To The Stars Academy: Investigating the Unexplained
Spaceman spiff
Noble
Puthoff apparently doesnt have the best of reputations, some people even inside ufology think hes a crackpot, who believed that Uri Geller had psychic powers and wasted money on woo research. According to wikipedia he also dabbled into scientology at some point of his life.
Of course that doesnt necessarily mean hes wrong about this. We'll have to see. If theres evidence it should speak for itself.
Of course that doesnt necessarily mean hes wrong about this. We'll have to see. If theres evidence it should speak for itself.
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nivek
As Above So Below
The Trident of TTSA: Part 1
There are three divisions of To The Stars Academy. The combination of these three divisions I refer to as TTSA’s Trident.
They are as follows:
Entertainment. Science. Aerospace.
I want to say a few words about the entertainment division in this post. I have noticed the divide between those who exclusively pay attention to the entertainment division and those who exclusively pay attention to the two science-based divisions. It is rare to find someone who supports all three.
Which I think is a detriment.
It is, after all, entertainment that started To The Stars. And it is important to consider that fact. None of this would have developed the way it did if it hadn’t been for a punk-rocker who had a vision to do something bigger than selling 25 million records. (That is not to say that Tom DeLonge was the first to think of doing this sort of thing. But he is certainly the first to have as much success as he has had with it, given his prior occupation.)
It was not Luis Elizondo who had the idea for TTSA. It was not Steve Justice. It was not Dr. Hal Puthoff.
No.
It was someone who was previously known (and perhaps still known) for running down the road naked and blurting out dick jokes.
It was the work of an entertainer.
One big issue with TTSA right now is that it seems to have only snagged the attention of those interested in the science divisions of the company. Many in the UFO community, for example, are looking to TTSA for disclosure. (I talk about why this is a bad idea here.)
But I think it is a good idea to look to TTSA for ideas. That’s where the entertainment part of the company really shines. If you haven’t, I encourage you to check out some of their material.
Fictional entertainment is where we go to explore possibilities — where we test the waters of feasibility. It’s where ideas can be exchanged. And I am willing to bet that almost everyone interested in science was first introduced to science through a movie or a book — ie science fiction.
Tom mentions in Sekret Machines (novel) that fiction is the glue, but the building blocks are not. I think this is true. But it is nothing profound. Albert Camus — Nobel Prize-winning novelist, playwright, and journalist— essentially the said the same thing: “Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth.”
The entertainment division at TTSA is also there to blur the lines between science and science fiction. Many are turned off by this strategy. But I think it is the most useful — especially when trying to communicate complex ideas to a population not privy to the science behind TTSA’s involvements.
The entertainment division also aims to communicate that the things we have always assumed are impossible are actually closer to reality than we think. That is how you get people interested — you get them to think critically about things they may not have given much thought to before.
In this way I think TTSA is on the right track. I did not know much about science or aerospace before TTSA came around. I learned about this stuff through Tom — someone I had been a fan of since I was a kid. (It was primarily through the lyrics of Angels and Airwaves.)
The idea of using entertainment to incite critical thinking worked on me. And it has worked on countless others. What separates good art (entertainment) from the bad is the ability to make people think in a way they haven’t before.
In this way, TTSA’s entertainment division does not necessarily serve the scientific community or the UFO community— it is focused on introducing the unacquainted with ideas they haven’t been exposed to before.
.
There are three divisions of To The Stars Academy. The combination of these three divisions I refer to as TTSA’s Trident.
They are as follows:
Entertainment. Science. Aerospace.
I want to say a few words about the entertainment division in this post. I have noticed the divide between those who exclusively pay attention to the entertainment division and those who exclusively pay attention to the two science-based divisions. It is rare to find someone who supports all three.
Which I think is a detriment.
It is, after all, entertainment that started To The Stars. And it is important to consider that fact. None of this would have developed the way it did if it hadn’t been for a punk-rocker who had a vision to do something bigger than selling 25 million records. (That is not to say that Tom DeLonge was the first to think of doing this sort of thing. But he is certainly the first to have as much success as he has had with it, given his prior occupation.)
It was not Luis Elizondo who had the idea for TTSA. It was not Steve Justice. It was not Dr. Hal Puthoff.
No.
It was someone who was previously known (and perhaps still known) for running down the road naked and blurting out dick jokes.
It was the work of an entertainer.
One big issue with TTSA right now is that it seems to have only snagged the attention of those interested in the science divisions of the company. Many in the UFO community, for example, are looking to TTSA for disclosure. (I talk about why this is a bad idea here.)
But I think it is a good idea to look to TTSA for ideas. That’s where the entertainment part of the company really shines. If you haven’t, I encourage you to check out some of their material.
Fictional entertainment is where we go to explore possibilities — where we test the waters of feasibility. It’s where ideas can be exchanged. And I am willing to bet that almost everyone interested in science was first introduced to science through a movie or a book — ie science fiction.
