He's talked about it twice in the space of two days

Obama, who served as president between 2009-2017, jokingly said that knowing where the aliens are was the first thing he wanted to find out at president.

“What was the first question you wanted answered when you became President of the United States?”, was the question that the 44th POTUS was asked by podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen.

“Where are the aliens?”, Obama responded jokingly.

In the interview published Saturday, Obama added that aliens are “real”, but that he hasn’t seen them.

“But I haven’t seen them. They’re not being kept at Area 51. There’s no underground facility - unless there’s this enormous conspiracy and they hid it from the President of the United States”, he added.

Obama wasn’t asked a follow-up question on the topic by the interviewer, however the frenzy of speculation online prompted him to issue a clarification on Instagram.

On Sunday, Obama wrote: “I was trying to stick with the spirit of the speed round, but since it’s gotten attention let me clarify”.

“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. Really!”

Area 51, which Obama referred to in the interview, is a highly classified United States Air Force facility within the Nevada Test and Training Range in southern Nevada, 83 miles (134 km) north-northwest of Las Vegas.

It has been the frequent subject of conspiracy theories and a central component of UFO folklore, due to the intense secrecy surrounding the base.