Why Tom DeLonge Left Blink-182 To Investigate UFOs
The pop-punk band’s ex-frontman believes the truth is out there.
Ex-Blink-182 singer Tom DeLonge has never been too secretive about his big interests aside from making music. Sure, it’s the kind of thing that might make other pop-punk irony mongers sarcastically raise an eyebrow, but as far as we can tell DeLonge is dead serious about UFOs and aliens.
DeLonge recently gave an interview to Mic.com in which he discussed a project that purports to really wade into the deep end on subjects normally discussed on basic cable by strangely-accented men with notably eccentric hair:
. . . DeLonge is launching a multimedia franchise called Sekret Machines that will seek to investigate “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena” from a serious perspective. The franchise will include fiction books, nonfiction books, new music from DeLonge’s band Angels & Airwaves and a documentary.
The first part of the series, a book called Sekret Machines Book 1: Chasing Shadows, is already out. Called a “work of … fiction?” — clearly, a book like this is hard to verify — DeLonge taps alleged sources “within the military and intelligence community” to tell stories about UFO sightings and other paranormal contact.
Speaking with Mic’s Kelly Dickerson, DeLonge revealed that his passion for the strange isn’t a new thing. “I first got into it in junior high,” he said, “I don’t know why. I just had some free time on my hands and I found myself at the school library looking for books on the subject matter.”
When his interviewer mentioned the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence’s (SETI) concrete approach to looking for alien life, DeLonge seemed skeptical of SETI’s passive listening for signals from afar. “I think there’s been a policy to find microbial life far out somewhere else, then start the conversation about life in the universe and how it could form, how far it can advance itself and could they ever come here. Maybe they sent drones here.”
Regarding his new project, Sekret Machines, DeLonge seemed effusive. “It’s something I’ve always wanted to do,” he told Mic, “I’ve always had a passion for space and the future. But when you dive into this type of material, it’s a lot more than just science and technology. It has to do with religion and cosmology and it has to do with politics and secrecy. So it’s a pretty fantastic ride when you start studying this stuff. You’ll find yourself trying to challenge your belief system. This project was a good way to bring it to the world in a more elevated way.”
When the interview touched on NASA and the current state of the space program, DeLonge’s responses were interesting. “There’s a conversation to be had about a new space program that’s part exploration and part defense,” he said in part, “There’s a way to get everybody excited about something much grander and more important than a sanitized version of NASA, or the super-secret program of what the military knows about.”
As for what he believes his fans’ takeaway from Sekret Machines should be, well, you figure it out. “My goal is to have a conversation within reality, that’s very grounded. Novels and films and documentaries,” DeLonge told Mic, “. . . it’s a very good way to get people to understand how it could really exist and what the ramifications are. The whole UFO phenomenon is different than what people think it is.”
DeLonge’s first book, co-authored with A.J. Hartley, has been out since April. It seems that Amazon reviewers aren’t any clearer on what’s going on than a careful reader of DeLonge’s interview might be, but are enjoying the ride.
So we’ll just say, okay, Tom. Just don’t start doing weird things with your hair.
h/t Mic.com
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