Tom mentions in Sekret Machines (novel) that fiction is the glue, but the building blocks are not. I think this is true. But it is nothing profound. Albert Camus — Nobel Prize-winning novelist, playwright, and journalist— essentially the said the same thing: “Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth.”
The entertainment division at TTSA is also there to blur the lines between science and science fiction. Many are turned off by this strategy. But I think it is the most useful — especially when trying to communicate complex ideas to a population not privy to the science behind TTSA’s involvements.
The entertainment division also aims to communicate that the things we have always assumed are impossible are actually closer to reality than we think. That is how you get people interested — you get them to think critically about things they may not have given much thought to before.
In this way I think TTSA is on the right track. I did not know much about science or aerospace before TTSA came around. I learned about this stuff through Tom — someone I had been a fan of since I was a kid. (It was primarily through the lyrics of Angels and Airwaves.)
The idea of using entertainment to incite critical thinking worked on me. And it has worked on countless others. What separates good art (entertainment) from the bad is the ability to make people think in a way they haven’t before.
In this way, TTSA’s entertainment division does not necessarily serve the scientific community or the UFO community— it is focused on introducing the unacquainted with ideas they haven’t been exposed to before.
.
Dejan Corovic
As above, so bellow
Entertainment division is bunk. Millennials have zero interest in UFOs. At a best, UFOs are an echo from Cold War. Anyway, at least half of big name ufologists are either dead or dying.
nivek
As Above So Below
This is interesting if true, then this would also explain the higher focus on entertainment maybe, to get more money generated?...I think if they had just showed some kind of evidence pertaining to the metamaterials they would have been flooded with donations, instead we get a freaking Bob Lazar book...
pigfarmer
tall, thin, irritable
His fellow NIDS employee Dr.John B Alexander vouches for Uri Geller and has hosted spoon bending parties. In Reality Denied he gave directions. I've tried it a few times without much luck. Staring at spoons was much more interesting that sawing my way through that book. Mind over matter. I understand the interest but the 'optics' aren't all that good.
pigfarmer
tall, thin, irritable
Tom mentions in Sekret Machines (novel) that fiction is the glue, but the building blocks are not. I think this is true. But it is nothing profound. Albert Camus — Nobel Prize-winning novelist, playwright, and journalist— essentially the said the same thing: “Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth.”
I understand the reference but Camus might've called connerie on TDL anyway.
Fiction to hold the building blocks together - I did read that, right? Is that like a scientist faking data because he knows the result will be worth it? Protomatter in the matrix never ends well.
No idea who Collin is but I looked around at some of the other articles and found a review of Corbell's Hunt for Skinwalker movie. "I’d give this film an 8 out of 10 for its content"
yeah, well .... thanks Collin .....
We have heard quite a lot from Entertainment. We haven't seen s**t from the other two divisions. Sounds like there's just freakin' UFO parts all over the place. Rockauto.com probably has what ET needs by now. See? Most people didn't know TTSA has a Parts Division too ....
Dejan Corovic
As above, so bellow
They are essentially doing the exact same thing MUFON is doing. It is a desperate tactics to attract some money to finance scientific research. Here I regret having to use word "desperate", but there are many of us who believe UFOs are real and deserve to be studied scientifically and no money is coming into ufology. And we all know that science is one of the most expensive human activities. But, while that strategy is a valiant attempt to marry practical with desired, as I understand, out of $2,000,000 raised that rock star guy gave himself a salary of $700,000. Lots of science can be done for $700,000. One can certainly employ for a year 1 scientist and 2 electronics engineers for about $250,000 and give them $200,000 worth of equipment. Even when one includes his certainly large traveling expenses, that seriously casts in doubt how genuine his intentions are.
But MUFON is no better, all the scientists who worked there left because any money coming in was paid out to insiders who were working on marketing side.
Pls, correct me if I am wrong.
Beautiful !
pigfarmer
tall, thin, irritable
Right? !!
The US Army is putting $750K into the actual science to study whatever they have - and his salary was $700K ?? Holy crap.....
He and Jan Harzan are having a good laugh, although I have no idea what his take is or was except he doesn't do it for free like most of the MUFON members do.
pigfarmer
tall, thin, irritable
Thanks but I'm not that hip - the quote's from the article
nivek
As Above So Below
nivek
As Above So Below
The Army Told Us Why It Partnered With Tom DeLonge's UFO Group
The US Army has explained more about why it partnered with former Blink-182 singer Tom DeLonge’s UFO research organization to study exotic materials. The Army described it as a “low risk” partnership that is of “significant interest” to the military.
Last month, DeLonge’s To the Stars Academy joined forces with the Army’s Combat Capabilities Development Command, a research and development body. According to the contract, the government is interested in studying some pretty exotic science such as active camouflage, inertial mass reduction, and quantum communication. Even stranger, it turns out that the US government approached To the Stars for this deal.
In particular, the government is interested in the group’s ADAM Project, which Doug Halleaux, a spokesperson for the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Ground Vehicle Systems Center described as “a global dragnet for the collection and evaluation of novel materials.” Last year, TTSA put out a call for individuals and organizations to submit materials from alleged exotic sources as part of the project.
