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cover of episode Blink-182: Tom Was Right. Aliens Exist.

Blink-182: Tom Was Right. Aliens Exist.

2025/1/28
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Jake Brennan: 我认为美国政府公开承认可能存在地外生命,以及他们对不明飞行物现象的调查,都表明外星人的存在。政府过去试图掩盖真相,现在态度有所转变,这其中有很多值得深思的地方。 此外,大量军方人员的证词以及无法用现有科学解释的飞行器事件,都指向地外生命的存在。我们需要关注的是,政府为什么要选择在这个时候公开这些信息?未来科技发展,特别是人工智能技术,可能会进一步揭示地外生命的存在,这或许是政府选择公开信息的原因之一。 Tom DeLonge的故事告诉我们,一个摇滚乐手,凭借着对真相的执着追求,以及与政府的合作,最终促使政府公开承认不明飞行物的存在,这本身就是一个非比寻常的事件。 Tom DeLonge: 我一直相信外星人的存在,并且多年来一直致力于研究不明飞行物现象。我质疑政府对罗斯威尔事件和肯尼迪遇刺事件的官方解释,我认为这些解释是谎言。 我创作的歌曲《外星人存在》表达了我的信念,这首歌也反映了我的反叛精神。我与政府官员的会面,以及泄露的邮件,都证明了我与政府合作的真实性。 我的目标是通过文化途径,例如书籍、漫画、电影等,向公众披露不明飞行物现象的真相,而不是仅仅依靠传统媒体。我相信,关于地外生命存在的真相会对人类产生深远的影响,我们需要谨慎地处理和披露这些信息。 美国政府: 我们承认,过去我们对不明飞行物现象采取了保密措施。但是,随着科技的发展,以及越来越多的不明飞行物事件被记录和曝光,我们意识到,继续隐瞒真相已经变得不可能。 我们与Tom DeLonge的合作,是基于我们认识到,通过文化途径向公众披露这些信息,可能比通过传统媒体更有效,也更能被公众接受。 我们承认,关于地外生命存在的真相,会对人类产生深远的影响。我们希望,通过谨慎和负责任的方式,向公众披露这些信息,从而帮助人类更好地理解我们在这个宇宙中的位置。

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This chapter explores Tom DeLonge's journey from a punk rocker in Blink-182 to a serious investigator of UFOs. It starts with his early life and rebellious nature, followed by his experiences with the band and his growing interest in government conspiracies and alien encounters. The chapter culminates with the release of Blink-182's song "Aliens Exist," setting the stage for his future endeavors.
  • Tom DeLonge's early life and rebellious nature
  • Blink-182's early career and success
  • Tom DeLonge's growing interest in UFOs and government conspiracies
  • The release of Blink-182's song "Aliens Exist"

Shownotes Transcript

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Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. This is a story about Blink-182, which means it's also a story about dick jokes, about running through the streets of Los Angeles naked, and about simple, infectious, juvenile pop punk. It's also a story about the truth.

about what the government does and does not want us to talk about, or even to think about. It's about a plane crash, a cancer diagnosis, and about a snot-nosed punk from Southern California who was expelled from high school but would eventually find himself taking meetings with White House personnel. A snot-nosed punk who, in his band, Blink-182, made great music.

Unlike that music I played for you at the top of the show. That wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my Mellotron called Husker Du's Books About UFOs MK1. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to blinding lights by the weekend. And why would I play you that specific slice of 80s time machine cheese? Could I afford it? Because that

was the number one song in America on April 27th, 2020. And that was the day that the Department of Defense did something it had never done before. Disclosed information to the public regarding the likely existence of life from beyond this planet and/or this dimension. On this episode: Dick jokes, government lies, aliens exist, and Blink-182. I'm Jake Brennan.

And this is Disgraceland. Aliens exist. But don't take my word for it, or anybody's word for it for that matter. Look at the evidence. The federal government's actions to be exact.

Look at the front page of the New York Times, where it was reported in 2020 that U.S. intelligence agencies had established a program called the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force to, quote, standardize collection and reporting of sightings of unexplained aerial vehicles, unquote.

