British people will finally have the chance to learn the truth about aliens when Tom DeLonge‘s new History Channel series Unidentified: Inside America’s UFO Investigation premieres over there on Aug. 26 after the six-episode run wrapped stateside last month. DeLonge and the show’s star Luis Elizondo, a high-ranking employee at DeLonge’s interstellar research and film production company To The Stars Academy, spoke to NME ahead of the release about haters criticizing their work.
Elizondo is the former government official who reportedly ran a covert Pentagon operation investigating UFOs known as the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), which The New York Times exposed in 2017. His credibility has been called into question in recent months after the Pentagon officially denied that Elizondo ever worked for the program. Elizondo chalked this up to the government being angry that he resigned.
“It’s disappointing but not surprising,” Elizondo told NME. “There are still elements of the government that are still not very happy with my decision.” Asked whether he could provide evidence that he ever worked for the program in question, Elizondo responded, “There’s plenty of documentation but my job is not to come back and say, ‘Aha! Gotcha!’ I don’t wanna make anybody look foolish.”
DeLonge was less diplomatic. “This stuff really pisses me off. I know Luis. I have seen the documentation,” he said. “This whole thing where people try to discredit him, with the enormous risk that he took … as a civilian—as a citizen—it infuriates me.”
DeLonge also fielded hard-hitting questions about his own credibility as a former punk provocateur, whether he cares if “people think you’ve lost your mind,” and whether To the Stars is bleeding money. Most importantly, though, he clarified what everyone has been wondering all along: what kind of pop-punk do aliens like?! More specifically: would extraterrestrial species prefer Blink-182 or Angels & Airwaves? (+44 was not an option.)
“I would have to play Angels & Airwaves because they would recognize the space-prog sound,” DeLonge answered. “If I played Blink they wouldn’t get the jokes. They would probably get really offended and start an interplanetary war.”
It’s true: Blink’s music does feature some high-level puns. Did DeLonge just confirm heretofore unknown information about aliens’ capacity for language acquisition? You can read the Intercept’s very interesting investigation into Elizondo here and this tag team’s full NME interview here. Unidentified is currently streaming in America on History Channel’s website and available to purchase on iTunes and Amazon Prime.
