DeLonge's research groups (2016)
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🗓️ Event
Contents 7
| Speaker | Tom DeLonge |
|---|---|
| Year | 2016 (notably Coast to Coast AM, 27 March 2016) |
| Claim | He was working with insiders connected to groups studying recovered craft and related science, who were shaping his Sekret Machines work |
| Outgrowth | To The Stars Academy of Arts and Science (2017), with aerospace and science divisions |
| Science projects | "Electromagnetic vehicle"; ADAM materials project; VAULT database; Army research agreement (2019) |
| Status | Groups and advisers largely unconfirmed; projects produced no demonstrated breakthroughs |
| Date | 31 August 2016 |
| Topics | Crashes & retrievals (topic) |
| People | Tom DeLonge, John Podesta, Luis Elizondo, Christopher Mellon, Harold Puthoff, Jim Semivan |
| Testimony | Shellenberger testimony, p. 186 |
| Timeline | 2016 on the UAP Timeline |
| Sources | 7 |
Tom DeLonge said in 2016 that he had become involved with groups studying recovered craft and related science. He said senior advisers were helping shape his Sekret Machines books and films to prepare the public.[1][2] The following year he turned his entertainment company into To The Stars Academy of Arts and Science, which added aerospace and science divisions to pursue similar research in public.[2][3] None of the groups he described in 2016 has been independently identified.[1]
The 2016 claims
On Coast to Coast AM on 27 March 2016, DeLonge described what he had learned from contacts he had reached through his celebrity.[1] According to the program summary, he had secured introductions to "several highly placed officials and executives within the military/industrial complex, who are now informing his research". He described meetings with NASA and government officials in a number of cities who supported his plan to reach younger audiences.[1] He said they told him:[1]
- the secrecy dated from Cold War nuclear fears
- the visitors, "the Others", could be thought of as gods
- the United States had "cracked gravity" and was building antigravity machinery
DeLonge had begun approaching officials the year before. In October 2015 he emailed John Podesta, Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman, offering to introduce him to two people "in charge of most fragile divisions, as it relates to Classified Science and DOD topics". He described them as "A-Level officials".[6][7] He later wrote that one of them, General William McCasland, had "helped assemble my advisory team". McCasland was a former commander of the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson.[6]
Sekret Machines
The project's first novel, Sekret Machines: Book 1 – Chasing Shadows, co-written with A. J. Hartley, appeared in April 2016.[2] It was followed by a non-fiction series, Gods, Man & War, with Peter Levenda, beginning with Gods in 2017.[2][3] DeLonge said he had used his celebrity to reach military and industrial figures who informed the work. He presented the books as fiction and non-fiction built on what they told him.[1][2] Rolling Stone noted the novel was billed as "based on actual events".[6]
To The Stars Academy
In 2017 DeLonge turned his entertainment company into To The Stars Academy of Arts and Science, a public benefit corporation with aerospace, science and entertainment divisions.[2][3] It was co-founded with the physicist Hal Puthoff and the author Jim Semivan. Early associates included the former Pentagon official Christopher Mellon and Luis Elizondo, who said he had headed the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program.[2][3] In a later company video, titled "Different Active U.S. UFO Programs", DeLonge spoke of several active government UFO programs.[4] Elizondo said that "none of us at TTSA consider ourselves 'Ufologists'". He said most came "from a U.S. government background (both Defense and Intelligence)".[3]
The science and aerospace divisions were devoted to the "outer edges of science". Puthoff summed up the goal as "imagine having 25th-century science this century".[3] Their projects included:[3][5]
- An "electromagnetic vehicle". A potential propulsion project.
- ADAM. The Acquisition & Data Analysis of Materials project announced in July 2019 that it had acquired "potentially exotic materials". The company paid $35,000 for items including "six pieces of Bismuth/Magnesium-Zinc metal". The pieces were said to come from a UFO and had earlier been held by the ufologist Linda Moulton Howe. Tests had failed to show any anomalous properties, and critics said there was no evidence they were "otherworldly in origin".
- VAULT. The "Virtual Analytics UAP Learning Tool", a public database of sightings, which hosted the three Navy videos.
- The Army. In October 2019 the company signed a five-year cooperative research agreement with the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command on topics including "inertial mass reduction", metamaterials and "beamed energy propulsion".
Vice said many of the technologies being researched "toe the line of pseudoscience". The company warned investors that it might fail to produce results in areas such as beamed energy propulsion and telepathy.[3]
Outcome
The company's release of three Navy UFO videos in December 2017, alongside The New York Times report on the Pentagon program, began the modern wave of official interest in UAP.[2][3] The Navy confirmed in September 2019 that the videos were authentic, and the Pentagon declassified them in April 2020.[2][3] Mellon helped arrange classified congressional briefings with the pilots involved.[3] A 2018 SEC filing showed the company had an accumulated deficit of $37.4 million and doubts about its ability to continue as a going concern. In 2019 it produced the History Channel series Unidentified.[2][3] Elizondo left in late 2020, and in 2022 the company shortened its name to To The Stars.[3]
People and topics
- Tom DeLonge — Musician who founded To The Stars Academy.
- Unidentified anomalous phenomena — The U.S. government's current term for unidentified objects in the air, in space and underwater.
- John Podesta — Clinton campaign chairman with a long interest in UFO disclosure.
- To The Stars Academy — The company founded by Tom DeLonge in 2017 that released the Navy UAP videos.
- Luis Elizondo — Former Army counterintelligence officer who says he ran AATIP.
- Christopher Mellon — Former deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence who helped release the Navy UAP videos.
- Harold Puthoff — Physicist who co-founded the SRI remote-viewing research and later worked on AAWSAP and To The Stars Academy.
- Central Intelligence Agency — The U.S. foreign intelligence agency, which has followed UFO reports since the 1940s.
- Jim Semivan — Former CIA officer who co-founded To The Stars Academy.
- U.S. Navy — The U.S. naval service, whose pilots reported the UAP encounters revealed in 2017.
- The New York Times — The newspaper that revealed AATIP in December 2017.
- AATIP — The Pentagon UAP effort associated with Luis Elizondo, revealed in December 2017.
On the Timeline
- Death of Max Spiers (16 July 2016) — UFO researcher Max Spiers dies of an apparent overdose; authorities investigate.
- NASA–NNSA planetary defense partnership (22 March 2017) — The nuclear security agency discloses its planetary defense partnership with NASA.
See every 2016 event on the UAP Timeline →
References
- Coast to Coast AM, show of 27 March 2016 · coasttocoastam.com · archived copy
- Tom DeLonge — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- To The Stars Inc. — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- "Different Active U.S. UFO Programs – TTSA Tom DeLonge" (YouTube) · youtu.be · archived copy
- To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- Tom DeLonge on the Podesta emails — Rolling Stone · rollingstone.com · archived copy
- Tom DeLonge emailed Clinton's adviser about aliens — BuzzFeed News · buzzfeednews.com · archived copy
Facts in this article are drawn in part from the Wikipedia articles “Tom DeLonge”, “To The Stars Inc.”, “To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science”, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.
This page was last edited on 29 October 2026. Articles are written in our own words from the sources listed under References; disputed claims are attributed to the people who made them.
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