On the Times website and across the internet, you can find videos of these so-called unexplained aerial vehicles captured by naval pilots. Videos of aircraft moving in unearthly ways that defy physics. Video footage the Times calls mystifying. If you dig an inch deeper, you'll quickly learn about the legitimacy of these videos.

You'll find countless military personnel from the last 75 years, many highly decorated, many who put their credibility on the line, credibility they spent their entire careers building, detailing the very real experiences with similar logic-defying aircraft that will lead you to only one possible explanation. Aliens exist.

They're real. You know what else is real? What the government does and does not want us to think. Up until about seven years ago, it was very evident that the government did not want us to think that aliens did indeed exist or that they were real. No, that type of thinking was wrong. It was wrong think. Very, very bad. That thinking was for crackpots who spent a little too much time believing the headlines they read in the supermarket checkout line.

And there was a time back in the 20th century when the government didn't want us thinking or speaking about much more than God, country, and family. And this has all changed, of course. The government doesn't care too much these days about God, country, and family. But back in 1966, if you use the wrong type of language, language that, of course, encouraged subversive thinking, if you demonstrated wrong think by using the wrong language in public, you'd go to jail.

Ask comedian Lenny Bruce, who was arrested for saying nine specific words. Ass, balls, cocksucker, cunt, fuck, motherfucker, piss shit, and tits. Then, six years later in 1972, comedian George Carlin had this to say about it. In poor taste, unseemly, street talk, gutter talk, locker room language, pss talk.

bawdy, naughty, saucy, raunchy, rude, crude, lewd, lascivious, indecent, profane, obscene, blue, off-color, risque, suggestive, cursin', cussin', swearin', and all I could think of was shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits. That bit from Carlin's 1972 album Class Clown was played on WBAI radio in New York in 1973.

A complaint was filed against the radio station, and the Federal Communications Commission, the FCC, issued a declaration backing the complaint, holding the radio station accountable. The complaint was filed in court, and it went all the way to the Supreme Court, where it was found that, yes, under no circumstance does the government want you to say the words, "'Ass balls, cocksucker cunt, fuck motherfucker piss shit in tits' on its airwaves."

Count the snotty Southern California pop-punk band Blink-182 among the innumerable counterculture subversives who didn't get the Supreme Court's memo. Shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cock, sucker, motherfucker, tits, fart, turd, and squawk. Cock, cunt, cock, sucker, motherfucker, tits, fart, turd, and squawk. I fuck your mom's...

That's Blink-182's live staple, Family Reunion, which is essentially George Carlin's seven words you can never say on television routine set to music. The boys and Blink added fart, turd, and twat for good measure. And that song was released as a promotional single in 1999.

Now, there's no telling whether or not those lyrics were swimming through Blink-182 guitarist and co-singer-songwriter Tom DeLonge's head back in 1995 while he sat handcuffed in the back of a Jacksonville, Florida police cruiser, busted for wandering the streets of Jacksonville drunk and carrying an open container while on the group's first real tour. Tom was in for a long night in jail, a night where Tom's imagination would see him through.

It was always Tom's ability to dream that delivered him through the tough times. Through the monotony of a bored suburban teenage existence. Through the bleakness of a grown-up prescribed adult future in a cubicle or on a construction site. Through his parents splitting up. Through getting expelled from high school. They could tell him there was no future, but they couldn't make him believe it. The local library back in Poway, California gave his dreams wings.

books about UFOs and the Kennedy assassination. Punk Rock gave him the audacity he needed to question authority. Chin, Have You Seen Him? Charlie Don't Surf, California Uberalice.

All of the subversiveness that was at the core of the West Coast punk ethos that Tom DeLonge raised himself on made it very easy for him to call bullshit on the official government narratives aimed at explaining away the topics he obsessed over in his local library. The U.S. Air Force's Roswell Report on the 1947 New Mexico UFO crash and the report from the trumped-up Warren Commission on the assassination of John F. Kennedy

Please. You ought to be a mindless automaton to accept these explanations as anything more than what they obviously were. Lies from a government hell-bent on bending the public's perception of the truth to its will.

