“I’VE SEEN THEM”: OBAMA CHOOSES HIS WORDS AS UFO INTEREST HITS FEVER PITCH

For some time, expressing interest in unidentified flying objects, or UFOs, has been deemed mostly unacceptable in wider society. But attitudes appear to be changing in America this week, with luminaries from Barack Obama to the former NBA star Shaquille O’Neal sharing their thoughts.

Obama was asked about the issue during an interview on Tuesday, the former president confirmed that never before seen in public “footage and records” of unidentified aerial phenomenon do exist.

Much of the newfound, and newly sincere, interest in UFOs, this week appears to stem from a report on CBS’s 60 Minutes on Sunday, which tackled “the US government’s grudging acknowledgment” of the issue.

With the defense department and intelligence agencies due to deliver a much-anticipated official report on mysterious aerial sightings next month, 60 Minutes interviewed a number of credible witnesses, including a former navy pilot who said he had seen unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) – the government’s preferred term – “every day for at least a couple years”.

That prompted Obama’s discussion of aerial phenomena.

The former President broke with the usual self conscious attempts to be onside with the snideratti when he told CBS: “What is true, and I’m actually being serious here, is that there’s footage and records of these things in our skies, we don’t know exactly what they are, we can’t explain how they move the way they do, their trajectory.”

New York, NY - MAY 11: Former. President Barack Obama speaks during An Evening with CARE, Celebrating the 75th Anniversary of the CARE Package on May 11, 2021 in New York, New York. (Photo by Theo Wargo/Getty Images for CARE)© 2021 Getty Images NEW YORK, NEW YORK - MAY 11: Frmr. President Barack Obama speaks during An Evening with CARE, Celebrating the 75th Anniversary of the CARE Package on May 11, 2021 in New York, New York. (Photo by Theo Wargo/Getty Images for CARE)

Appearing very conscientious of his image, he continued: “They (UAPs) didn't have an easily explainable pattern. And so, you know, I think people are [now] taking seriously, trying to, investigate and figure out what this is.”

Tucker Carlson, the Fox News host also saw the 60 Minutes report, and played a clip on his show on Monday. UFOs, it seems, are pretty much the one thing Obama and Carlson might agree on.

“The Pentagon admits it doesn’t know what in the world this is,” Carlson said, after he showed his viewers footage of a UFO. “From a national security perspective, this is [potentially] a very big problem.”

As is his wont, Republican Carlson went on to spin the issue into a specious criticism of the Democrat administration, but even so, it was another example of relatively serious discussion of UFOs taking place.

On Monday, O’Neal shared his experience of seeing a “flying saucer” with ABC, while CNN interviewed a former combat pilot who told of how she had spotted a UFO off the coast of San Diego.

The interest in UFOs will probably only grow as the US prepares to release its report at the beginning of June. In March John Ratcliffe, Donald Trump’s former intelligence director, said the disclosure will reveal that there have been “a lot more” sightings of UFOs than have been made public.