The Ben Mulroney Show - Obama says aliens are real, then walks back his comments

Episode Date: February 17, 2026

Science writer and ufologist, Chris Rutkowski, shares his analysis on former president Obama's alien confession and retraction. * Author of The Canadian UFO Report and upcoming book: Canada's UFO Secrets: New Insights from Government Files If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://link.chtbl.com/bms⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Also, on youtube -- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BenMulroneyShow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Insta: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠   Executive Producer:  Mike Drolet Reach out to Mike with story ideas or tips at [e-mail] Enjoy   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast is brought to you by the National Payroll Institute, the leader for the payroll profession in Canada, setting the standard of professional excellence, delivering critical expertise, and providing resources that over 45,000 payroll professionals rely on. You know, there's a great movie that I don't think was received as well as it could have been, called Contact, starring Jody Foster and Matthew McConaughey back in the day.

And I thought it was a great movie because it, it put in opposition two things that by the end of the movie were quite in harmony. And it was the faith in science versus faith in religion. But the main character, I think, was asked, you know, do you think we're the only ones out there? And I think she said, well, if we are, it's an awful waste of space. And I remember thinking that to myself, it's like as a numbers game, if space is infinite, then wouldn't numbers dictate that there would be intelligent life out there elsewhere? And if they were light years ahead of us in terms of technology,

you know, wouldn't they be able to find us? And we've seen so many, so many videos, especially with people having cameras on them all the time, and the ability to upload them to social media so that we can all see the pictures. There's a lot of stuff that we don't understand. By the way, no one's been able to explain that thing in New Jersey. last year with what could have been drones, could have been something else. We don't know. And so obviously, we all believe that if anyone is going to know if there are UFOs out there, and I don't call them UAPs, they're going to be UFOs forever for me. If anyone's going to know,

it's going to be the person with the absolute highest security clearance, and that's the president of the United States. So when President Obama, was on a podcast, he was asked if aliens were real and here's what he said. Are aliens real? They're real, but I haven't seen them and they're not being kept in, what is it? Area 51. There's no underground facility unless there's this enormous conspiracy and they hit it from the president of the United States.

What was the first question you wanted answered when you'd be? became president? Where are the aliens? Where are the aliens? Yeah. So he clarified it later. He said he was answering a lightning round of questions. And therefore, he sort of walked back the glibness with which he spoke of aliens.

But, you know, I take him at his word. He said that. But to talk more about this, we're joined by Chris Rikowsky, science writer and UFOlogist. Chris, welcome to the show. Oh, thank you, and thank you for having me here. Okay, so when you hear the president, former president of the United States, say what he said? What do you think? Well, you know, he's not the first president to be asked about this.

And I think every president over the past 50 years has had something like that asked to him. And it's interesting the way that he phrased it, though, that he said that, you know, they're real, but I haven't seen them. And, well, does that mean that they are real? and for some reason they've been keeping them from you because he actually said, he said, unless there's some sort of enormous conspiracy, and of course, that's what people are really focusing on. The plausible deniability of it all. Exactly.

And as people have said, you know, maybe this is such an important thing that they would keep it from the president. And I suppose, you know, the presidents come and go, but this could be the story of the century. And, you know, maybe if you're in the conspiracy mode, maybe you don't want to tell the president this. Yeah. Well, now, you are deeply knowledgeable in this world. And listen, in my lifetime, sort of the advocates for life being out there and that life having come here has gone from the fringe to as close to the mainstream as I've ever seen it. Would you agree?

Oh, absolutely. I mean, you can't turn on a TV. or go to a movie without some alien element. I mean, some of the top science fiction TV series are all about UFOs and aliens and things in between like that. And, you know, my background's in astronomy. So, you know, I share with all my astronomy colleagues that there probably is life out there somewhere.

And that's sort of what Obama was getting at later, that, you know, the likelihood that there's life and alien life out there somewhere is really, really good. But I can tell you, Ben, you know, I've been worried. tuning into CNN and Fox and your show. And I don't see any sign of intelligent life on Earth. Tushé, my friend. Tushé. But Canada has its own experience with UFOs.

You've got a book called Canada's UFO Secrets, New Insights from Government Files. What are some of those insights? What are some of the things that you know that the general public doesn't know? Well, I know that the government of Canada has been very involved with the subject of UFOs. And it's true. In Canada, we do call them UFOs. Transport Canada has a category of things being seen by pilots called UFO, not UAP. So, you know, there's a long history. There's about a thousand cases, at least a thousand cases in Canada every year. And there have been government inquiries. There was a study that was just released last year from the Office of Canada's top science advisor who reports directly to the prime minister. that says Canada has to step up on the world stage and use its technology. And maybe this is something that they have to get into with defense

and you'll have to protect our sovereignty and all this sort of stuff because we had things that had to get shot down by the Americans in the Yukon and over Lake Huron because the American fighters are up there. But we're partners with NORAD with the United States. So we have to really step up and get more involved in this. And, you know, people, average person on the street is seeing a UFO. and they're not sure to who to report to. So the government of Canada probably has to do a little bit more in this regard.

So play the other side of the coin for me. What reasons can you imagine for a government to come into contact with the UFO, like maybe a crash landing, and not inform the public and keep it completely black bag? Well, I mean, the United States Air Force kind of got into this with its study that was sort of semi-released, but there's still a lot we don't know, because if a pilot is flying on a training mission

or in operating in a war theater, sees a UFO or something like that, the public probably doesn't need to know or should not need to know about that because the technology used to detect it is classified. Maybe it would compromise the pilot, maybe it would compromise some other military personnel,

that type of thing. So there's a good reason to keep some of the, this from the Canadian public at large. But if we are more concerned about our sovereignty and things zipping around our Arctic, and there are lots of cases of people seeing things in the Arctic, that perhaps we should have some monitoring station. We had the dew line and the pine tree line for many, many years, which are a series of radar stations to keep, you know, in case Russia was sending things over the pole,

that was dismantled. Maybe we have to bring that back. Yeah. Some people suggest that there have been leaps in technology that could only be explained by reverse engineering alien technology. You know, like the was the B-2 bomber, the stealth technology, and how if you looked at it from certain angles, it looked like what a UFO could have looked like. How much stock do you put into those theories? Well, my view is that, you know, if there was some reverse engineering, we wouldn't have been bothered. with Artemis. We wouldn't have been bothering with silly little space shuttles and things like that.

They're too dangerous for their own good. We would have waited until we developed them a little bit more. So if there is a crash saucer that they're trying to reverse engineer, they haven't got very far. That's for sure. All right. Well, we're going to leave it there, my friend. Thank you so much. It's been a lot of fun. We'd love to talk to you again. Thank you.