On that first Blink-182 tour back in 1995, Tom's bandmates, bassist and fellow singer-songwriter Mark Hoppus and original drummer Scott Rayner, no doubt had no idea what to think as they drove through Dallas' Dealey Plaza, the site of President Kennedy's assassination 32 years earlier.

and listen to their bandmate Tom go on and on over his theory that Kennedy was shot because he had learned the truth about aliens, and that JFK was going to disclose to the American public evidence proving aliens exist. In 1995, this type of thinking seemed hysterical. But to Tom DeLonge, this type of thinking was essential.

After bouncing from that Jacksonville jail with a slap on the wrist. After taking in a rocket launch in nearby Cape Canaveral. After wrapping a successful first tour in '95. After breaking through on the 1996 Warped Tour and capitalizing on a major label bidding war. After signing with MCA Records and releasing an album that went gold.

After parting ways with their original drummer and replacing him with the percussive juggernaut that is Travis Barker, after casting Alyssa freaking Milano in their music video and downgrading America's collective maturity level a couple notches with songs about shitting your pants and getting laid, this type of thinking, this hysterical wrong-think was absolutely driving Tom DeLonge to write the lyrics for Blink-182's song "Aliens Exist."

A song that nearly everyone laughed off as just another example of Blink-182's staggering level of immaturity. A song with a sentiment that would one day compel the United States government to take Tom DeLonge as nothing less than dead serious. ♪

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College holds a mythic place in American culture. It's often considered the best four years of your life and hailed as a beacon of integrity and excellence. But beyond the polished campus tours, there are stories you won't find in the admissions pamphlets. The higher-ups are concerned about one thing, and that is avoiding scandal. It's no wonder that college campuses capture the nation's attention, especially in moments of upheaval.

I'm Margo Gray. Each week on the Campus Files podcast, we bring you a new story. It was the biggest academic scandal in the history of college sports and probably in the history of academia. On Campus Files, we cover everything from rigged admissions to the drama of Greek life.

A chancellor having a pornographic double life is an extremely rare case. Listen to and follow Campus Files, an Odyssey original podcast. Available now on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts.

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The United States government lets you get away with a lot of things. For instance, you can wake up one morning and walk into your recording studio and rant into the microphone about what a bunch of duplicitous controlling autocrats the government is made up of. And depending on the size of your microphone, you can pretty much get away with it as I am right now. What you can't get away with is not forking over to the government its piece, its take.

And if you don't pay the government the taxes it demands, a massive percentage of which is exorbitant and unnecessary, the government will apply a VIG to the principal amount you owe, which will, in turn, make your debt nearly impossible to pay off. Does this sound familiar to you?

It sounds to me like the mafia. It's the same tactic gangsters have used for years in their Shylock businesses. Perry Farrell of Jane's Addiction once said, quote, the gang and the government are no different. And he wasn't wrong, not in principle. The federal government is, of course, more evolved and more sophisticated than the mafia.

If, say, you're a porn star and you owe, oh, I don't know, $300,000 in back taxes, now you know full well, as we all do, that you should have paid those taxes. Making tax payments is not a new concept, but it's easy to see how entertainers, athletes, and those in the workforce who aren't accustomed to coming into massive cash windfalls fail to make payments.

You get paid 600 grand for a couple of skin flicks, and all of a sudden you have to fork over 50% to the feds. Now, for a porn star, that's hard to swallow. Sorry, I couldn't resist. This is, after all, still a Blink-182 episode, even though I'm talking about tax rates at the moment. But I promise this is going somewhere relevant. So anyway, you're a porn star who owes $300,000 in taxes. Now, the government isn't going to act like the mafia and blow up your place of business with a pipe bomb.

But it is going to send agents to your house in those fancy windbreakers at an ungodly early morning hour, raid your place, take you away in handcuffs, and throw you in a federal prison. And that's what happened to Janine Lindemulder in 2009. And despite the fact that she'd starred in a Blink-182 video 10 years earlier, there was nothing she could do about it. Janine was going to jail. Because, as Tom DeLonge would soon find out,

The federal government does not fuck around. But back in 1999, Janine had no way of knowing that. She had other things on her mind, like the three skinny naked punk rock dudes ogling her on a Los Angeles street corner while the cameras rolled. This was a different camera crew than Janine was used to. This wasn't a Valley production. This was more Hollywood. The boys in the band were nice enough and funny, despite being wickedly horny.

