basic level, there are things flying over our military installations, or if there’s things flying over the skies of the United States, and we don’t know what they are, where they came from. We need to have answers to it. And we need to be working on getting an answer to it.”

In their Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021, the Senate Intelligence Committee, led at the time by Sen. Rubio, included a directive ordering the Director of National Intelligence (DNI)—in consultation with the Secretary of Defense—to create a report regarding “unidentified aerial phenomena.” That bill led to the creation of the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF), the organization said to be creating the report, which has a deadline of this June.

Sen. Rubio expressed doubt that the report would be created on time.

“I suspect that it won’t be back in time. Because the government consistently misses deadlines on reporting,” he said. “And because frankly, I’m not sure a lot of work had been done previous to our mandate on a report.”

In a subsequent interview with former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, the senator echoed the sentiments expressed by Senators Warner and Rubio, expressing satisfaction in the government’s current response to the UFO phenomenon.

Sen. Reid has long been a vocal supporter of UFO research, and in 2017 it was revealed that he sponsored the Pentagon’s Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program (AATIP), which was reportedly run from 2007 until 2012.

"The federal government no longer, including people at the Pentagon, no longer criticize or harass or stop promotions of people who report these occurrences. In fact, they have done just the opposite in recent months, they now tell their pilots...to report these unusual circumstances," he told George Knapp at Mystery Wire. "And I appreciated the honesty of the Pentagon. Because when asked, what were these things, they say we don’t know. Rather than try to say they were balloons from some kind of a weather experiment. They say we don’t know. And that’s honest. That’s being honest."

Sen. Reid seemed optimistic when asked about the UAPTF’s upcoming UFO report.

"I don’t see how we can lose anything by this report,” he said. “I hope it’s substantial. Hope they don’t run from the subject. But you know, we have Senator Warner from Virginia, very conservative Democrat, who is speaking out on this. We have Marco Rubio from Florida, who by the way, was raised in Las Vegas was speaking out on this issue. So I think that the conversation is good. And the other thing that I think is important is that we now have better equipment, pilots from the airplanes with their cell phones, taking some dramatic pictures."

During the interview, Knapp brought up the idea of foreign involvement in military UFO reports, saying "I mean, we have to assume, and we have to at least keep our minds open to where they’re from the idea that China has made advances in their drone technology. I don’t know if it’s scarier that it’s an unknown, or if it’s scarier that our adversaries have made great strides in technology."

To which Sen. Reid responded, "And always remember, Russia, the former Soviet Union, is run by a man who ran the KGB. They had as many as 30,000 agents at one time, KGB agents. So, Russia’s involved in this, no question about it."

Ultimately, said Sen. Reid, “I believe that there should be an ongoing entity, within the Pentagon would be the best place for it, whose sole job is to stay on top of the issue of UFOs.”

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