A former Israeli space security chief has claimed that aliens exist and that his country and the United States have been dealing with them for years, reported The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.

Haim Eshed, the former head of Israel’s Defense Ministry’s space directorate, said in an interview with Yediot Aharonot, a Hebrew newspaper, that humans have been in contact with the aliens from a “galactic federation”. He said that the extraterrestrial beings had asked them not to reveal that they were here because it would lead to public hysteria. They felt that humanity needed to “evolve and reach a stage where we will... understand what space and spaceships are,” the former space security chief said.

The former space security chief also said that US President Donald Trump was aware of the existence of the aliens and was on the verge of revealing it.

Ershed, a professor and a retired general, claimed that the aliens were equally curious about humanity and were looking to understand the “fabric of the universe”. He revealed that the cooperation agreements signed between them and the astronauts included an “underground base in the depths of Mars”. American astronauts and alien representatives were present there, he claimed.

When asked why he was revealing the information now, Eshed said that it was because the academic landscape has evolved and that he is in academia. “If I had come up with what I’m saying today five years ago, I would have been hospitalised,” he said. “Today, they’re already talking differently. I have nothing to lose. I’ve received my degrees and awards; I am respected in universities abroad, where the trend is also changing.”

In May, Trump had said that space will be the future, both in terms of defence and offence and that the US was the leader on space, News18 reported. He was also responsible for the creation of a “space force.”

In 2018, Trump had issued an order to create an American space command. In his memorandum to Secretary of Defence Jim Mattis, Trump had said a more “comprehensive list of authorities and responsibilities” for the new “unified combatant command” will be released soon. Observers had expressed concern that the “space force” may pave the way for a militarised outer space.