“If materials represented in the TTSA ADAM project are scientifically evaluated and presented with supporting data as having military utility by the TTSA, it makes sense to look deeper here,” Halleaux said, adding that it’s also interested in a cooperative project between TTSA and a company called TruClear Global.
In August of 2019, To the Stars signed a “cooperative marketing agreement” with TruClear Global to “cooperate on joint development projects as well as to provide advanced technology solutions to United States Government clientele.” TruClear essentially creates custom video screens that can be put on the side of buildings for marketing and events purposes.
To the Stars has generally made news for its UFO research, but this partnership with the U.S. Army may mean that it fancies itself as a military contractor.
“None of us at TTSA consider ourselves ‘Ufologists’ or part of the ‘Ufology culture,’ in fact, most of us come from a U.S. Government background (both Defense and Intelligence) and consider it our patriotic duty to work alongside our friends in Government should they see an advantage to improving our national security and protecting our people,” Luis Elizondo, a former Pentagon staffer and TTSA’s Director of Global Security and Special Programs, said in an interview.
While members of TTSA have spoken at UFO conferences and the recent Anomalous Aerospace Phenomena Conference, and DeLonge has co-authored two non-fiction books on extraterrestrial visitation and the UFO phenomenon, there seems to be a sort of ideological polarization within the organization which swings between being contenders for military contracts and a UFO research organization.
Now armed with a five year deal, TTSA and the government will work together on research and development for future military technology. Halleaux explained that the government believes the “key technologies or capabilities that [the Army] is investigating with TTSA are certainly on the leading edge of the realm of the possible” and comes at a low cost for the government.
To the Stars seems to be banking on the idea that the ‘exotic’ materials in their possession and outside-the-box science will lead to the development of some actual technology.
“If all goes as planned, the next year will lead to additional opportunities to cooperate with the government and conduct a more detailed analysis and product development,” Elizondo said.
The government has had a decades long sordid history with the UFO narrative, and UFO mogul Tom DeLonge’s latest deal with the US Army is definitely raising a few eyebrows. This agreement, as well as the recent announcements by the Navy that they will make it easier for personnel to report UFO sightings and the Navy’s confirmation that objects seen in recently released videos are unknown aerial phenomena, have become a hot topic of debate among UFO researchers. Some believe that something nefarious is afoot as branches of the military begin a contemporary campaign to become more friendly with the UFO topic.
Others remain optimistic. Author and popular UFO historian Richard Dolan told Motherboard that it is irresponsible to “throw cold water” on this before any results come in.
“True skepticism doesn’t equate into reflexive debunking, but an honest inquiry into the data,” Dolan stated. “What is obvious is that this announcement would have been considered astonishing as little as two years ago. The fact that the U.S. military is interested in this should cause us to become more attentive to what exactly is going on. Therefore, I'd say ‘close attention’ rather than caution is the order of the day.”
Halleaux could not comment on the specifics regarding the types of research and technology the Army is after in this deal, but he did express that camouflaging and keeping ground vehicles and personnel safe are always “a priority.”
“The USG sees an opportunity to improve the survivability of our brave men and women in uniform, and perhaps improve the chances of them returning home safely back to their loved ones,” stated Elizondo. “It seems to me to be an obvious and worthwhile pursuit.”
.
The US Army has explained more about why it partnered with former Blink-182 singer Tom DeLonge’s UFO research organization to study exotic materials. The Army described it as a “low risk” partnership that is of “significant interest” to the military.
Last month, DeLonge’s To the Stars Academy joined forces with the Army’s Combat Capabilities Development Command, a research and development body. According to the contract, the government is interested in studying some pretty exotic science such as active camouflage, inertial mass reduction, and quantum communication. Even stranger, it turns out that the US government approached To the Stars for this deal.
In particular, the government is interested in the group’s ADAM Project, which Doug Halleaux, a spokesperson for the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Ground Vehicle Systems Center described as “a global dragnet for the collection and evaluation of novel materials.” Last year, TTSA put out a call for individuals and organizations to submit materials from alleged exotic sources as part of the project.
“If materials represented in the TTSA ADAM project are scientifically evaluated and presented with supporting data as having military utility by the TTSA, it makes sense to look deeper here,” Halleaux said, adding that it’s also interested in a cooperative project between TTSA and a company called TruClear Global.
In August of 2019, To the Stars signed a “cooperative marketing agreement” with TruClear Global to “cooperate on joint development projects as well as to provide advanced technology solutions to United States Government clientele.” TruClear essentially creates custom video screens that can be put on the side of buildings for marketing and events purposes.
To the Stars has generally made news for its UFO research, but this partnership with the U.S. Army may mean that it fancies itself as a military contractor.
