Thanks To Tom DeLonge's UFO Hunt, The U.S. Navy Acknowledges "Unidentified Aerial Phenomena"

When Blink-182 co-founder Tom DeLonge sang "Aliens Exist" on the band's seminal 1999 album Enema of the State, fans didn't know how close to the truth he was.

Thanks, in part, to a series of three "UFO" videos released by DeLonge's UFO research company To the Stars Academy of Arts & Science, the Navy has acknowledged the existence of "Unidentified Aerial Phenomena" for the first time in its history (videos below).

According to Motherboard, Navy spokesperson Joseph Gradisher said, "The Navy considers the phenomena contained/depicted in those 3 videos as unidentified."

"The information obtained from each individual report of any suspected training range incursion will be investigated in its own right. The information obtained in these reports will be catalogued and analyzed for the purpose of identifying any hazard to our aviators," he continued. "Any report generated as a result of these investigations will, by necessity, include classified information on military operations. Therefore, no release of information to the general public is expected."

After leaving Blink-182 in 2015, DeLonge dove headfirst into his love of UFO investigation, which had been the subject of numerous songs and albums written by DeLonge. He established To the Stars Academy of Arts & Science, and the organization soon landed a six-part docu-series on the History Channel entitled Unidentified: Inside America’s UFO Investigation.

Over the past five years, the U.S. government has grown more willing to share information regarding this "Phenomena" with the general public. In 2017, the New York Times reported that more than $22 million had been spent on the pentagon's "Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program," which researched UFO phenomena. The Times included the video footage by To The Stars of these mysterious objects, complete with commentary by the U.S. Air Force pilots who filmed them.

In April 2019, the U.S. government officially changed its position on UFOs, requiring and encouraging pilots to report any unidentified aircraft that enter in American airspace.

"There have been a number of reports of unauthorized and/or unidentified aircraft entering various military-controlled ranges and designated air space in recent years," the Navy said in a statement to Politico. For safety and security concerns, the Navy and the [U.S. Air Force] takes these reports very seriously and investigates each and every report."

"As part of this effort, the Navy is updating and formalizing the process by which reports of any such suspected incursions can be made to the cognizant authorities. A new message to the fleet that will detail the steps for reporting is in draft."

The language change, from UFO to Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, also became something of a landmark in the government's acknowledging of the objects. While there has been no official determination as to what they may be, Unidentified Aerial Phenomena provides, what Complex calls, the "best basic descriptor" for the videos.

This terminology also helps break away from the stigma of reporting such events, Roger Glassel, a writer for the Swedish magazine “UFO-Aktuellt” tells Motherboard.

"That the Navy is using the term ‘Unidentified Aerial Phenomena’ shows that they have broadened what is expected to be reported by U.S. fighter pilots to investigate anything unknown in their airspace that in the past has been connected with a stigma."

Considering it took nearly two years for the Navy to acknowledge the videos, those looking to the skies might want to relax their necks. Answers for these videos might be a ways off, if they ever come at all. Until then, feel free to pop on Enema of the States and rest in the comfort that DeLonge knew what he was talking about the whole time.