Obama says he 'absolutely' wants to know more about UFOs and hopes they can unite us if they're real

• Former President Barack Obama recently spoke about UFOs in a podcast interview.
• Obama told New York Times columnist Ezra Klein that hopefully aliens could unite humans.
• " ... we are these tiny organisms on this little speck floating in the middle of space," Obama said.

Former President Barack Obama took an optimistic view on the spectre of UFOs in a new podcast interview.

"It wouldn't change my politics at all," Obama said when asked by New York Times columnist Ezra Klein if first contact with aliens would change his world view. "Because my entire politics is premised on the fact that we are these tiny organisms on this little speck floating in the middle of space."

Obama told Klein he "absolutely" would like to know what exactly are the unidentified objects picked up by military infrared cameras and radar, videos of which have surfaced ahead of an anticipated report from the intelligence community to the US Senate on the existence of UFOs.

As an example of his approach, Obama said he would occasionally encourage staffers by telling them that human existence is too tiny and fragile to sweat the small things.

"When we were going through tough political times, and I'd try to cheer my staff up, I'd tell them a statistic that John Holdren, my science adviser, told me, which was that there are more stars in the known universe than there are grains of sand on the planet Earth," Obama said.

While Obama acknowledged that "sometimes they'd just roll their eyes and say, oh, there he goes again," his message about the universe is similar to his outlook on UFOs.

"But the point is, I guess, that my politics has always been premised on the notion that the differences we have on this planet are real," Obama said. "They're profound. And they cause enormous tragedy as well as joy.

"But we're just a bunch of humans with doubts and confusion," he continued. "We do the best we can. And the best thing we can do is treat each other better because we're all we've got."

Should an otherworldly species make contact, that could unite humans across the globe, Obama said.

"And so I would hope that the knowledge that there were aliens out there would solidify people's sense that what we have in common is a little more important," he said.