Tom DeLonge is staffing up to prove that aliens exist.
The former Blink-182 guitarist and singer hired Luis Elizondo, a former Pentagon UFO researcher, for his To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science, the New York Times reports.
“The public interest in the outer edges of science and the understanding of phenomena has always been suffocated by mainstream ideology and bureaucratic constraint,” the nonprofit Academy writes in its mission statement. “We believe there are transformative discoveries within our reach that will revolutionize the human experience, but they can only be accomplished through the unrestricted support of breakthrough research, discovery and innovation.”
Elizondo resigned from the Pentagon’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program in October, citing too much secrecy and not enough funding, as well as opposition from other groups within the Department of Defense.
To the Stars is responsible for the release of video footage from 2004 of Navy pilots spotting what the group claimed to be unidentified flying objects off the San Diego coast.
Former Sen. Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, started the program in 2007, which cost taxpayers at least $22 million in funding. The program investigated military and commercial pilots’ witness accounts of aircraft that appeared to move or hover without visible signs of propulsion.
The government stopped officially funding the program in 2012.
It’s far from the first time DeLonge, 42, who left the Grammy-winning pop-punk outfit in 2015, has engaged with current or former government operatives in his mission investigate UFOs and extraterrestrial life.
In October 2016, WikiLeaks published emails between DeLonge and former Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta.
“I would like to bring two very ‘important’ people out to meet you in DC. I think you will find them very interesting, as they were principal leadership relating to our sensitive topic,” DeLonge wrote Podesta in a 2015 email. “Both were in charge of most fragile divisions, as it relates to Classified Science and DOD topics. Other words, these are A-Level officials. Worth our time, and as well the investment to bring all the way out to you. I just need 2 hours from you.”
It’s unclear whether Podesta ever responded to the singer’s requests.