By Tim Binnall
Former president Bill Clinton became the latest prominent figure to share their thoughts on the UFO phenomenon when he was asked about the subject during a recent late night talk show appearance. The enlightening moment (which can be seen above) occurred this past Wednesday evening on The Late Late Show with James Corden. As the conversation was nearing an end, band leader Reggie Watts was afforded the opportunity to ask the former president a question. Citing the "recent release of Pentagon footage of unidentified aerial phenomena," the musician inquired of Clinton what he thinks "these objects that seem to defy all laws of physics" could be.
Interesting, while the audience responded to Watts' inquiry with laughter, Clinton was quick to stifle the chuckles by saying "first of all, that's a legitimate question now," which is a testament to how the perception of UFOs have changed in just the last few years. The former president went on to concede that he doesn't know what UFOs are, but revisited the somewhat famous account of how he and his chief of staff John Podesta "made every attempt to find out everything about Roswell and we also sent people to Area 51 to make sure there were no aliens." Corden then amusingly wondered who the president chose for such a strange mission and Clinton jokingly responded "Oh, if I told you that," before revealing that it was his National Security Advisor Sandy Berger.
In another telling aspect of the former president's comments, he noted that "Area 51 is very important" and explained "that's where we do a lot of our invisibility research in terms of technology, like how we fly airplanes that aren't picked up by radar and all that, so that's why they're so secretive." Clinton's insights into the infamous base are particularly noteworthy when one considers that it was only in 2013 that then-president Obama became the first commander in chief to ever acknowledge the existence of Area 51 and it was in the form of a joke during a speech. Alas, as far as ETs residing at the site, Clinton said that "there's no aliens as far as I know."
This led to the former president pivoting to an anecdote about a visit that he and the former First Lady made to Hawaii in 2018 wherein they visited the massive Keck telescope. While talking to some of the scientists who work there, Clinton recalled, he asked them if they have arguments about the possibility of intelligent life existing somewhere out in space. In response, the researchers said that they do, but the debate is over whether it is 85% or 95% likely, meaning that they are fairly confident that 'we are not alone.' Ultimately, the former president mused that the UFO mystery "should keep us humble" as "there's a lot of stuff we don't know."