"Based on the tremendous interest shown, I will be directing the Secretary of War, and other relevant Departments and Agencies, to begin the process of identifying and releasing Government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs)…" Trump said.

Interest in UFOs, now officially termed UAP, has surged in recent years as the US government investigated multiple sightings of unexplained aerial objects amid concerns they could represent advanced technologies from rival nations.

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A Pentagon report released in March 2024 found no evidence that UAP were of alien origin, concluding that many sightings were attributable to weather balloons, spy aircraft, satellites and other conventional sources.

Meanwhile, Trump's remarks came hours after he accused his predecessor, Barack Obama of disclosing "classified" information in his recent viral comments on extraterrestrial life.

Obama, speaking in a podcast interview released last week, said he believed aliens were real but that he had seen no evidence of them during his 2009-2017 presidency.

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"They're real, but I haven't seen them, and they're not being kept in... Area 51," he told host Brian Tyler Cohen, referring to the secretive US facility long linked to UFO conspiracy theories.

"There's no underground facility. Unless there's this enormous conspiracy and they hid it from the president of the United States."

The comments triggered widespread online debate, prompting Obama to issue a clarification on Instagram.

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"Statistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are good there's life out there," he wrote.

"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!"

Responding to the remarks, Trump told reporters that Obama "gave classified information, he is not supposed to be doing that," adding that "he made a big mistake," without specifying what he believed was classified.

Asked about his own views, Trump said: "I don't know if they are real or not."