Former President Barack Obama said Monday that recent comments he made appearing to confirm the existence of aliens were made "in the spirit of the speed round."

"Statistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are good there's life out there. But the distances between solar systems are so great that the chances we've been visited by aliens is low, and I saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us," he said, according to the BBC. "Really!"

His clarification followed comments he made to podcast host Brian Tyler Cohen over the weekend, in which he said "[t]hey're real but I haven't seen them... They're not being kept in Area 51. There's no underground facility unless there's this enormous conspiracy and they hid it from the president of the United States."

The possible existence of extraterrestrial life has long captured the American imagination and fueled a litany of conspiracies. The government has never acknowledged or admitted the existence of sentient aliens.

Ben Whedon is the Chief Political Correspondent at Just the News. Follow him on X.