Janine saw real quick that the boys in Blink were about to learn the hard truth about a skin flick production, and that's that being naked in front of scores of people in broad daylight, it might be funny or sexy when the finished edit hits screens, but while you're making the thing, being naked on set sucks. Sure, you look all daring and cool running through the streets of Hollywood filming your new video for your incredibly catchy song, What's My Age Again? But then once they call cut,

You're just a schmuck in a skin-colored Speedo and nothing else on, standing on the side of West 3rd in LA while dudes in Jeep Cherokees drive by and give you the finger and launch homophobic slurs at you. Janine, of course, thought it was hysterical. So did the rest of America. The video, that is, not the homophobic cutdowns.

"What's My Age Again" was a massive hit, both as a video and a single, propelling Blink-182's newest album at the time, "Enema of the State," to sell 15 million copies, probably more by now.

Enema of the State also featured the song Aliens Exist with the lyrics, Hey mom, there's something in the back room. Hope it's not the creature from above. You used to read me stories as if my dreams were boring. We all know conspiracies are dumb. And what if people knew that these were real? I'd leave my closet door open all night. I know what the CIA would say. What you hear is all hearsay. I wish someone would tell me what was right.

Tom DeLonge, who wrote those lyrics though, was wrong about the CIA. Someone was, in fact, about to tell him what exactly was right. Enema of the State turned Blink-182 into a household name. Their next album, featuring another trademark juvenile Blink title, Take Off Your Pants and Jacket, was also a hit. They followed that up with a self-titled full-length in 2003.

After that effort, the band entered a phase that is treacherous ground for any group of self-respecting rock stars: adulthood. Life changed for Tom DeLonge, Mark Hoppus, and Travis Barker. In 2005, Tom quit the band to be with his family. In 2008, Travis Barker was in a private plane crash in which six people died.

He was severely injured along with his friend and musical collaborator in his group, Travis DJ AM. Adam Goldstein, aka DJ AM, who was driven back into addiction after the crash from the trauma of it all. He overdosed and died in 2009. And the extremely traumatic event nearly drove Travis to suicide. But ultimately, he recovered both physically and mentally from the horrible experience.

In 2009, Tom DeLonge rejoined Blink-182, and the group embarked on another chapter: touring and releasing the full-length album Neighborhoods. The album was well received critically. It was a progression from their more youthful efforts, but was that necessarily a good thing? In the end, the album failed to set the world on fire. And throughout the early aughts, and after reuniting with Blink-182, Tom DeLonge recorded and toured with a side project known as Angels & Airwaves.

And then, in 2014, Tom DeLonge took a trip out to the desert. Area 51, Death Valley. Tom awoke in his tent. The voices outside in the desert were too many to count, too many to comprehend. They woke him up. They weren't human. His fellow campers, one of whom was a prominent ufologist, slept soundly in their tents. These sounds were unearthly but still strangely familiar.

murmuring, whispering. Tom could hardly understand them. He could scarcely hold on to his awareness of them over the sound of his steadily beating heart, which was now pounding. Those voices, whatever they were, wherever they came from, were there, right there, at the edge of perception. But the words themselves were impossible to comprehend, and whatever message was meant to be translated fell short.

Tom couldn't grasp it. It floated away. He was awake now, but he wasn't conscious. So he couldn't possibly understand the beings, whether they were extraterrestrials from worlds far away or ultra-terrestrials from uncharted dimensions here in this world. Whether they were angels or demons or whatever they were,

Tom was told they communicate through consciousness. They speak to us through high consciousness. They compel us. In those moments when our minds disassociate from this world, when we unplug, when we simply, when we dream, when we pray, perhaps when we ingest psychedelics, however we get there, it's that point when all of our thoughts, actions, and emotions are objectifiable.

When we separate from the subjective and become conscious,

That's when their whispers, their murmurs manifest into messages that permeate our own thoughts. Perhaps even their messages present to us as our own thoughts. Perhaps our ideas are on some quantum level not ideas at all, but rather the aliens themselves being born out of our own consciousness, pulling us into a higher strangeness and moving us closer toward a greater universal understanding.

