Trump: Obama revealed classified data on aliens

US President Donald Trump claimed Thursday that his predecessor, Barack Obama, made classified information public when he confirmed the existence of extraterrestrial life.

"He gave classified information. He's not supposed to be doing that," Trump told reporters on Air Force One. "He made a big mistake. He took it out of classified information. No, I don't have an opinion on it. I never talk about it. A lot of people do. A lot of people believe it."

Trump said he "may get him out of trouble by declassifying" the information. It is unclear what information he is referring to when he alleges that Obama disclosed classified materials.

Obama said during a conversation with American podcast host Brian Tyler Cohen that aliens "are real."

"They're real, but I haven't seen them," he said on the podcast published Saturday, answering a question about extraterrestrials.

"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," Obama said.

Obama released a subsequent statement on the US social media platform Instagram in which he said he "was trying to stick with the spirit of the speed round."

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

Area 51 is a highly classified US Air Force facility situated at Groom Lake in southern Nevada. While it has long been the subject of conspiracy theories involving extraterrestrials, its only officially acknowledged function is aircraft testing.