Bill Clinton says one of the first things he did after becoming President of the United States was to have his aides look into a purported UFO crash at Roswell, New Mexico in 1947, and check to the top-secret base in Area 51 “to make sure there was no alien down there.”

The former US President notes that he wasn’t expecting to find anything, and that he knew that the Air Force base located in the once-remote Nevada desert used to test top secret experimental aircraft, such as the U-2.  But if something had been found, he wouldn’t have been surprised.

“Just in the last two years, more than 20 planets have been identified outside our solar system that seem to be far enough away from their sun and dense enough that they might be able to support some form of life.  So it makes it increasingly less likely that we’re alone,” said Clinton.

If the earth ever finds itself facing an aggressive space alien force, he says that might not necessarily be a bad thing.

“It may be the only way to unite us in this incredibly divided world of ours. If they’re out there, we better think of how all the differences among people on Earth would seem small if we felt threatened by a space invader.”

Clinton made his comments on “The Jimmy Kimmel Show” talkfest.