But alone, awake, and afraid in a tent in the middle of the desert, consciousness is unattainable. And therefore, so is extra or ultra-terrestrial communication. So Tom was out, but Tom was also in. Whatever he did or did not understand out in the desert on that night in 2014 was enough to compel him to dedicate his life to learning more and demanding that the powers that be share with the American public what they did or did not know.

And Tom DeLonge knew enough to know that the US government knew a lot more about beings from other worlds and/or other dimensions than they were letting on. In short order, in 2015, Tom DeLonge would quit Blink-182, one of the planet's biggest rock and roll bands, to go chase UFOs. We'll be right back after this word, word, word. Yeah, sure thing.

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Find a shoe for every you at your DSW store or DSW.com. Link182's Tom DeLonge describes alien encounter, says authorities tapped his phone. Tom DeLonge just proved he's gone completely insane during alien rant. I'm not going to say Tom DeLonge is batshit crazy, but Tom DeLonge wants you to stop calling him crazy for researching aliens.

And that's a smattering of what the media had to say about Tom DeLonge's efforts to investigate the legitimacy of alien existence after departing Blink-182. The rock and roll press was predictably the most snarky and also the most disingenuous.

Consequence of Sound elaborated on their claims that Tom had gone crazy, adding this to their cheap hit piece on him: "Former Blink-182 member implies he met with Bill Clinton to discuss the threat of UFOs." When in fact, Tom did not imply he was meeting with Bill Clinton.

That was a presumption the so-called journalists from Consequence cooked up entirely on his own to make Tom look crazy, based on a photo of a meeting Tom posted to Instagram and then deleted. So, is now a good time to mention the fact that the CIA has had journalists planted in the media since the 1960s as part of their secret Operation Mockingbird to help shape various narratives to fit the government's view of what it wants the public to think?

Perhaps. But perhaps that's a digression that'll derail this story. And maybe you guys can go ahead and look that one up for yourself, though. Operation Mockingbird. Back to Tondalon. Remember earlier when I said the government doesn't fuck around? Here's what I meant. The stakes for the meeting couldn't have been higher. Tom used a mix of his celebrity and astute politicking to set it up. Himself and a federal government aerospace contractor.

It is unconfirmed, but it is widely believed that the contractor was Lockheed Martin and their special division, Skunk Works. The meeting was heavily secured. Four layers of security, armed guards, and white noise pumping through speakers to scramble any listening devices inside the dark windowless room. Tom was prepared. He had the audience he had been building toward for some time now. He had a message to deliver. He had a reaction to elicit.

This was, in some really strange way, no different than being on stage. This was a performance like any other. Tom explained that the work done by the government, the military, and their contractors on UFO phenomena was worthy of disclosure, and that the proper way to disclose this information to the youth was through culture, through books, through comics, through records, through films.

Tom wanted to combine his celebrity and authentic connection to the youth with the vast knowledge of the UFO phenomena he had attained over the years. One of the contractors scoffed, essentially told Tom he was a conspiracy theorist wasting his time, and he abruptly left the room. The other contractors followed him, all but one, all but the lead contractor, who sat back and listened to more of Tom's pitch.

The government and its contractors were doing great work in this area. Why did it all have to be so secret? There was so much evidence that it was obvious what the truth was. Eventually, that truth was going to come out. And then what? What kind of effect would the shocking truth about alien existence here on Earth have on the American public? Could anything be more disruptive to humanity, more life-altering than the realization that we are not alone in the universe?

What would this knowledge do to humanity? It would no doubt have a life-altering influence on our core beliefs as a species, on our thoughts about our place and point in this world, about God, about the devil, about good and evil. It was knowledge, secret knowledge, that had to be handled and disclosed very cautiously.

When Tom finished, the government contractor, to Tom's amazement, agreed that slow disclosure of the UFO phenomenon via culture rather than exclusively through traditional media could responsibly bring the public around to the mind-bending notion that yes, aliens exist.

This is the part of the story where you call bullshit and I don't blame you. Why would a federal defense contractor or anyone connected with the federal government entrust a foul-mouthed punk rocker from a band with a nonsensical name like Blink-182 with disclosing humanity-altering information to the public? Well...

