Former United States president Barack Obama has said during an interview that “aliens are real”, Time magazine reported on Sunday.

Citing an interview of Obama by podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen, the report stated that when asked about the existence of extraterrestrial life, the former president responded: “They’re real, 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,” Obama jokingly added.

Time reported that Cohen “did not ask a follow-up question on the topic”.

Obama has been known for having a sense of humour, as seen in White House Correspondents’ Dinner ceremonies during his presidency.

The report added that Obama spoke out about the deployment of thousands of immigration agents to Minnesota, condemning what he deemed “rogue behaviour” on the part of the federal government.

“Obama compared the actions of the Trump Administration in Minnesota to behaviour that ‘we’ve seen in authoritarian countries and we’ve seen in dictatorships, but we have not seen in America’,” Time reported.

The former president was quoted as saying that recognising the unprecedented nature of federal agents’ activities in the city of Minneapolis and their actions, including “pulling people out of their homes [and] using five-year-olds to try to bait their parents”.

“So the rogue behaviour of agents of the federal government is deeply concerning and dangerous, but we should take a moment to appreciate the extraordinary outpouring of organising, community building [and] decency,” Obama said.