An interview with former President Barack Obama and progressive podcast host Brian Tyler Cohen has sparked a wave of online criticism, not because of what the former president said, but because of what the interviewer failed to ask.

Former President Obama said he did not see evidence that aliens “have made contact with us,” after sending social media abuzz by saying aliens were real on a podcast over the weekend.

After he was asked “Are aliens real?”, Obama said: “They’re real but I haven’t seen them.”