Vice President J.D. Vance has a theory about those government UFO files that goes beyond the tinfoil hat crowd: forget aliens, think demons.
Mr. Vance has not reviewed the cache of government files on aliens and unidentified aerial phenomena that President Trump ordered released in February — but he does not expect to find extraterrestrials when he finally does examine the documents.
“I don’t think they’re aliens,” Mr. Vance said in a recent podcast interview with conservative commentator Benny Johnson. “I think they’re demons.”
Mr. Vance elaborated on the remark by framing it in terms of his Christian faith, suggesting that unexplained celestial phenomena are better understood through a religious lens.
“Every great world religion, including Christianity, the one that I believe in, has understood that there are weird things out there, and there are things that are very difficult to explain,” the vice president said. “I naturally go, when I hear about sort of extra-natural phenomenon — that’s where I go, to the Christian understanding that there’s a lot of good out there, but there’s also some evil out there.”
He added: “One of the devil’s great tricks is to convince people he never existed.”
Mr. Trump announced on Feb. 19 that he was directing the Pentagon and other federal agencies to begin identifying and releasing government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena, and UFOs.
The directive followed comments by former President Barack Obama, who appeared to confirm the existence of aliens on a podcast, saying “they’re real, but I haven’t seen them.”
He added: “There’s no underground facility unless there’s this enormous conspiracy and they hid it from the president of the United States.”
In a follow-up post on social media, Mr. Obama clarified that he saw no evidence of extraterrestrial contact during his presidency. “I saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us. Really!”
Mr. Trump, however, accused Mr. Obama of revealing classified information.
“He’s not supposed to be doing that,” Mr. Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One. “He made a big mistake.”
Pressed on whether he thinks aliens are real, Mr. Trump hedged his bets.
“Well, I don’t know if they’re real or not,” he said.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth told reporters a few days later that he doesn’t “want to oversell how much time it will take — we’re digging in.” Asked whether he believes aliens exist, Mr. Hegseth said, “We’ll see. I get to do the review and find out along with you.”
The files have yet to be publicly released. Mr. Vance said his initial interest in them has faded as other priorities take center stage.
“When I came in, I was obsessed with the UFO files, and then you start getting really busy worrying about the economy and national security and things like that,” Mr. Vance said.
He said he has already attempted to arrange a visit to Area 51 in Nevada and a separate trip to New Mexico, only to be sidelined each time by scheduling conflicts — but he vowed to follow through.
“Anybody who is curious about this, I am more curious than anybody,” he said. “I have three years at the very tippy top of the classification. I am going to get to the bottom of it.”