“None of us at TTSA consider ourselves ‘Ufologists’ or part of the ‘Ufology culture,’ in fact, most of us come from a U.S. Government background (both Defense and Intelligence) and consider it our patriotic duty to work alongside our friends in Government should they see an advantage to improving our national security and protecting our people,” Luis Elizondo, a former Pentagon staffer and TTSA’s Director of Global Security and Special Programs, said in an interview.
While members of TTSA have spoken at UFO conferences and the recent Anomalous Aerospace Phenomena Conference, and DeLonge has co-authored two non-fiction books on extraterrestrial visitation and the UFO phenomenon, there seems to be a sort of ideological polarization within the organization which swings between being contenders for military contracts and a UFO research organization.
Now armed with a five year deal, TTSA and the government will work together on research and development for future military technology. Halleaux explained that the government believes the “key technologies or capabilities that [the Army] is investigating with TTSA are certainly on the leading edge of the realm of the possible” and comes at a low cost for the government.
To the Stars seems to be banking on the idea that the ‘exotic’ materials in their possession and outside-the-box science will lead to the development of some actual technology.
“If all goes as planned, the next year will lead to additional opportunities to cooperate with the government and conduct a more detailed analysis and product development,” Elizondo said.
The government has had a decades long sordid history with the UFO narrative, and UFO mogul Tom DeLonge’s latest deal with the US Army is definitely raising a few eyebrows. This agreement, as well as the recent announcements by the Navy that they will make it easier for personnel to report UFO sightings and the Navy’s confirmation that objects seen in recently released videos are unknown aerial phenomena, have become a hot topic of debate among UFO researchers. Some believe that something nefarious is afoot as branches of the military begin a contemporary campaign to become more friendly with the UFO topic.
Others remain optimistic. Author and popular UFO historian Richard Dolan told Motherboard that it is irresponsible to “throw cold water” on this before any results come in.
“True skepticism doesn’t equate into reflexive debunking, but an honest inquiry into the data,” Dolan stated. “What is obvious is that this announcement would have been considered astonishing as little as two years ago. The fact that the U.S. military is interested in this should cause us to become more attentive to what exactly is going on. Therefore, I'd say ‘close attention’ rather than caution is the order of the day.”
Halleaux could not comment on the specifics regarding the types of research and technology the Army is after in this deal, but he did express that camouflaging and keeping ground vehicles and personnel safe are always “a priority.”
“The USG sees an opportunity to improve the survivability of our brave men and women in uniform, and perhaps improve the chances of them returning home safely back to their loved ones,” stated Elizondo. “It seems to me to be an obvious and worthwhile pursuit.”
.
nivek
As Above So Below
Tom DeLonge Asks If "Ultra-Terrestrials" Arrived in "Lemuria and Atlantis" Time
The other day, UFO circuit regular and local Las Vegas TV reporter George Knapp publisheda statement from Luis Elizondo of To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science about recently released emails that Elizondo had sent to the Pentagon requesting permission to share the UFO videos that helped launch TTSA back in 2017. The emails were written in July 2017 while Elizondo was a Pentagon employee but was actively plotting to move to TTSA, which he did in October of that year. While most of the coverage in the UFO community has focused on the question of whether the emails support Elizondo’s claim to have supervised the Pentagon’s pork project UFO-tracking program, I want to highlight a more interesting issue, how Elizondo actually describes the supposed “unmanned aerial vehicle” threat when he isn’t speaking to UFO believers.
In the emails, Elizondo describes what would soon become To the Stars (to judge by the identical and unusual terminology used by both Elizondo and the future TTSA) as creating a database to study unmanned aerial vehicles and the potential threat they pose to national security and Defense Department assets. But in defining these vehicles, he identifies them as “balloons, commercial UAVs, private drones such as quadcopters, etc.” and does not mention unidentified or unidentifiable vehicles, nor spaceships from other dimensions. Granted, he concludes his description by saying that he hopes to learn about the “vulnerabilities” of certain undefined “systems” that the context implies are the UAVs, but his description rather pointedly makes no mention of the advanced otherworldly technologies that he allegedly believes are hovering in the skies. This is especially strange since (a) he allegedly headed the UFO program, (b) only portions of the program were classified, and (c) everyone involved should theoretically have been aware of these allegedly superhuman technologies. After all, they were talking about supposed UFO videos that everyone involved actually saw.
Ufologists argued that the “balloons, etc.” description is a cover story used because the UFO portion of Elizondo’s office at the Pentagon was classified; therefore, everyone lied to pretend that UFOs weren’t under discussion. This strikes me as decidedly odd since the emails were about alleged UFO videos.
Elizondo told Knapp this weekend that he purposely lied about the nature of unmanned vehicles because he couldn’t talk about them due to their classified nature. Funny how that doesn’t apply now that he’s on TV. In the same breath, he says that he was emailing with Pentagon officials who were looped in and knew about it, yet their emails contain no reference to UFOs or even redactions where such discussion might have occurred.
That wasn’t the only news from TTSA this past week.
