{"id":974210,"date":"2019-12-30T13:36:33","date_gmt":"2019-12-30T20:36:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=931845"},"modified":"2019-12-30T13:36:33","modified_gmt":"2019-12-30T20:36:33","slug":"tom-delonge-on-his-2019-ufo-research-this-is-the-year-things-really-ignited%e2%80%a8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/music-news\/tom-delonge-on-his-2019-ufo-research-this-is-the-year-things-really-ignited%e2%80%a8\/","title":{"rendered":"Tom DeLonge on His 2019 UFO Research: \u2018This Is the Year Things Really Ignited\u2019\u2028"},"content":{"rendered":"
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It\u2019s been over 20 years since Tom DeLonge<\/a> sang \u201cAliens Exist\u201d on Blink-182<\/a>\u2019s Enema of the State<\/i><\/a>, the multiplatinum 1999 album<\/a>. Nobody knew back then how serious DeLonge was.<\/p>\n

The guitarist, who stopped playing with Blink in 2014, has become one of the most prominent UFO<\/a> researcher\u2019s in the country. He co-founded To the Stars Academy of Arts & Sciences<\/a>, a company dedicated to UFO research, which received credibility first in 2017 when the New York Times<\/em><\/a> reported on its work exposing the Pentagon\u2019s mysterious UFO program, and then again in September, when the U.S. Navy called declassified videos published by To the Stars, along with the New York Times<\/em>, \u201cunidentified aerial phenomena<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Researchers saw it as a breakthrough moment, the government acknowledging the existence of the objects in the videos \u2014 and that they don\u2019t know what they are. \u201cWe have kind of have been pressing hard to have something like this happen,\u201d DeLonge told Rolling Stone<\/i> after that announcement. \u201cWe\u2019re a young startup, but this is the year I feel that things are really igniting. I\u2019m super excited for our team, and I\u2019m excited for the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

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As we wrap 2019, here\u2019s the full interview with DeLonge, conducted this past fall, looking back on his wild ride so far.<\/p>\n

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Popular on Rolling Stone <\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

How has the Angels and Airwaves tour been going?
<\/b>It\u2019s been amazing. It completely caught me off guard. Getting out here and doing this was not really part of my plan a year ago, but I was like, \u201cOK, let\u2019s test the waters. We\u2019ll book a tour.\u201d The next thing I know, it\u2019s kind of the big return that I didn\u2019t plan. But this is just the beginning. This is the beginning of what will probably be the best record I\u2019ve ever made in my life.<\/p>\n

What was your reaction to the Navy\u2019s statement acknowledging \u201cunidentified aerial phenomena\u201d?
<\/b>Well, my reaction is kind of two-par because, on one hand, I\u2019m over the moon, but on the other hand, I knew all along that they just weren\u2019t saying it. It\u2019s a surprise to me that it actually happened. And we\u2019re all really excited, because as American citizens, we need to hold our government accountable. We need to inform them that they work for us, not the other way around, and on something as important as this, it\u2019s not a good thing to be wondering if they\u2019ve had information like this for a long time. It really kind of cedes the trust in government, which I don\u2019t really want to have happen. Because I work with a lot of government people and they\u2019re the most trustful people I know. So I think this is one of those things that can really build bridges between the U.S. citizens and their government.<\/p>\n

What was most significant about their statement?
<\/b>I think the most signifiant thing was when the government said that the video contains \u201cunidentified aerial phenomena.\u201d That is because they have ruled out all the other things that they know how to find. These systems find real planes and jets. They have high fidelity and they are the most advanced systems on earth. The pilots have been trained for many years with millions and millions of dollars to make them specifically trained observers using those systems. Everyone says, \u201cWell that\u2019s just a drone or something,\u201d I don\u2019t think people understand that the systems and the pilots are created and educated in such a way to where they\u2019re not guessing, you know?

Which video affected you the most?
<\/b>For me, the Gimbal video, because I was at the time talking to Dr. Harold Puthoff, and he\u2019s the co-founder of To The Stars Academy, and he is a physicist. He talked to me a little about how these crafts could be flying and what the observations of them show, and the Gimbal video seemed to show a lot of that, which would be stuff like blurry edges around the bubble \u2026 we call it \u201cgimballing\u201d around, where it\u2019s shifting its weight in a counter-clockwise motion, which shouldn\u2019t happen when it\u2019s moving the way it\u2019s moving. So there are all these little attributes that I was learning from the point of view of a physicist that works for the Department of Defense. When I saw that video, I thought, \u201cOh my God, all these themes are contained in this one video.\u201d You could see the wings, you see the jet exhaust coming out the back \u2026 that video really did kind of blow me away.<\/p>\n