How ex-Blink 182 member Tom DeLonge helped shine a light on UFO encounters

Band’s former guitarist channeled passion for UFOs into research and media company

With a declassified report due to be handed over to the Senate Intelligence Committee in June concerning what the Pentagon knows about unidentified aerial phenomena — more commonly known as unidentified flying objects — it might surprise some to know that one of the key players in the journey to the US military acknowledging that something is out there was once the guitarist and vocalist for pop-punk band Blink 182.

Tom DeLonge, known to most through his multiplatinum 1999 album Enema of the State, is the co-founder and chairman of the board of To The Stars... Academy of Arts & Science.

The group collects documents and physical materials from public and private sources relating to unidentified aerial phenomena and consists of former officials from the Pentagon and CIA as well as specialists in fields of science from physics to biomedical research.

At its 2017 launch event, the group announced it would provide never-before-released footage of the phenomena from real US government sources.

These were passed to The New York Times which published a story accompanied by two videos in December of that year.

Mr DeLonge’s release of the videos, which show encounters with UFOs by US Navy pilots in 2004 and 2015, caused a sensation.

In September of 2020, the US Navy acknowledged that the footage was real and the phenomena seen were indeed “unidentified”.

(EPA)

The existence of a Pentagon programme investigating such phenomena and briefing about it quickly surfaced and a Senate committee report revealed spending for the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force.

Florida Senator Marco Rubio requested a detailed analysis of any findings from the task force, and a stipulation was added to a passage in the $2.3 trillion coronavirus relief package signed into law by Donald Trump.

This set in motion a countdown for the release of the information with a deadline of June 2021.

“The Committee further directs that, within 180 days of enactment of this Act, such individual shall develop a strategy for security and counterintelligence collection that defines the capability requirements, responsibilities, and processes for security and counterintelligence for domestic military installations and other domestic military facilities,” the legislation states.

The Select Committee on Intelligence said that the report must include a detailed analysis of unidentified aerial phenomena data and intelligence reporting, a detailed analysis of unidentified phenomena data, and a detailed analysis of data of the FBI, which was derived from investigations of intrusions of unidentified aerial phenomena data over restricted United States airspace.

Mr DeLonge has been an enthusiast about unexplained aerial phenomena for many years and has channeled his passion into research, books, and film — To The Stars also has a media division.

This passion has now found its way into the corridors of power in both the Pentagon and US Capitol.

Speaking on 60 Minutes on Sunday night, Senator Rubio called for the US to take the sighting of unidentified aircraft seriously and remove the stigma from looking into what they may actually be.