Over the weekend, Tom DeLonge of To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science posted a speculative thread on Twitter in which he discussed his growing belief that a genetically “advanced” race of “ultra-terrestrials” have been on Earth since “Lemuria and Atlantis times” and were the inspiration for the angels and gods of early mythologies. He walked it back in part, suggesting that he was merely “thinking out loud,” but the specific argument he used should be familiar to most of you reading this blog.
Tom DeLonge (@tomdelonge) on Twitter
Tom DeLonge (@tomdelonge) on Twitter
I’m sure you recognize this as the core of Theosophy, in which Helena Blavatsky posited that human-like beings from other dimension versions of other planets—i.e. ultra-terrestrials—came to Earth in the distant past and taught the “root races” of Lemuria and Atlantis the arts of civilization. Later known as Ascended Masters, these beings had psychical powers such as telepathy and in later Theosophical views they traveled between planets in their fiery chariots, which presaged UFOs by several decades.
The specific claims that DeLonge discusses in his tweet are nearly identical to those made by Theosophists Annie Besant and C. W. Leadbeater in their 1913 book Man: Whence, How and Whither. In that book, they discussed Venusians traveling to Earth in their fiery chariots, how the ancient gods and heroes like Heracles and Buddha were beings from the Moon, Mars, and other planets, and how people alive at present embodied these ultra-terrestrial beings.
I sincerely doubt that DeLonge read Besant and Leadbeater. But Theosophical ideas were highly influential and appear in works like those of Erich von Däniken, who credulously accepted Theosophical ideas in his early books. For example, in Gods from Outer Space, he wrote that the Book of Dzyan, a text forged by Helena Blavatsky, predated humanity.
DeLonge is quite clearly showing his familiarity with 1970s paperback fringe history books, which he has said on several occasions formed the basis of his understanding of ufology. It’s also difficult not to think that there is a little bit of influence here from Peter Levenda, DeLonge’s writing partner who has been a longtime student of the occult and has long been suspected of being the true author of the Simon Necronomicon, whose sequels’ copyrights are registered under his name.
Theosophy’s Atlantis and Lemuria were associated with root races, a concept that involved Aryans and soon after Helena Blavatsky’s time merged seamlessly into the scientific racism of the nineteenth century, eventually finding a home in Heinrich Himmler’s ramshackle Aryan cosmology in Nazi Germany. Lemuria was a fictional lost continent born of a scientific error—the idea that a land bridge helped lemurs move from India to Madagascar—and was debunked with plate tectonics.
It’s great to know that the man behind the supposed effort to expose the truth about UFOs not only suckles at the teat of Hal Puthoff’s UFOs-are-poltergeists idea but also is flirting with racist theosophical garbage. So is this the big revelation of To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science? Theosophy?
.
The other day, UFO circuit regular and local Las Vegas TV reporter George Knapp publisheda statement from Luis Elizondo of To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science about recently released emails that Elizondo had sent to the Pentagon requesting permission to share the UFO videos that helped launch TTSA back in 2017. The emails were written in July 2017 while Elizondo was a Pentagon employee but was actively plotting to move to TTSA, which he did in October of that year. While most of the coverage in the UFO community has focused on the question of whether the emails support Elizondo’s claim to have supervised the Pentagon’s pork project UFO-tracking program, I want to highlight a more interesting issue, how Elizondo actually describes the supposed “unmanned aerial vehicle” threat when he isn’t speaking to UFO believers.
In the emails, Elizondo describes what would soon become To the Stars (to judge by the identical and unusual terminology used by both Elizondo and the future TTSA) as creating a database to study unmanned aerial vehicles and the potential threat they pose to national security and Defense Department assets. But in defining these vehicles, he identifies them as “balloons, commercial UAVs, private drones such as quadcopters, etc.” and does not mention unidentified or unidentifiable vehicles, nor spaceships from other dimensions. Granted, he concludes his description by saying that he hopes to learn about the “vulnerabilities” of certain undefined “systems” that the context implies are the UAVs, but his description rather pointedly makes no mention of the advanced otherworldly technologies that he allegedly believes are hovering in the skies. This is especially strange since (a) he allegedly headed the UFO program, (b) only portions of the program were classified, and (c) everyone involved should theoretically have been aware of these allegedly superhuman technologies. After all, they were talking about supposed UFO videos that everyone involved actually saw.
Ufologists argued that the “balloons, etc.” description is a cover story used because the UFO portion of Elizondo’s office at the Pentagon was classified; therefore, everyone lied to pretend that UFOs weren’t under discussion. This strikes me as decidedly odd since the emails were about alleged UFO videos.
Elizondo told Knapp this weekend that he purposely lied about the nature of unmanned vehicles because he couldn’t talk about them due to their classified nature. Funny how that doesn’t apply now that he’s on TV. In the same breath, he says that he was emailing with Pentagon officials who were looped in and knew about it, yet their emails contain no reference to UFOs or even redactions where such discussion might have occurred.
That wasn’t the only news from TTSA this past week.
