Avi Loeb Reacting to President Trump’s Comments on Aliens
Below is the transcript of a new short video that I just released on my YouTube Channel here.
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A few hours ago, on Thursday, February 19, 2026, President Trump was asked an interesting question by Fox News reporter Peter Doocy. The question followed comments that had received significant attention this week after former President Barack Obama said that aliens are real. President Trump was asked whether he had seen any evidence of nonhuman visitors to Earth.
In response, President Trump said that Obama had revealed classified information and was not supposed to be discussing it. He added that he did not personally have an opinion on whether aliens are real, though many people believe they are.
I spoke with Peter Doocy a few months ago about this same question, and I would like to comment on what we just heard from President Trump.
Much of the data concerning unusual objects in the sky is classified, and there are understandable reasons for that. First, the data is often collected by highly sophisticated, classified sensors. The United States does not want adversarial nations to understand the quality and capabilities of those systems. For example, high-resolution government satellites may capture anomalous objects, but the performance of those satellites cannot be publicly revealed.
Second, if intelligence officers are studying materials or images they cannot identify, they may prefer to keep that information classified. If such objects were manufactured by adversarial nations, revealing details could expose vulnerabilities in U.S. defense systems. No nation wants to advertise weaknesses in its detection or response capabilities.
There is also a bureaucratic dimension. Administrators in intelligence agencies may not want to publicly acknowledge that there are objects they cannot identify, especially given the large budgets allocated for national security. Classification limits the number of people who can review the data, including members of Congress.
For all these reasons, it makes sense that such information remains classified.
At the same time, the president is aware of many incidents in which intelligence personnel and military officers encounter unusual objects whose origins they cannot determine. One possibility is that these are technological systems developed by other nations, which would be a serious national security concern. But because the data is classified, the broader public does not have access to the evidence.
When President Obama spoke about unidentified objects, that information may well have been classified. However, it does not rule out the possibility that some of these objects could represent extraterrestrial technologies. To determine their origin, we need better data. In most cases, that better data simply does not exist.
The simplest approach is to set the issue aside until better evidence becomes available. That is precisely why I am leading the Galileo Project.
I am not interested in technologies manufactured by humans on Earth. The history of terrestrial technology does not interest me. I am far more curious about whether a more advanced civilization exists in interstellar space. The Galileo Project is designed to search for objects that operate outside the envelope of known human technologies.
We have built three observatories — in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Nevada — and we are collecting data on millions of objects. We are searching for outliers that cannot be explained as human-made systems.
If we find evidence of advanced human-made technologies, I will gladly share that information with the Pentagon. Even if we do not find extraterrestrial technology, the sensors and artificial intelligence tools we developed could benefit national security. As an American citizen, I would be pleased if our work strengthens national defense.
However, my primary interest is extraterrestrial technology. The Pentagon focuses on human-made systems. Our interests are complementary, not overlapping. If we discover something unusual, it could either improve national security or advance one of the most profound scientific questions: Are we alone?
One step that can be taken immediately is to declassify events from 50 years ago. Technologies used half a century ago are no longer strategically sensitive. Releasing older data could significantly advance scientific research.
I would be delighted to help the government analyze declassified incidents. I would also welcome collaboration with the White House on any future declassifications. If additional details about anomalous objects become available, I would be happy to assist in interpreting them.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Avi Loeb is the head of the Galileo Project, founding director of Harvard University’s — Black Hole Initiative, director of the Institute for Theory and Computation at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and the former chair of the astronomy department at Harvard University (2011–2020). He is a former member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and a former chair of the Board on Physics and Astronomy of the National Academies. He is the bestselling author of “Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth” and a co-author of the textbook “Life in the Cosmos”, both published in 2021. The paperback edition of his new book, titled “Interstellar”, was published in August 2024.
Professional website:
https://lweb.cfa.harvard.edu/~loeb/
Social media:
https://avi-loeb.medium.com/
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfessorAviLoeb
https://open.spotify.com/show/1zhndXkvSY2b8FdjspFpCd
https://x.com/ProfAviLoeb
