Barack Obama, the former US president, has confirmed that “footage and records” of unidentified objects exist.

The newfound interest in UFOs this week appears to originate from a report on CBS’s 60 Minutes on Sunday, which examined “the US government’s grudging acknowledgment” of UFOs.

60 Minutes interviewed a number of credible witnesses in response to the defence department and intelligence agencies launching an official report on mysterious aerial sightings next month. This included a former navy pilot who claimed he had seen unidentified aerial phenomena (government-speak for UFOs) “every day for at least a couple years”.

Commenting on the witness statements, Obama told CBS: “What is true, and I’m actually being serious here, is that there’s footage and records of objects in the skies, that we don’t know exactly what they are, we can’t explain how they moved, their trajectory.”

“They did not have an easily explainable pattern. And so, you know I think that people still take seriously trying to investigate and figure out what that is. But I have nothing to report to you today,” he added.

Last month, the Pentagon confirmed the legitimacy of newly-leaked photos and videos of a UFO, revealing that it was filmed by US Navy personnel in 2019.

The interest in UFOs will only continue to grow as the US prepares to release its report on “unidentified aerial phenomena” to Congress next month. 

The unclassified report, compiled by the director of national intelligence and the secretary of defence, aims to make public what the Pentagon knows about unidentified flying objects and data analysed from such encounters.

In the meantime, the government has released hundreds of documents about UFOs, which are now available for the public to download for free.