Over the weekend, Tom DeLonge of To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science posted a speculative thread on Twitter in which he discussed his growing belief that a genetically “advanced” race of “ultra-terrestrials” have been on Earth since “Lemuria and Atlantis times” and were the inspiration for the angels and gods of early mythologies. He walked it back in part, suggesting that he was merely “thinking out loud,” but the specific argument he used should be familiar to most of you reading this blog.
Tom DeLonge (@tomdelonge) on Twitter
Tom DeLonge (@tomdelonge) on Twitter
I’m sure you recognize this as the core of Theosophy, in which Helena Blavatsky posited that human-like beings from other dimension versions of other planets—i.e. ultra-terrestrials—came to Earth in the distant past and taught the “root races” of Lemuria and Atlantis the arts of civilization. Later known as Ascended Masters, these beings had psychical powers such as telepathy and in later Theosophical views they traveled between planets in their fiery chariots, which presaged UFOs by several decades.
The specific claims that DeLonge discusses in his tweet are nearly identical to those made by Theosophists Annie Besant and C. W. Leadbeater in their 1913 book Man: Whence, How and Whither. In that book, they discussed Venusians traveling to Earth in their fiery chariots, how the ancient gods and heroes like Heracles and Buddha were beings from the Moon, Mars, and other planets, and how people alive at present embodied these ultra-terrestrial beings.
I sincerely doubt that DeLonge read Besant and Leadbeater. But Theosophical ideas were highly influential and appear in works like those of Erich von Däniken, who credulously accepted Theosophical ideas in his early books. For example, in Gods from Outer Space, he wrote that the Book of Dzyan, a text forged by Helena Blavatsky, predated humanity.
DeLonge is quite clearly showing his familiarity with 1970s paperback fringe history books, which he has said on several occasions formed the basis of his understanding of ufology. It’s also difficult not to think that there is a little bit of influence here from Peter Levenda, DeLonge’s writing partner who has been a longtime student of the occult and has long been suspected of being the true author of the Simon Necronomicon, whose sequels’ copyrights are registered under his name.
Theosophy’s Atlantis and Lemuria were associated with root races, a concept that involved Aryans and soon after Helena Blavatsky’s time merged seamlessly into the scientific racism of the nineteenth century, eventually finding a home in Heinrich Himmler’s ramshackle Aryan cosmology in Nazi Germany. Lemuria was a fictional lost continent born of a scientific error—the idea that a land bridge helped lemurs move from India to Madagascar—and was debunked with plate tectonics.
It’s great to know that the man behind the supposed effort to expose the truth about UFOs not only suckles at the teat of Hal Puthoff’s UFOs-are-poltergeists idea but also is flirting with racist theosophical garbage. So is this the big revelation of To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science? Theosophy?
.
pigfarmer
tall, thin, irritable
1200 drone swarm at the Olympics. 500 drone swarm over the Air Force Academy. Forget abut UFOs entirely for a minute - how can you look at those shows especially in light of the Saudi oil refinery strikes and not think that every military in the world is drooling and worrying and scheming over the implications of those things? Wouldn't you want members of the military to report weird things they see - not because of ET but because maybe it's a terrestrial snooper of some kind?
Oh good. More misconfookularity about Elizondo's past and the classified unclassified maybe classified videos that were on the web or not or maybe a little for a while.
.png "Face Palm :facepalm2:")
I hope that if we have a program worried about the growing threat from unmanned systems it is robust, well funded with resources. We probably do, maybe several spread out throughout the services as each has a specific mandate and p.o.v to gauge a response.
I also hope they aren't confused by mylar balloons
Spaceman spiff
Noble
Apparently Puthoff himself tested the LMH materials in 2012 already and couldnt find anything special about them. What a shock.
So why bring them up again? This smells like a distraction...
Deep Prasad is also ranting about this.
Personally I never thought that the Arts Parts farce would pan out, im more intrested in those other materials. However since it seems more and more to me that TTSA is some sort of front company for an operation in progress and Tom is their latest stooge, im doubting if well ever get the truth from this group. They seems to be hell bent on obfuscating everything while claiming they want the UFO subject to be opened up for the mainstream.
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nivek
As Above So Below
Here's a very interesting read, something I have discussed recently as well...The part I highlighted in bold speaks volumes to me, so many TTSA followers are turning this ufo issue into magical thinking by calling it "The Phenomenon"...
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Army Explains Interest in To the Stars' Metal; Plus: Jacques Vallée Challenges Reality
It’s always been pretty obvious that To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science has been focused on revenue. Its incorporation papers made the company’s primary obligation to pay a minimum of $100,000 per year to founder Tom DeLonge, and its only consistent activity has been to raise money by selling functionally worthless stock to UFO enthusiasts. (DeLonge and his partners control the company through their ownership stakes.) Nevertheless, when DeLonge told Twitter last week that the company was not a “UFO research group,” it took many by surprise, particularly since DeLonge launched the company with insinuations of UFO disclosure and has made its only visible products, its book series and History Channel TV series, UFO-themed.
