(The Hill) — Former President Trump pondered alien lifeforms on a podcast appearance published Thursday, acknowledging that “there could be” alien life out in the universe, but that he wasn’t convinced.
Trump appeared on YouTuber Logan Paul’s “Impaulsive,” where he spent minutes discussing the possibility of life beyond Earth and whether unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs) could in fact be aliens.
“Am I a believer? No, I probably I can’t say I am,” Trump said. “But I have met with people that are serious people that say there’s some really strange things that they see flying around out there.”
UAPs have become a hot topic in Congress in the last year, with a small group of bipartisan House members questioning the military over claims that it could be hiding evidence of alien activity or ultra-futuristic technology. Paul raised the same concerns about government transparency, which Trump downplayed.
Trump said that he spent significant time looking into the phenomena when president, and that he doesn’t believe that government agencies are keeping information from the public.
“They have people that are very smart and very solid have said they believe there was something out there and, you know, it makes sense that they could be,” he said. “I’ve never been convinced, even despite that, you know. I just, for some reason, it’s not my thing. But a lot of people believe that it’s true. A lot of very good solid people believe it’s true.”
A Pentagon report in March found “no evidence” that the U.S. government or any private companies have reverse-engineered extraterrestrial technology, nor are there any confirmed sightings of UFOs having alien origin, contradicting high-profile whistleblowers who had made the claims without evidence.
Trump also emphasized, while noting that he is not personally a believer in aliens, that they could be real, nonetheless.
“It’s very believable. It’s very possible that there is something,” he said. “And why wouldn’t it be, you know, you take a look at the universe, and you see all of the different planets and you see this you know, look at we are one relatively small planet, why wouldn’t it be on a planet that’s, you know, 400 times the size?”