But back in October, DeLonge founded the To The Stars Academy, a research non-profit devoted to probing at the limits of science in search of extra-terrestrial life forms. Or, according to the group's mission statement:

The public interest in the outer edges of science and the understanding of phenomena has always been suffocated by mainstream ideology and bureaucratic constraint. 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.

That definitely means UFOs!

Yesterday, the New York Times ran a piece on the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, a boring-sounding government project that is anything but boring. Delightfully, though he isn't named in the article, DeLonge's presence hovers over the thing. From The Times:

For years, the program investigated reports of unidentified flying objects, according to Defense Department officials, interviews with program participants and records obtained by The New York Times. It was run by a military intelligence official, Luis Elizondo, on the fifth floor of the Pentagon’s C Ring, deep within the building’s maze.

This is some very serious and cool-sounding UFO shit. According to the Times, Elizondo quit the Pentagon program after in protest of "excessive secrecy and internal opposition." And now? He's the Director of Global Security & Special Programs at To The Stars.

DeLonge's non-profit is clearly comprised of brilliant people with formidable backgrounds, including a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and a former CIA Senior Intelligence Officer. But the revelation that Elizondo spent years running a clandestine Pentagon operation committed to finding out the truth about UFOs, before quitting due to "excessive secrecy," really brings the whole thing together nicely.

Anyway, To The Stars sent the Times this video of a flying object that two US fighter pilots could not identify. Awesome.