“None of us at TTSA consider ourselves ‘Ufologists’ or part of the ‘Ufology culture,’” controversial TTSA figure Luis Elizondo told MJ Banias in Vice. Elizondo claims to have headed the Pentagon’s UFO program, but the Pentagon denies this claim. Elizondo fronts a History Channel UFO-hunting TV series, which will launch a second season next year, and is a fixture in the ufology media circuit, or should I say circus? (Elizondo, however, may be correct. TTSA’s executives, like Hal Puthoff, don’t believe in nuts and bolts UFOs but have pursued the claim that flying saucers are actually space poltergeists who haunt the skies by phasing in from other dimensions.)
Perhaps this is why the U.S. Army is now trying to explain exactly why it partnered with a UFO-themed entertainment company to investigate exotic metals.
According to Banias, a Pentagon spokesman said that the Army contacted TTSA and asked to partner with them because they wanted to know if the so-called metamaterials (i.e., the slag previously identified by an earlier researcher as likely industrial waste) TTSA acquired from the 1990s-era collection known as “Art’s Parts” could be used for military purposes. “Art’s Parts” included slag and other seeming chunks of industrial waste sent to radio host Art Bell as alleged wreckage of the Roswell flying saucer.
In particular, the government is interested in the group’s ADAM Project, which Doug Halleaux, a spokesperson for the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Ground Vehicle Systems Center described as “a global dragnet for the collection and evaluation of novel materials.” Last year, TTSA put out a call for individuals and organizations to submit materials from alleged exotic sources as part of the project.
“If materials represented in the TTSA ADAM project are scientifically evaluated and presented with supporting data as having military utility by the TTSA, it makes sense to look deeper here,” Halleaux said, adding that it’s also interested in a cooperative project between TTSA and a company called TruClear Global.
So, to reduce this down to less flowery terms: Somebody in the Pentagon saw TTSA’s Instagram stories or tweets and decided that there was a chance that they might have accidentally stumbled onto something interesting. Therefore, (a) the Pentagon is staffed by the credulous, which we already knew from their longstanding patronage of TTSA’s Hal Puthoff and his hunt for psychic powers and (b) the military obviously doesn’t have actual UFO wreckage of their own if they are desperate to test out Art’s Parts. Also: Art’s Parts have been around since the 1990s, so the Pentagon might be interested in hearing about that alien autopsy video all the kids were talking about back then.
Incidentally, a couple of weeks ago TTSA’s PR flak promised me a copy of DeLonge’s new book with Peter Levenda. Apparently, after thinking it over, they decided they are afraid of me, since the book never materialized and the PR flak has gone silent. Typically, publishers deliver a promised book with 48 hours. It really says a lot about their confidence in the quality of their work.
But while we are on the subject of UFOs, it’s worth pointing to a disturbing promotional clip from the new UFO documentary Witness of Another World posted to YouTube the other day. The clip features Jacques Vallée, the venture capitalist who is a longtime colleague of Hal Puthoff, an advisor to Pentagon UFO contractor Robert Bigelow, and an investigator into metamaterial UFO wreckage working in an (as far as I know) informal partnership with TTSA. In the clip, Vallée claims that he isn’t sure if UFOs (which he calls “the phenomenon”) can alter our reality, but that we don’t know what reality is because—and this is what got me—drugs and altered states of consciousness can “alter” reality.
Embracing what seems like solipsism, Vallée suggests that we create our own reality and everything we perceive is merely “consciousness taking notice of our own experiences.”
I’m not really interested in the question of materialism vs. idealism that Vallée is circling around, but I am interested in the underlying issue that he has incidentally raised, which is that ufology isn’t really about UFOs (evidenced by their etherealization as “the phenomenon”) but is instead a full-scale retreat into magical thinking. Vallée’s fascination with the idea that our consciousness creates reality and the quasi-Gnostic concept that the material world is an evil illusion doesn’t really have anything to do with flying saucers. He says himself that these are questions that come from physics, not ufology. So why have they taken precedence?
It’s almost as though ufology investigators like him want to be metaphysicians and philosophers and are trying to use flying saucers to enter into cosmology by a side door, without having to do the hard work of rigorously defending their speculations. They seem to hope that finding a single space poltergeist will undo the mathematical rigidity of physics and reenchant the world.
But seriously: Drugs change reality? Perceptions of reality, maybe. Reality itself? No.
.
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Army Explains Interest in To the Stars' Metal; Plus: Jacques Vallée Challenges Reality
It’s always been pretty obvious that To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science has been focused on revenue. Its incorporation papers made the company’s primary obligation to pay a minimum of $100,000 per year to founder Tom DeLonge, and its only consistent activity has been to raise money by selling functionally worthless stock to UFO enthusiasts. (DeLonge and his partners control the company through their ownership stakes.) Nevertheless, when DeLonge told Twitter last week that the company was not a “UFO research group,” it took many by surprise, particularly since DeLonge launched the company with insinuations of UFO disclosure and has made its only visible products, its book series and History Channel TV series, UFO-themed.
