Never thought I'd write this sentence but it's 2019 and here we are: Tom DeLonge, founding Blink-182 member and the band's former co-frontman, might just be the world's preeminent voice on unidentified flying objects and alien technology now.
In 2015, DeLonge (who also masterminds the pop/rock group Angels & Airwaves) founded To the Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences (TTSA), an organization established to pursue research into UFOs and extraterrestrial existence. At first glance, it seemed like DeLonge was just diving headfirst into harebrained conspiracy theories and perhaps obliging his longtime UFO obsession a little too much.
However, as more and more headlines poured out over the last four years (and more insight was gained into what, exactly, TTSA aims to do) DeLonge and Co. have now legitimately silenced any doubters.
Last month, U.S. Navy spokesman Joseph Gradisher confirmed that three videos posted by TTSA indeed show "unidentified aerial phenomena." Each of the videos — titled "FLIR1," "Gimbal" and "GoFast" — were posted both by the academy and a subsequent New York Times exposé in December 2017 and March 2018.
"The Navy considers the phenomena contained/depicted in these videos as unidentified,” Gradisher, official spokesperson for the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Information Warfare, told TheBlackVault.com in September, and explained that they were not cleared for public release.
The latest news out of the bizarro DeLonge world we now live in is another mindblower: On Oct. 17, DeLonge and TTSA announced a partnership with the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command (CCDC) to research and "advance TTSA's materiel and technology innovations in order to develop enhanced capabilities for Army ground vehicles."
The newly-signed agreement — a "Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA)" — states that the U.S. Army researchers will work alongside TTSA's crew for five years to further study and research the organization's materials ("alien alloys," etc.) and otherworldly technology they've already been conducting tests on. The agreement has been published in full by TheBlackVault.com and is viewable online here.
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"TTSA's technology solutions, which leverage developments in material science, space-time metric engineering, quantum physics, beamed energy propulsion, and active camouflage, have the potential to enhance survivability and effectiveness of multiple Army systems," an official TTSA news release read. "TTSA will share its discoveries with Ground Vehicle System Center (GVSC) and Ground Vehicle Survivability and Protection (GVSP) and the U.S. Army shall provide laboratories, expertise, support, and resources to help characterize the technologies and its applications."
If TTSA and DeLonge weren't validated by their previous eyebrow-raising work, this new contract literally aligns them with the U.S. Army and puts the former Blink-182 rocker in rarefied air indeed. It's hard to argue with his qualifications after the government comes a-callin' and wants to compare notes.
"Our partnership with TTSA serves as an exciting, nontraditional source for novel materials and transformational technologies to enhance our military ground system capabilities," said Dr. Joseph Cannon, of U.S. Army Futures Command, in the news release. "At the Army's Ground Vehicle Systems Center, we look forward to this partnership and the potential technical innovations forthcoming."
Dustin Lothspeich is SoundDiego's senior associate editor, a San Diego Music Award-winning musician, and talent buyer at The Merrow. Follow his updates on Twitter or contact him directly.