Because this is what the government has always done: used cutouts from culture. Individuals from the world of arts and entertainment. Actors, musicians, artists. The government has relied on these individuals of influence for the better part of a century to get its message to the American people. In 1954, the CIA secretly funded the film adaptation of George Orwell's Animal Farm and its efforts to win hearts and minds during the Cold War against communist Russia.

To further its winning efforts in the Cold War, the CIA secretly bolstered the careers of abstract expressionist painters Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock. These artists were unaware of the strings the CIA pulled on their behalf to promote them, but the government's message was sent, and it was this: "In America, our artists thrive. In the Soviet Union, artists are thrown in prison."

As recently as 2013, the CIA demanded and received script approval for the television series The Americans. You know, all that long-winded expositional dialogue blathering on and on about UN regulations in the movie Iron Man. Guess who had a production agreement in their dirty hands all over the script for that film? The CIA. So, the federal contractor agreed to help Tom.

and connected him with an unnamed general, who confirmed Tom's belief in UFO phenomena and agreed that the time was now for disclosure. Perhaps the general's thoughts around timing had something to do with the hundreds of unidentified aerial phenomena being captured on video by the U.S. military personnel at that exact point in time.

The news was coming out. UFOs were no longer relegated to the tabloids lining your supermarket checkout. They were being discussed and shown on the front page of the New York Times and on the nightly news. The dam was breaking.

The General agreed to connect Tom with experts from the intelligence community, from aerospace, and even an expert from the White House. All to advise Tom DeLonge from blink-frickin'-182 on how to take the information he had gathered on his own thus far and disclose the fact that aliens exist.

With these new contacts, Tom then pulled together a formal group of advisors, heavy hitters, ex-CIA operatives, NASA and DoD advisors, White House staff, and private sector AI contractors, and gathered them into a new company he called To The Stars. Its mission: to create culture to help disclose the truth about UFOs.

Predictably, the press pounced, bubbling down its ire on Tom for quitting a beloved punk rock band to waste time trying to validate quote-unquote conspiracy theories. The media was particularly incensed with Tom's intimation that he was working with government operatives connected to the White House. This seemed to be the height of delusion.

Tom was scorched across the internet, doubted, defamed, disgraced by everyone from faceless, cowardly internet trolls to the likes of Vice magazine, which issued a factually incorrect expose on Tom's company's financial stability, which, coming from the bankrupt Vice, is, as we now know, the height of irony. And then, something remarkable happened.

So what exactly was in that WikiLeaks dump of DNC emails besides proof that the Democratic Party attempted to subvert the campaign of one of its candidates, Bernie Sanders, and coronate the party's chosen candidate, Hillary Clinton?

There were numerous emails between Tom DeLonge and John Podesta, official counselor to the President of the United States, Barack Obama, and the presidential campaign manager at the time to the former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, and one-time Deputy Chief of Staff to President Bill Clinton.

The emails detailed Tom's disclosure plan with Podesta, who became a public advocate for UFO disclosure upon leaving the White House. And the emails also detailed an in-person meeting between Tom and Podesta and other high-level government and military operatives. All of a sudden, the dick-joke-cracking UFO-chasing guitar player from Blink-182 didn't look so crazy, and Tom doubled down.

In 2017, one of his official To The Stars advisors, Lou Elizondo, who previously ran the Pentagon's secret government program formed to study UFO phenomena, leaked three videos captured by military pilots showing unidentified aerial phenomena flying off of the east coast of the United States.

Let me say all that again. Tom DeLonge, the Blink-182 guy, hired away the Pentagon official who ran the government's secret program to study UFOs. A program the government once adamantly denied the existence of but reversed course on and admitted that yes, the program did exist and that millions of dollars were secretly funneled to this program to study alien and aerial phenomena. And that guy helped Tom leak the video showing that aerial phenomenon.

And that then, and this is the point, the government itself officially declassified that video in 2020. In effect, confirming that the video Tom DeLonge leaked back in 2017 was real. And also, in the process, effectively admitting the existence of aliens.

As reported in the New York Times in 2021, the government admitted that it had no explanation for the aerial objects and stopped just short of ruling out aliens. Again, the government stopped short of ruling out aliens. Tom DeLonge, the guitarist from Blink-182, did that.

