"I saw an opportunity to bring Angels back and go on the road for a little bit because Blink's really monopolizing," DeLonge said. "If I was going to do Blink, I can't do anything else because it's just a machine that goes all the time. So Angels I thought, 'OK, I'll just go out for these 4 weeks, this is cool.' Then the tour sold out in 11 minutes, not the whole thing, but a big chunk of it," says DeLonge. "I sat back and was like 'Oh my God,' so let's put the album on a label, let's do this, let's do this... the next thing I know it's like full time."
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The topic turned to Tom's interest in UFOs, his high-level government connections and what he's learned about the fascinating and controversial subject.
"I went through some Department of Defense officials, and then I went through NASA," DeLonge explained. "Eventually, I got connected to the general who holds the keys to all this stuff, but it was hard to get to him. I had to really plead my case as to why this was good for the country, why it was good for young people, why it was good for the world, and how I can help. They finally said 'We're going to introduce you to somebody,' and when that happened it was like 'Oh my God.' That conversation was lifechanging. That was me in the back of a booth with this guy that sat down at the table in a vacant restaurant. This topic is really scary. It's like 'UFOs, wow there's these things in the sky,' well it's much bigger than that. It's much, much, much bigger than that."
DeLonge is the founder of To The Stars..., the goal of which is to be a vehicle for the disclosure of the UFO phenomenon. For the past 24 months, they've been involved with briefing the Senate and multiple committees in Congress. "It's not just people in urban areas that see this stuff. It is pilots and generals and astronauts. It's not just like 20 incidences, it's thousands and thousands of incidences," said DeLonge.
Tom also talked about the "Area 51 Raid" movement that has taken on a life of its own through social media and why it's a bad idea.