“None of us at TTSA consider ourselves ‘Ufologists’ or part of the ‘Ufology culture,’” controversial TTSA figure Luis Elizondo told MJ Banias in Vice. Elizondo claims to have headed the Pentagon’s UFO program, but the Pentagon denies this claim. Elizondo fronts a History Channel UFO-hunting TV series, which will launch a second season next year, and is a fixture in the ufology media circuit, or should I say circus? (Elizondo, however, may be correct. TTSA’s executives, like Hal Puthoff, don’t believe in nuts and bolts UFOs but have pursued the claim that flying saucers are actually space poltergeists who haunt the skies by phasing in from other dimensions.)
Perhaps this is why the U.S. Army is now trying to explain exactly why it partnered with a UFO-themed entertainment company to investigate exotic metals.
According to Banias, a Pentagon spokesman said that the Army contacted TTSA and asked to partner with them because they wanted to know if the so-called metamaterials (i.e., the slag previously identified by an earlier researcher as likely industrial waste) TTSA acquired from the 1990s-era collection known as “Art’s Parts” could be used for military purposes. “Art’s Parts” included slag and other seeming chunks of industrial waste sent to radio host Art Bell as alleged wreckage of the Roswell flying saucer.
In particular, the government is interested in the group’s ADAM Project, which Doug Halleaux, a spokesperson for the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Ground Vehicle Systems Center described as “a global dragnet for the collection and evaluation of novel materials.” Last year, TTSA put out a call for individuals and organizations to submit materials from alleged exotic sources as part of the project.
“If materials represented in the TTSA ADAM project are scientifically evaluated and presented with supporting data as having military utility by the TTSA, it makes sense to look deeper here,” Halleaux said, adding that it’s also interested in a cooperative project between TTSA and a company called TruClear Global.
So, to reduce this down to less flowery terms: Somebody in the Pentagon saw TTSA’s Instagram stories or tweets and decided that there was a chance that they might have accidentally stumbled onto something interesting. Therefore, (a) the Pentagon is staffed by the credulous, which we already knew from their longstanding patronage of TTSA’s Hal Puthoff and his hunt for psychic powers and (b) the military obviously doesn’t have actual UFO wreckage of their own if they are desperate to test out Art’s Parts. Also: Art’s Parts have been around since the 1990s, so the Pentagon might be interested in hearing about that alien autopsy video all the kids were talking about back then.
Incidentally, a couple of weeks ago TTSA’s PR flak promised me a copy of DeLonge’s new book with Peter Levenda. Apparently, after thinking it over, they decided they are afraid of me, since the book never materialized and the PR flak has gone silent. Typically, publishers deliver a promised book with 48 hours. It really says a lot about their confidence in the quality of their work.
But while we are on the subject of UFOs, it’s worth pointing to a disturbing promotional clip from the new UFO documentary Witness of Another World posted to YouTube the other day. The clip features Jacques Vallée, the venture capitalist who is a longtime colleague of Hal Puthoff, an advisor to Pentagon UFO contractor Robert Bigelow, and an investigator into metamaterial UFO wreckage working in an (as far as I know) informal partnership with TTSA. In the clip, Vallée claims that he isn’t sure if UFOs (which he calls “the phenomenon”) can alter our reality, but that we don’t know what reality is because—and this is what got me—drugs and altered states of consciousness can “alter” reality.
Embracing what seems like solipsism, Vallée suggests that we create our own reality and everything we perceive is merely “consciousness taking notice of our own experiences.”
I’m not really interested in the question of materialism vs. idealism that Vallée is circling around, but I am interested in the underlying issue that he has incidentally raised, which is that ufology isn’t really about UFOs (evidenced by their etherealization as “the phenomenon”) but is instead a full-scale retreat into magical thinking. Vallée’s fascination with the idea that our consciousness creates reality and the quasi-Gnostic concept that the material world is an evil illusion doesn’t really have anything to do with flying saucers. He says himself that these are questions that come from physics, not ufology. So why have they taken precedence?
It’s almost as though ufology investigators like him want to be metaphysicians and philosophers and are trying to use flying saucers to enter into cosmology by a side door, without having to do the hard work of rigorously defending their speculations. They seem to hope that finding a single space poltergeist will undo the mathematical rigidity of physics and reenchant the world.
But seriously: Drugs change reality? Perceptions of reality, maybe. Reality itself? No.
.
Spaceman spiff
Noble
Colavito isnt a neutral looker, he has a clear bias on this similar to those SCICOP guys, but his articles can still be an intresting view on this group. Tom Mellett posts his articles constantly on facebook groups dealing with UFOs.
But yeah lot of people have descended so deep into this rabbit hole, that stuff becomes magical to them and they become stuck to that explanation, while there are still simpler ones. Vallee may be a little too deep himself in there these days.
But yeah lot of people have descended so deep into this rabbit hole, that stuff becomes magical to them and they become stuck to that explanation, while there are still simpler ones. Vallee may be a little too deep himself in there these days.
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