This guy. What would you guys do? This happened to me. What would you do if you were like sleeping and you feel like a slight tapping on your body? And you wake up and you're like, what? And you look down and your brother is going, Mr. Inky, dude. Walks up your legs. He's like walking up your legs. And he goes and zips down your zipper and grabs the dick. Go, Mr. Inky. What would you do? It happened to me three times last night. I fucked your mom.

Mark Hoppus of Blink-182 was sick. Really sick. It was 2021, and there was no Blink-182 actually. So I should say that Mark Hoppus, formerly of Blink-182, was sick.

He didn't mean to post the photo of him receiving his first round of chemotherapy to his million-plus followers on Instagram. He had a witty caption for the photo of him sitting there in his L.A. Dodgers hat, thick black-framed glasses, and comfy Birkenstock sandals over blue socks, and the caption read, Yes, hello. One cancer treatment, please.

Mark meant for the image to be shared only with his close friends on Instagram, but he messed up his settings and the image went wide for all of his followers. And there's no telling if Mark's ex-bandmate Tom DeLonge was included in Mark's close friends setting on Instagram or if he was part of Mark's wider set of impersonal account followers. But regardless, when Tom learned of Mark's diagnosis, he knew he was going to do something he thought he would never do again. Play music with Blink-182.

Tom has since been quoted as saying, "When he told me he was sick, that was like the gnarliest. Nothing matters, really." DeLong continued, "It wasn't about fame or money or how big Blink was or anything. It was like, 'You're gonna get through this shit and we're gonna go dominate.' You need a purpose in life, especially when you're sick and fighting for your life."

Tom DeLonge knew all about needing purpose. He'd been purpose-driven for the better part of the last decade. Unfortunately, that purpose, Tom's mission to disclose the truth about aliens, often ran up against Tom's earlier passion, playing music with Blink-182. But that was all about to change. Blink-182 reunited, and Mark Hoppus beat cancer.

Tom, Mark and Travis are back on stage, stadium stages. There are less dick jokes, but they're still there and now there's another element of Blink's sets. That moment when Mark leans into the mic and says, "Tom was right." And the crowd freaks out because they know what's coming. Blink's 1999 banger from Enema of the State, Aliens Exist.

The vindication is palpable, if not juvenile, but that's what it should be. This is still, after all, rock and roll, and even though the boys in Blink-182 are all either in or about to be in their 50s, rock and roll is still the province of youth. It's juvenile, and there's nothing wrong with that. There's a weird sort of wisdom that only kids process. They're wise enough to dream, to question authority unequivocally and without shame.

Rock and roll, punk rock, whatever you want to call it, is a rebellion against growing up, against accepting adult mandates that stifle creativity, your imagination, and your ability to dream. Blink-182 and Tom DeLonge knew this when they were young punks playing shows in Southern California, and they never lost sight of it.

Tom DeLonge never accepted the grown-up notion that dreams and big ideas and thinking outside of the prefabricated suburban box were the type of childish thoughts that adults need to put aside because, well, grown-ups suck. And the federal government and the media are filled with grown-ups, the majority of whom lack imagination and the courage needed to make like those old punk rockers and question authority.

Tom DeLonge did something no other civilian has ever done: compelled the federal government to disclose previously unacknowledged truths about alien existence here on Earth.

The question now isn't whether or not aliens exist, as Blink-182 sang about in 1999. The question is why the government, or at least some part of the government, now wants us to know this truth. Why have they reached some sort of unofficial partnership with Tom DeLonge?

My theory is that there's more coming, much more. Advanced radar systems are what made it possible for those naval pilots back in the late aughts to capture that UAP footage. What technology are we developing currently that will similarly unveil deeper truths about extra and ultra terrestrials? Will the AI revolution irrefutably prove alien existence in a way that the automaton bureaucrats and the disinterested public won't be able to ignore?

Does this coming onslaught of technological truth worry the government enough to compel it toward more disclosure? Perhaps. It's just a theory. It's just me dreaming. Just like Tom DeLonge from Blink-182, whose mission is anything but a disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland. ♪

All right, thanks for checking out this episode. This week's question of the week is, do you believe in non-human intelligence? Do aliens exist? And have you ever had an experience with a UFO, a UAP, or something unexplainable or anomalous? Let me know and we will discuss your experiences in our next after party bonus episode.

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